We Love Libraries

We hold our writing sessions two floors above the Carnegie Community Centre DTES branch of the Vancouver Public Library and we have a close relationship with the staff there. Vancouver reader, writer, activist, teacher Rita Wong sent this letter today. We’re sharing it with her permission.

 

Dear readers & writers,

 

If you’ve recently visited the downtown central library, you will have noticed that the library staff are missing in action. Their public desks are GONE.  Instead, there is a sign telling people to call a mobile number.  Staff will now be roaming around, waiting for your call.

 

I am appalled, as you can see from the letter I sent below. If you’re concerned about this deterioration of the public library, I encourage you to share this with the library, who needs to hear from the public.

 

For contact information, see http://www.vpl.ca/about/details/contact_us. Also, there are comment forms on the main floor near the entrance of the library, where a couple of straggling staff remain at desks, precariously.

 

 

Begin forwarded message:

 

From: Rita Wong <rwong@eciad.ca>

Date: July 29, 2013

To: board@vpl.ca, Sandra Singh <sandra.singh@vpl.ca>

Subject: Library Mess

 

Dear Library Board and Chief Librarian,

 

Recently, I went to the main library downtown and was appalled to find that the library staff are no longer present at public desks. There is an empty space where I once found helpful, visible and approachable people. Instead of friendly faces, I had to hunt for an impersonal sign telling me to call a mobile number.  It was so upsetting that I left without asking for the help that I’d wanted.

 

Many members of the public will not pick up the phone to call some roaming clerk. This is unfriendly to elders, children, people who may have language barriers, and shy people for that matter. It offends my sense of what a public library should be: a community hub where people and books are valued for their knowledge and diversity.

 

I am writing to inform you that this change is a terrible mistake. It is a deterioration of the library’s community interface. I consider the library a public commons, and this dehumanizes the commons in a way I find destructive and insulting.  It feels like the Walmartification of the public library, where staff people are expendable, phased out bit by bit.

 

As a writer and a lover of the library, I urge you to restore the library staff and their desks in visible and central places on each floor. This system works well; it was not broken. Why would you spend public funds on a restructuring that actually makes the situation worse for the public?

 

Respectfully,

Rita Wong