This is just going to be a short post for today; I'm almost caught up with duties and projects at work, so today has been a concetration of getting all things current.
However, I now subscribe to a mailing list for individuals in the profession, and one of the members sent out an email regarding a situation with the libraries in Oxfordshire county in the UK. Right now, drastic budget cuts are threatening to close almost half of the 43 libraries across the county, a decision that would be a huge loss to the public. One of the solutions that has been suggested by the county council is to turn over the running of these libraries to volunteers--a suggestion that is rather unrealistic for many reasons.
Yet the best, most eloquent response I've seen yet to the current situation that libraries across the nation and the world are facing is the speech that Philip Pullman (author of the His Dark Materials trilogy I love) gave to a few hundred people at a library campaigners meeting for the Oxfordshire libraries. Please take the time to read his speech. It really illustrates the dire situation the Oxfordshire libraries (and even other libraries in like situations) are in.
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