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Newbie saying hello


Baldingbookworm

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Hello Everyone.

 

Just joined the BCF as i simply love reading books and like all things book related.  Why do i love reading ?  I struggled at school until a good school library was installed and a good teacher helped.  Now i can't stop - not that i want to either.

 

Reading also helps with my anxiety issues which is a good thing as sometimes i need to escape from modern life into a good book.  

 

I love supporting my local library as they are under threat of outsourcing - like all libraries,  and they save me money from buying books :smile: and they offer a vital service for the community.

 

Looking forward to enjoying the BCF and my new friends.  

 

 

 

 

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SorinaM and friends.

 

Thanks for the warm welcome.  Read mainly Crime and Thrillers.  Some biographies and nature/environmental related books.  Fav author would be the great Gerald Seymour.  All his books have a great story and are very timely on subject matter, good plotting and structure and endings.  

 

Just started to read Tennison by Lynda Le Plante which i picked up from the library today.  Hooked straight away.  Had to laugh when speaking to the librarian as she admitted to having fines of almost £7 to pay for over due books  :D

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Welcome here :)! Libraries are pretty great :D. I was a member when I was a child and young teenager, and loved going there (we went to two libraries!). But then we moved elsewhere. Now I'm a member of the library in my local town since last December and I haven't regretted it at all. I love going there and I've discovered a lot of nice books through the library. I do buy some books as I like to own them and some of the books I'm interested in, the library doesn't have. I'm from the Netherlands so most of the libraries' books are Dutch but they have a nice English section too. Sorry for rambling on. It's great you support your local library :). I hope you have fun on the forum.

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Hi.

 

Whats the library situation like in Finland Frankie and In Holland Athena.  are they facing cuts in funding like they are in the UK ?  How are they run.  Interested to see if any ideas could be put to our library services here in UK to help support and or improve the service provided.

 

We must support them or we all face having a smaller service which would affect the rural communities and Mobile library services more the town based libraries.

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I don't know about the political situation at the moment but the library in Deurne, which is a few towns over from here, was faced with the prospect of being shut down last year. In the end it was decided to keep the library (which we were all very happy about). We used to have more local libraries, I think 4 in Helmond, now it's just 1 (that was ~15 years ago). I really like my library. They organise activities for children and also for adults (like lectures given by people). The library also uses social media and they have a good website. They also offer several apps for phones, which you can use to for example check up on your loans and make a reservation for a book. You can also borrow ebooks from the library or test out an ereader. So in that sense they are 'going with the time' (this is probably a very bad translation of the Dutch expression I want to use).

 

They have neat ways of handing in the books and loaning them, it's computerised so you don't need to wait for a person to help you with it. It's quite neat, you can do it all yourself. On certain times of the week there aren't many extra personnel available. There are always a few people there at the customer service and such (well, that's what I call it, I'm not sure what it's actually called). At other times, mainly on Fridays and in the weekend there are more staff available to for example help you find something. It's because Mon - Thu there aren't as many people visiting the library. They did a trial with having the library open on Sunday, I'm not sure how that worked out. I thought it was a good idea. Most shops are closed here on Sundays, which is quite awkward because many people work from Mon - Fri, so you *have* to go shopping on Saturday.

 

Last year at the library they had some problems with teenagers that were hanging around there (which has been solved since! I believe some teenagers were banned from the library). I wasn't a member yet then, but I read about it in their yearly report (I found it interesting). Our libraries are supported with subsidies from the government mainly, and each adult member pays a membership fee. I think it is free for children. Hmm that's all I can think of right now.

 

I agree, I think it's very important to support the libraries.

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Libraries do face cutbacks and some are closed over here, but I don't think it's happening on as large a scale as over there. From what I've read about libraries on this forum, Finland has it pretty good in comparison. I'm very, very grateful for that!! 

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Hi everyone.

 

Interesting to see the views on the library services abroad from UK.  A lot of libraries in the UK  have self service points which does speed up the process of returning and collecting books but it takes away the human contact point.  

 

My library service positively force you to use the self service points as they cost a lot of money to buy and install and the staff have been told to try and avoid serving people in the old fashioned way.  They call it encouragement to use technology.

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Hi everyone.

 

Interesting to see the views on the library services abroad from UK.  A lot of libraries in the UK  have self service points which does speed up the process of returning and collecting books but it takes away the human contact point.  

 

My library service positively force you to use the self service points as they cost a lot of money to buy and install and the staff have been told to try and avoid serving people in the old fashioned way.  They call it encouragement to use technology.

 

We also have self service points in the libraries these days, even the small library in my hometown. I think it's a massive shame that the staff is encouraged to avoid serving people so that they'd use the equipment instead. That's like telling them that you'll be soon totally replaced by the machines. Once we've put the machines in, you will be needed less and less when people finally start to know how to operate the machines. It's just such a shame :(

 

Of course they need people behind the 'scenes' to stack the books and shelf them, but it's putting a machine between the patron and the worker, and it's very isolating :(

 

Edit: I've also heard that in some places there are no staff members any more, because of cut backs, and a library is running solely because of volunteers who keep it going :( I mean I love it that there are volunteers, but it's just ... a raging SHAME that that's what we've come to :( 

Edited by frankie
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:welcome2:  I see you like libraries. I used to spend hours in ours but it moved to an out-of-centre-of-town location and is now a pain to get to                                                                                            :Tantrum:

 

I used to get books, audio books and generally enjoy the feel of being surrounded by books. I miss it. My son bought me a Kindle and that helps!

Edited by Anna Faversham
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