Why aren't the remaining public libraries used more?

[rzb]

I love our local library.

It's not lovely - it could do with a bit of fresh paint, new carpets and so on.

But:

• It's warm in winter, dry during rain, and cool(ish) when it's stinky hot outside.
• It always has seats (even comfy ones), and doesn't require an expensive coffee to be purchased in order to use them.
• The children's section has an open area with space for young kids to toddle and crawl around safely.
• Their adult and baby / toddler rhyme and story sessions are a great place to get some adult conversation / solidarity with other parents of babies/toddlers.
• It's conveniently located within our local shopping area, so exchanging library books fits in with regular errands and becomes an easy habit to maintain.
• It has amazingly helpful, knowledgeable and approachable librarians who discreetly ensure that kids who come in alone are safe, and who are a super source of suggestions for different books to try.
• In a place that doesn't have a bookshop, it's the only local provider of the 'book browsing' experience which is available to everyone (yes, schools have their own libraries so kids aren't denied this, but books deemed to be age-appropriate aren't always accessible or of interest).
• Its online services and app are simple enough to use that my kids could manage their own accounts online from around the age of 8.
• It has offered my kids a sense of accomplishment and independence when they were old enough to research and reserve the books they wanted to read and visit the library independently to exchange books.
• My kids have read lots of books, and genres of books, that they wouldn't otherwise have picked up, enabled because there's no cost to picking up and trying a book from the library, and they can browse for as long as they like (within the library's opening hours).

It's brilliant, and I love having and using our local library, but it seems that lots of local parents and their families don't use it. If books / reading come up in conversation with other parents, e.g. at my kids' activities, and I mention that my kids use the library a lot, it gets a response along the lines of, 'That's a good idea, but my kids don't have library cards' or 'We don't use the library, which is a bit silly really when we're buying all these books,', or 'I hadn't thought of taking them to the library.'

I know I'm lucky to have access to a local library, and perhaps now in a minority of people who have easy access to one. If you have a local library, do you and your family use it? Why/why not? Is it well-used by other families? If you don't have a local library, would you use one if you did?

I do use our local library on a weekly basis but the children's section is becoming a quasi-softplay area. Once, some adults (not staff) had positioned chairs across the entrance to stop their toddlers from escaping. Meanwhile their toddlers were plucking books from the shelves and scattering them all around.
Each time I removed a chair to let a child through, as they thought the area was shut, the adults would promptly return it. I gave up in the end.

I welcome libraries being more accessible, but would like it if users would respect the shared space and for the right reasons.

We also have a lovely local library. But we don't use it nearly as much as we should. Mostly just because of the way life seems to be set up. When I was a child, every Wednesday, when my dad got home from work at about 5:30, he would take me and my brother to the library. We would spend half an hour reading, choosing books etc then home.

But here, we don't have time for this. We dont' get home from work/activities etc until after 6pm most days. Often we have to rush off to somewhere else for an older child's sport after. We can do these because I WFH mostly, but if they were in wraparoudn care and I worked int he City still, it would be even worse as I'd only get home at around 7.

DD and I do like going to the library on a Saturday after her dance class sometimes but we haven't got into a routine of making that a regular thing. Perhaps we should.

Ours has loads of unsavoury people outside drinking and selling drugs

My library does special bookclub collections

These figures from CIPFA show 2082 visits per 1k of population which is a lot more than many other cultural activities or even sports . Central Government defunding of local government is definitely an issue but that may change with a new government.

That said my book club always make sure we can get a book whilst choosing at the meeting before and we order from the library online at the time.
I have arranged it that our bookclub decides the book well in advance. For example the June meeting will declare the August choice of book so it means that there is plenty of time for sourcing. I know that lots buy the book from Amazon or kindle/audio but (a) I like a physical book and (b) I like to support the library.

Does your library service have a book club selection?

Our book club is virtual and we all live in different areas so we can't bulk borrow books. It is annoying that so often there is a wait of several weeks for a book which means it is too late for book club. Also the selection of e books and audio books on Borrowbox is really limited often with several months wait and the app is fairly shit to use compared to Audible and Kindle. My eldest uses ours to study in but never borrows books, my youngest prefers working in coffee shops and buys books instead of borrowing as she tends to dip in and out, take ages over them and would never remember to return them either I suspect. I prefer working in coffee shops too and get most of my books from charity shops or with giftcards from birthday/Christmas.

I only listen to audio books, so I have no reason to go to the library, and I find them unpleasant environments to be in, similar to a doctors waiting room.

I go to the library for books for the dc, but it’s not somewhere I’d ever use myself.

In ours, outside of the children’s section, there is nowhere to sit. No tables, nothing. And the books aren’t the sort that would interest me: it seems like mostly European history and romance/murder mystery. They are clearly catering to their market, but I think I’m not it.

