December 13, 2011
Book-sharing libraries on London’s tube
by Ellie Robins
Public idiot Boris Johnson in totally ineffectual post-riot broom-shaking embarrassment
Ever eager to jump on board with a no-brainer of a free idea, public idiot and Mayor of London Boris Johnson has announced his support for book-sharing schemes to be launched on the city’s tube network in time for the 2012 Pointless, Expensive Disaster Olympic Games. He’s quoted in The Guardian, speaking in characteristically succinct and thoughtful style:
“I think it’s a very good idea and would say something powerful about the kind of city we are and our commitment to literacy, which obviously we are trying to demonstrate in lots of ways particularly with young people.”
He made these comments at the two-day London Policy Conference at the Southbank Centre, which began yesterday. The possibility of a book-sharing system was raised by Chris Gilson, who runs Book Swaps for London and set up a sharing scheme in West Ealing, inspired by the one in nearby Wimbledon.
Seeing more tube-users reading books instead of the dizzyingly awful Metro (London’s free newspaper) would be a Very Good Thing Indeed, and congratulations to Chris Gilson for successfully starting his own scheme, and for getting this issue discussed at such a high level. It’s depressing to note, though, that in the rest of the conference there seems to be not one event devoted to culture. Literacy and culture are not Big Society issues that can be delegated to private individuals, they should be at the heart of policy-making, especially in a city like London, which has proven literacy problems and which relies financially on tourism and so on its cultural cachet. For the ever-opportunistic BoJo, expressing his support for this scheme is easy, especially as (with any luck) he won’t be Mayor any longer by the time the Olympics come around. Where is the space in the conference for integrating the city’s world-famous cultural industries into its economic recovery?
Ellie Robins is an editor at Melville House. Previously, she was managing editor of Hesperus Press.
What’s the future for the UK’s local libraries? 
6 Manchester libraries set to close 
50 annotated first editions—going to the highest bidder 
Shakespeare on the fiscal cliff 
One Comment
The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
compares education standards in 65 countries. In December 2010 its survey reported the results of
“reading
tests” as follows. Read it and weep :
In 2000 the UK was in seventh place.
By 2006 the UK had slipped to 17th
place.
By 2009, the UK was languishing in 25th
place.But one year on, the minds of Boris Johnson and his friends, the culture and education ministers, are elsewhere – merrily bamboozling the public that they are concerned with the capital’s “literacy” or the nation’s “literacy”, whilst reigning over the destruction of the capital’s and the nation’s public library service. It is outrageous; they must be called to account.