Forum Topic

Ealing Library - No Donations & A New Phone Number

So Ealing Central library no longer accept donations of books, apparently because they were fed up with receiving low quality books which they then had to manually add to their database...Let's hope this means they have a nice healthy budget to buy more books each year!I guess my giant bag of costume & fashion books (a subject in which they are woefully deficient) will have to go on Freecycle or to Oxfam then.The library also has a new contact number, which is not the same as the one that is found on the internet or via ringing directory enquiries (0208 825 9278), but is no-where to be found on the Ealing Council website, which still lists the old one!I love libraries, I really do, but I find the ones in Ealing very frustrating, often under-stocked and not always staffed by the most helpful of people!

Cas Baker ● 4442d10 Comments

Christine Daniels asked -Isn't WW1 info available online?  I found the details of my relative that way.  Drowned in the mud aged 19 in the "war to end all wars"........Indeed some is on the excellent Commonwealth War Graves Site which can't be recommended highly enoughhttp://www.cwgc.org/However such sites can't provide the amount of detail -found in the Official History all of which was previouslyheld in the Central Library. If they're not on theshelves, then most people won't even know they exist at all. ...Christine Daniels then continued But again though, rightly or wrongly, these books will be used for reference by few people not many times.  With "my idea" you'd still be able to get hold of books somewhere locally, I'm saying two weeks but there is no reason that can't be reduced to a day or two....At this point I originally outlined the likely outcomeof your ideas if taken to their logical conclusionwhich is basically there's no need for any libraries at all. Jut the odd kiosk dotted about.Which obviously will appeal to some people giventhe level of commercial rents which can achieved on many such sites.So what's it to be more burger bars, or shoe shops ?michael adams... 

Michael Adams ● 4440d

Isn't WW1 info available online?  I found the details of my relative that way.  Drowned in the mud aged 19 in the "war to end all wars".But again though, rightly or wrongly, these books will be used for reference by few people not many times.  With "my idea" you'd still be able to get hold of books somewhere locally, I'm saying two weeks but there is no reason that can't be reduced to a day or two.

Christine Daniels ● 4440d

Christine Daniels wrote :"Well Michael you currently have to wait a couple of weeks if a book isn't in stock and has to be ordered.You want it instantly, download it. "...I somehow suspect we're talking at cross purposesas I was specifically referring to titles which werepreviously in the shelves in the Central Reference Library and are no longer there.Rather than use by way of example some special interest of my own, say bibliography in which Ealing specialised - very little of which will ever be digitised, as quite frankly there's no money to be made out of it,I'll stick to a topic which is on many people's minds this year.Up until the refurbishment Ealing Central Library held a full set - all 23 volumes - of the Official History of the War (1923 1949). All of which are regularly being reprinted. This being World War One.Which was, and is, an invaluable source for anyone wantinginformation about their forbears who may have taken part.This series needs to be shelved as a complete setas there are indexes and updates which were added asthe series was completed. I could give you a list of the volumes in this series which I know that Ealing doesn't hold, and neither AFAIAA does it hold any CD's.All this achieves is make it less likely that anyone wanting to know about their forbears role in World War Iwill want to go through any number of hoops and wait two weeks simply in order to consult a particular volume on the off-chance there may be information there which may answer their questions.michael adams...

Michael Adams ● 4440d

All those modern devices like tablets, smart phones, ebooks and other gizmos I can't even pronounce will be the way ahead for new libraries, but there's nothing like the 'feel' and touch and smell even of a good book from the library in your hands. Except when some wag scribbles on the opening chapters of a latest crime novel "the vicar done it"!

Gerry Tan ● 4440d

Well Michael you currently have to wait a couple of weeks if a book isn't in stock and has to be ordered.You want it instantly, download it.  Ealing Library does actually stock books, but not EVERY single book ever.  I am so sorry that they didn't ask you which ones they should stock.As I understand it, books are now usually if not always sent to the British Library as an ebook as well as a physical copy.Films and music are also available as downloads already.  You can buy them, so they are available.What I'm saying is that the Library should get these files, add DRM like iplayer does and you have a modern service fit for the needs of the modern users.File formats like PDF, e-pub, MP3, MP4 etc are all here to stay, they are digital standards.  Any new formats that come out and there will be file converters produced. We already pay for Libraries through Council Tax.

