[Vwoolf] Public Libraries

Stuart N. Clarke stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com
Tue Jul 23 18:13:34 EDT 2013


I think museums, generally (not all – I used to be very worried about the National Maritime Museum; not sure how it’s getting on these days), have improved since “my young days”.  There is an unfortunate tendency, tho’, for modern museums to be uncluttered, as if everything on view there has to be absorbed in one visit.  (I heard tonight that the Hermitage has resisted that trend!)

However, I recently visited the wonderful new Burns museum in Alloway, and couldn’t tear myself away until I had seen absolutely everything.

The suggestion that we should suppress the cathedrals is superficially attractive, but I believe we should ignore religion and let it die away of its own accord.  This is the policy of indifference as outlined in “Three Guineas”.

To make my point more relevant to the list.  Go to Merton’s catalogues and look for a Virginia Woolf title.  You’ll find quite a lot, but I think you may have to scour the borough for something specific.  E.g., you will scour in vain for “Contemporary Writers”.  I believe the local council’s libraries up here in the NW is even worse.  When I say local, it’s actually nearby, over the border.  As for my own council, I shudder to think.  I don’t even know where the main library is.

I heard a joke the other day.  Q. How do you tell a working class home?  A. The TV is bigger than the bookcase.  Of course, we didn’t have a TV, but we certainly had very few books, and buying them was actively discouraged (“dust collectors” “I gave all ours to the book drive during the war”).  Reading, however, was encouraged, but only in moderation.  “What about his eyes.  He’ll damage his eyes.”  Note the touch of hysteria.  To put it into context, I am told that before the war, when one of my aunts was informed that her son would have to wear glasses, she burst into tears.  I must ask Cousin Jim whether that’s really true or whether it’s just a family myth.

So, public libraries were an absolute godsend (sorry!) to me when I was young.  It would be awful to have to resort to them nowadays.  Caroline Webb has obviously put the point more clearly than I have.

Stuart


From: Gregory Jordan Dekter 
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 5:33 PM
To: Stuart N. Clarke 
Cc: vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu 
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Public Libraries

I suppose we should dismantle the museums and cathedrals while we're at it. 


On 23 July 2013 06:42, Stuart N. Clarke <stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com> wrote:

  All this fuss about closing public libraries!  What are public libraries for?  I’m not up to date with current librarianship thinking, but they seem pretty useless to me.  When I first read Woolf’s essay on Parson Woodforde in CR2, as a teenager in the 1960s, I went to Wimbledon Library and got out one of his vols.  (Sorry, but I couldn’t get anywhere with it.)  Look on the London Borough of Merton’s current online catalogue, and there’s not a single vol. anywhere in the borough; 27 entries for the whole of London.  I remember when there was a whole stack of music scores in the Wim. Library.  Bet they’re not there now.  They might as well close them all as far as I’m concerned.

  Rant over.

  Stuart

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