Worth saving - Libraries in jeopardy
When the last of Carnagie’s libraries was opened almost a century ago there were 3,500 of them — 660 in the Britain and Ireland — and they played a real, uplifting role in educating the generations who built our world. Technology has changed how information is delivered but the idea of a public resource, a repository of empowering knowledge, is as radical as it was when the first public library opened.
Library services in Cork city are in great difficulties because 16 members of staff who retired since 2009 have not been replaced. Services have been curtailed and applications for funding to update the library at Grand Parade and build a new one in Mahon have been rejected. A response to a May 2015 submission to the Department of Environment is awaited. Municipal libraries face ever greater competition for readers’ attention but that is surely a reason to support what is a magnificently democratic idea, rather than abandon them to something like a slow death?
