26 Jun 2012 01:27:23
The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and a host of other literary names have joined calls to halt the destruction of hundreds of thousands of books at one of the UK's greatest municipal libraries. They have written to the head of libraries for Manchester, demanding that the book pulping stop immediately.
Manchester Central Library is in the midst of a £170m, three-year restoration of its elegant domed and porticoed building, built in the Great Depression as a symbol of hope. A vast circular inscription from Proverbs exhorts citizens to "exalt wisdom and she shall promote thee".
Campaigners describe the pulping of at least 210,000 non-fiction books as "cultural vandalism on an industrial scale". They point out that the book collections are as important as the fabric of the building. The letter describes the collection stored in the stacks under the library as an invaluable resource not just for the north-west but for the whole country, rivalled only by the British Library in Camden, north London.
Those who have signed the letter include the writer Jackie Kay, poet Michael Symmonds Roberts, poets Simon Armitage, John Cooper Clark and Mike Garry, and the novelist Jeanette Winterson. Former Hacienda DJ and author Dave Haslam and Tony Warren, the creator of Coronation Street, are also signatories.
"The destruction has been going on behind closed doors for over 18 months already," the open letter to Neil MacInnes, Manchester's head librarian, says. "No one seems to know how much – or what – has already been lost. This is clearly far more than a simple weeding of duplicated, out-of-date or damaged books."
It is thought the cull was precipitated by a miscalculation on how much shelving was required in the new library. The letter asks who made the decision and what the criteria for removal are. It seeks to find out why there was no public consultation beforehand.
"We are concerned that far too much of the irreplaceable collection is in danger of being lost for ever. We demand that the current destruction of stock is halted and that a thorough investigation of the library's disposal policy is carried out," the letter says.
It concludes: "The books at Central Library are not owned by the council – they are owned by the people of Manchester. It is they, not politicians and bureaucrats, who need to have a say in what happens to this valuable Mancunian treasure."
Among a group of academics who have put their names to the letter are Dr Jerome de Groot, of Manchester University, James Draper, co-director of the Manchester children's book festival, and Julie Wilkinson, Sherry Ashworth and philosopher Professor Joanna Hodge from Manchester Metropolitan University.
The books being pulped are reference and non-fiction items published after 1850. A source at the library said staff had "literally been in tears" over the destruction. The texts were housed in the old stacks in the central library.
Jeanette Winterson, the newly appointed professor of creative writing at Manchester University, said: "The library uses public money and is a public resource. There needs to be proper public engagement on what archive material is kept. And there is no reason why material that can't be kept on site can't be catalogued and warehoused elsewhere. There are plenty of retired librarians and archivists who could be happily employed to do this work. The burning of the books is not a solution."
Melvin Burgess, author of Junk, who is leading the campaign, said there were many unanswered questions. He said the library had been destroying its reference stock with no public consultation, no records kept of what has been destroyed and apparently no disposal policy guidelines. "No one has any idea of what treasures have already been lost," he said.
"Accountability should be the watchword in all dealings of this kind, but this process has been kept behind closed doors. What is the library trying to hide?"
A spokesman for Manchester city council acknowledged that the items would not be returning to the library. He admitted that "this kind of issue can cause real concerns to people, which is why we are being so open about it".
But MacInnes said the concerns were misplaced and the council was were creating a world-class library and improving access to the building. Any attempt to characterise it as otherwise was misguided. He pointed out that all valuable and historic items would be kept and special storage units would help preserve the important historic collection.
"While it is correct that some of the items which have been amassed over time will not be returning, these are obsolete items, such as outdated reference books, duplicates, such as paperbacks we have in hardback, or books in such poor condition it would not be viable to repair them. The idea that the library will be saying goodbye to valuable stock is just plain wrong."