Christine Daniels ● 4440d

Christine Daniels asked" Of course some people will prefer a physical item, have these available for loan, if you can/want to wait a couple of weeks, maybe less if the staff aren't as busy returning stuff to the shelves.What do you think of that?"...But why should I now have to wait a couple of weeks for a  book which formerly I could take from the shelf, simply because some focus group somewhere told some researcher that they didn't like tall shelves ? (This isn't made up by the way, I actually read this some time ago. And these weren't even regular library users).And of course I must admit there must be those who think that all the space being currently wasted on libraries with their old-fashioned shelvingcould be far better deployed as retail space.  ...Christine Daniels then went on to say -Although not a fan of every new gadget or gizmo that comes out, ebook readers are very popular, so are Smartphones with large screens, so are tablets, so are computers, so is the internet.Why not have all the items available for download with some kind of Digital Rights built in? .......Anyone familiar with IT will tell you that there is nothing so old as ten year old hardware and operating systems. Talk about 30 year old hardware and operating systems, and you may as well be talking about clay tablets from Mesopotamia.Once bought paper books require no maintenanceonly space, and if kept in similar conditions to that which a human can endure will last for 500or 1000 years (acid paper nonwithstanding).There's no real replacement cost.Unfortunately the same can't be said for each successive generation of e-readers and software.So who is going to pay this ongoing cost ? michael adams   

Michael Adams ● 4440d

I think you might be sort of correct there Michael.  But I don't think Libraries are modern enough.At one time Libraries only lent books, now they also lend, DVD's, CD's and Paintings amongst other things.If they don't have a book you are after, it can be ordered for a small fee, surely pooling all the items from around London and having them available to the public makes sense?Holding duplicate copies, taking up space, doesn't make sense.Now here's where Libraries should be going:Although not a fan of every new gadget or gizmo that comes out, ebook readers are very popular, so are Smartphones with large screens, so are tablets, so are computers, so is the internet.Why not have all the items available for download with some kind of Digital Rights built in?  BBC iplayer programs can be downloaded for 30 days (I think), after which they can no longer be viewed.Put that into everything you download via a Library and you have a service that will allow for multiple copies to be lent out, so no-one will have to wait for something to be returned, they "self destruct" when the lending period is over, so no-one has to make a special trip to return the item or pay a late fine.Of course some people will prefer a physical item, have these available for loan, if you can/want to wait a couple of weeks, maybe less if the staff aren't as busy returning stuff to the shelves.What do you think of that?

Christine Daniels ● 4440d

Cas Baker wroteSo Ealing Central library no longer accept donations of books, apparently because they were fed up with receiving low quality books which they then had to manually add to their database...Let's hope this means they have a nice healthy budget to buy more books each year!.....................Ealing Library went down the tubes when they "modernised"the Central Library and quietly scrapped 60% of the reference stock. They were able to do this, as having scrapped the paper catalogue years before, they thenabandoned the online catalogue available to users.And instead buried their now woeful holdings insidethe London Libraries Consortium catalogue alongside the likes of Barking and Dagenham (BAR)Bexley (BEX)Brent (BRE)Bromley (BY)Enfield (ENF)Ealing (EAL)Hackney (HACK)Harrow (HAR)Havering (HAV) Kingston (KING)Lewisham (LEW)Merton (MER)Newham (NEW)Redbridge (RED)Tower Hamlets (TH)Waltham Forest (WF)Wandsworth (WAN) Although doubtless the staff use a private catalogueof their own, which reflects the actual extent of thedestruction which has been wrought.Apparently focus groups find high shelves as commonly found in libraries "intimidating" and so the leisuremanagers now responsible for library provision insisted on low shelving which users could see over the top of, instead. The fact that this reduced library capacity by a half wasn't considered all that important.It's the same with everything else in the present libraryreally. The decor and ambience are everythingnowadays and the books just get in the way.  michael adams...

Michael Adams ● 4441d

"...my giant bag of costume & fashion books (a subject in which they are woefully deficient) will have to go on Freecycle or to Oxfam then."Cas, you could always let the arts & crafts people in the new'ish arts & crafts shop have them - their shop is in Ealing Green(south of the Oxfam shop).

Gerry Tan ● 4441d

I've an idea the college in St Mary's does fashion as a degree subject; maybe they'd like your books?

Susan Kelly ● 4442d