Page 3469 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 14 November 2006
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play sport at any of the Narrabundah ovals or they are going to the Fyshwick markets—so why not make that trip go as far as you can.
The idea of lugging a great sack of books on a bus along with your shopping from Woden and Civic is really demeaning to people. It is not fair and it was a flippant remark. I would like to know what stats the government has looked at on this. It boils down to stats. I think the government was told or decided it had to close a library and it looked for the library of least political concern. Well, there must have been some decision. There are no other good grounds; they have to have been political.
The simple fact is that there is no good reason for closing the Griffith library, not even money-saving. It is a short-term saving because it is a disinvestment in our community and in our people. I come from Melbourne. That is where I went to uni. I still go back there as I have a daughter there. When I was there last time I had a look at their library services because I was in a position where I could get some documents. In a place the size of the inner south there would be at least one library, probably two. Local government is different there but there is a geographical and a population placement. Yes, there should be a library at Weston Creek, too. They deserve a library. It is not that easy to get out of Weston Creek and go to, I guess, Woden.
I am really looking forward to reading the report tomorrow morning to see how Veronica Lunn could have found a benchmark lower than our own provision of libraries. I know that this whole functional review exercise is about meeting the benchmarks—it seems to me the lowest benchmarks—established by other cities. I do not know how low you have got to go to find one lower than this.
This library will close, as I said, without any attempt to find out what alternative arrangements will answer requirements. I have searched for information about the impact of closing libraries. Not surprisingly, not many local governments or other state municipalities do this work—close a library and then not follow up. But a group in Britain did some work and they found that, in one lot of closures, in the last month of that library’s life—and remember that that library had only one month from the announcement that it was closing—every customer visiting the library was interviewed by staff to find out whether they would be able to use another library and the preferred location for additional services.
What happened in the follow-up after three libraries were closed in the United Kingdom? Seventy per cent of people in Sheffield continued to use the library; that is 30 per cent who did not, 25 per cent in Rotherham did not and in Littlecoates, which was better serviced and nearer other places, 91 per cent were still using the library 18 months later. People said the mobile library did not replace their library that was closed because it did not give them what they want, which is a place where they can sit down, a place where they can meet, a place where they know the people who are there and people who will help them find books. The mobile library was very useful when I lived at Bonang; it used to come up from Bairnsdale every three months. But it is not so good when you are an elderly person who is used to visiting a library two or three times a week.
To close I am going to read some comments—and I know Mr Hargreaves would have access to these—made by users of the Griffith library. They had some ideas about
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