The End is Nigh....for the library

I am sitting at my circular, starship captain style work station in the centre of our beautifully quiet, studious, full, library wondering what went wrong. Ten years ago I took the step back into the world of work after spending several years being mum  A part time job as a library assistant in a local sixth form college seemed ideal. It got me out, brought in some money and was extremely enjoyable. I discovered a love of librarianship akin to a vocation and threw myself into it with enthusiasm. I attended conferences, participated in the wider world of academic library, even worked at and achieved chartered membership of CILIP. My job expanded and I eventually became the fulltime (term time) head of the library at the college. I had found my home, but perhaps I should have been more aware of the weather and caught some warning of the storm brewing before it hit. I had frustrations, who doesn’t? I had dreams of expanding the role of the library, offering study skills sessions, developing the digital literacy of the students and preparing them for the academic world of university. I was also keen to evangelise the positive benefits of literacy and reading for pleasure for emotional wellbeing as well as intellectual development. I thought the institution for which I worked shared my vision. I thought the library was safe.

I was wrong.

Beware the ides of March – always been a bit of a joke as my birthday falls on that inauspicious date. As it happened it was also the day my library assistant and I were called into separate meetings and told we were ‘at risk of redundancy’ but there was a 3 week consultation period in which we could mount a defence of our jobs. We tried, we dragged in every bit of supportive evidence of the value of a library with qualified staff, and how it raised results, even a quote from our last Ofsted inspection which unusually singled out the learning resource centre for praise. A survey of the teaching staff produced a huge wave of support. It made no difference. What more could we have done?

So I am watching the days tick by, the students are serenely unaware that at the end of this term I will be out of a job, and they will be out of a library.