We go to ours every couple of weeks. But it drives me mad that it's full of kids playing on computers or making lots of noise. It's a library! It is for reading! There's even a playground outside so it's not as though there are no options for kids who need entertainment. I wonder if their parents congratulate themselves on having taken them to the library when they haven't actually picked up a single book.

Does your library service have a book club selection?
Yes and no. They used to have boxes of multiple books but I think that the librarian has to order / organise it herself now. Also, it's nice to choose our own title instead of having theirs foisted on us.
They offer some sort of assistance to external book groups, too, I believe.

People don't seem to understand what they're for. I used the central library in our local small city. People were coming in with their Costas, sitting down in the lounge area and talking loudly, watching videos, FaceTiming. I was trying to research something and it drove me mad. I think the idea of somewhere you go to be quiet and read is just alien to a lot of people now.

I've been in a library once in the last 18 years and that was to kill an hour or so between a couple of meetings and do some work. I didn't realise until I checked that my local one is actually open until 8pm two evenings a week so that might encourage me to use it, but then I also couldn't tell the last time I read a book and I have shelves of paperbacks at home that I haven't read yet.

I used them a lot when the children were young but not so much now. We still go at least once a month as I borrow non fiction books. Fiction books I read on my kindle and the ebooks the library provides do not work with it. My teenage daughter also now has a kindle as she is severely dyslexic, it’s a far more accessible way for her to read as dyslexia friendly books are fairly difficult to find at the library. If we need to look up things of interest we do so online. We are both avid readers so that isn’t a factor in why we don’t use the library more.

Exactly. Is it true that the highest rates of illiteracy in this country will be found in prisons?

Whoever is the new minister for education after July 4th, I wish that she or he would have a two-minute public announcement slot on all TV channels and tell everyone how important it is to read and chat to their children while they are in the womb and the moment they're out of it, and I don't mean just three words.

My local library is much like the one in OP's starting post. It has an archive section as well, where I can screw up my eyes and look at local news from 1880 if I want to. I couldn't possibly get through several books a week but I sometimes borrow a few to keep the footfall and the borrowing going. My library lends DVDs and audiobooks as well as books. It has computers to use, and a good photocopier. When I was at work I went to one in my lunch breaks.
They are wonderful places.

In the town where my mother in law lives the library is an old building that's is shared with an art gallery.
An extension to the art gallery has been built but hasn't opened yet.
The library roof leaks and needs a lot of work - so it's had temporary closures from time to time because it was dangerous.
Now the roof is being fixed the library part has moved into the new part of the building rather than it having to close again.
However .....my mother in law is absolutely convinced that the library "has closed". She just won't believe me that it's open and fully functional but just in the new extension part of the building.
I see a lot of comments on the local Facebook group for the town that are along the lines of "the council are terrible because they closed the library".
I live about 80 miles away and get my news about the town from reading the local paper online and various Facebook groups (like the Town Council one).
It seems really odd that me - someone who doesn't even live there - is aware the library is open and functioning fully yet so many locals are completely convinced it's closed down.
So odd.

What?

It’s never open at convenient times so it becomes faff to get books returned on time - I got fed up with late return charges that mean, since the advent of kindle, it’s cheaper and easier to download a book or order one from Amazon/similar online retailer. The choice is nowhere near as good in a physical library as is available an online selection, I never have to request a book and wait weeks for it to come in. Even as a post grad student, it is easier to access books on line. And I don’t have to put up with the chattering of strangers and uncomfortable chairs/desks. Much rather read at home.

And I say that as a former teen who bunked off school for nearly a year and lived in the local library, reading history and psychology books and teaching myself Italian. They used to be open until 8pm most nights and late on Saturdays then and were lovely and quiet.

I used to, but it went volunteer run and cut the opening hours. I can't use a library that is only open when I'm working.

I should check and see what the opening hours are now as they may have changed again, and I believe they have a bit of a café there as well.

Wow, clearly there's a lot of fondness for libraries. It's sad that lots of people are excluded by the diminished service hours - we have pretty good hours locally, not just within office hours. I suppose keeping more libraries open with reduced service hours compared to closing more libraries and having a much smaller number with longer opening hours may enable more libraries to stay open in some form at some times, and it's perhaps easier to restore fuller library services in the future if the buildings aren't repurposed for other things.

I love the idea of an open library that can be accessed at all times, like a village post box library but on a much larger scale. Those of you that have them, how are they secured / protected from vandalism - is there just a lot of CCTV coverage?

My local is only open 2 1/2 days and other than Saturday (half day) I’m at work.
But I love BorrowBox for ebooks/ audio books and magazines and newspapers. So I am supporting.
Used the library loads both local and nearest town absolutely loads when my children were small.