{"id":104,"date":"2012-03-01T14:55:03","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T14:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/?p=104"},"modified":"2012-03-01T14:56:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-01T14:56:29","slug":"one-door-opens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/?p=104","title":{"rendered":"One Door Opens"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday I was invited to a very special occasion, namely the official opening of the all-new Dalston C.L.R. James Library<\/strong> in my home borough of Hackney, London<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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It was a packed and glittering affair.<\/p>\n

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A big crowd had turned out to celebrate, for two reasons. First, because the library is a wonderful, beautifully-designed building providing facilities including public computers, meeting rooms, study areas and community-accessible archives (the latter with space for a projected twenty-five years’ worth of expansion!) Second, because this library was opening<\/strong> when so many all over the rest of the UK are being forced to close<\/strong><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Hackney Council deserves a lot of credit for Dalston C.L.R. James Library – and a lot of other local authorities deserve blame for the closures. But today, World Book Day 2012, the biggest burden of guilt for the sorry state of so much of the rest of the country’s public library services should be laid on the shoulders of the UK’s current government<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Libraries are centres for knowledge, thought and self-development. If this country is ever going to recover economically – into something other <\/em>than just a City of London-dominated, tax-dodger-friendly clearing-house for shady deals by the world’s super-rich – then we need libraries<\/strong>. Public libraries are as important as schools<\/strong>: perhaps, given their power to help whole populations and not “just” school-age people and their carers, they’re even more <\/em>important. The people of Hackney know this, as is obvious from Dalston C.L.R. James’ massive popularity<\/strong> since it opened its doors, even before it was opened officially.<\/p>\n

Now: will the politicians of our Parliament<\/strong> be able to overcome their shortsighted, nest-feathering, bickering, self-aggrandizing ways enough to recognise the importance of public libraries too, and act accordingly? Or will the so-called ‘Culture Secretary’ and his ilk continue to stand by making excuses and blaming others while so many of these vital facilities all over the UK are being forced to close their doors?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday I was invited to a very special occasion, namely the official opening of the all-new Dalston C.L.R. James Library in my home borough of Hackney, London. It was a packed and glittering affair. A big crowd had turned out to celebrate, for two reasons. First, because the library is a wonderful, beautifully-designed building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events-and-appearances"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139,"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mynameiso.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}