A brilliant condemnation of the current zeitgeist in public library thinking!

"The neoliberal mind-set across all three main political parties is obsessed with the mythology of choice. We are told that public libraries need to be more commercial in their look and feel because people can choose to use the same or similar services elsewhere. The mantra is that the market is all, and the market in access to knowledge means people will choose to go elsewhere if the public library does not give them what they want.


Except of course we know that the concept of choice in relation to the core services public libraries provide is complete tripe. Yet this has been the modus operandi for public librarians for over a decade. Services have been tweaked, added, or removed based on the fear that public libraries must compete with the choices people have for their leisure time. Have those evangelists for mediocrity any idea at all of why public libraries exist in the first place?"
see http://www.voicesforthelibrary.org.uk/wordpress/?p=736#comment-528 for full article and comments