30 March 2011

Central Library

The Central Library in Manchester is undergoing a long awaited facelift at the moment:


This is a wonderful, exciting opportunity.  This building is really beautiful and I have always felt that it was rather.....well ...empty, and confusing to walk around. By the looks of things this should soon change and this might be somewhere not to just to wander in panic and despair (thinking back to dissertation times) and actually somewhere to wander by and peruse the shelves (I walk past every single day), have a coffee and generally relax and enjoy oneself.

I utterly support this refurbishment yet it did occur to me (and please don't mistake me for one of those busybodies commenting on government spending that we have to listen to every morning on breakfast television) that, as we know, there are currently hundreds of small local libraries closing down all over Britain......shouldn't we save some of this money for the little people or does the money to pay for the above come from a completely different place?  Is it essentially more important to preserve our historic edifices in the bigger towns and cities than preserve our local centres of learning?  Is it not essential to preserve the libraries in the more deprived/isolated/backwards areas of our fair isle?

So many questions .... so little time...

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