A good news recession story… literally

WHILE several years of recession haven’t done much for the national mood, there are some positives.
As the market for cocaine collapsed due to the economic decline, libraries, and the cheap education and entertainment they offer, came into their own.
Last year over 404,000 people visited libraries around Clare. A total of 547,464 issues were made to the public and 17,809 people were registered to the library service. The amount of issues was up by over 22,000 on 2009.
County librarian Helen Walsh said that all over the country, more people are borrowing books than before.
“Nationally the numbers using libraries has increased. It’s always been the experience during recessionary times that people go back to more cost-effective things, rather than buying books they borrow them.
“Definitely there has been an increase, the number of issues has been up every year for the last three years. That’s one of the performance indicators we’re judged on. It’s in a time when we spend less on our libraries because of cutbacks in budgets and so on. It’s a service that’s still managing to do well.”
She says the library service has made efforts to make itself relevant to different sectors of the county’s population. “We have a good calendar of events at the different branches for the different age groups. We have children’s activities, activities for teenagers, the elderly are using our branches and people in the middle years. People come into the library for different reasons.”
In the past, libraries were almost solely associated with books, but for years now they have provided connections to the internet, dvds and cds. “We have DVDs and music in some of our branches and all the various types of books from large print to graphic novels for teenagers. There is a cross section available. Of course newspapers are very important. Newspapers are available electronically, but you still have people, particularly the older generation, who love to just sit down and read a newspaper in the library.
“Funnily enough internet use has dropped off a bit and I would put it down to more home use and maybe better broadband speed. That’s the only statistic I would say that’s going down. People are reading as much as ever.”
Despite other diversions now hosted by the library, books are still what most people come for. “You have to balance a good, solid book collection that would be well used and money well invested. We haven’t gone overboard with regard to the amount of DVDs in the service and there would be some branches that don’t have them at all.”
A new library has just opened in Kilkee, while one opened up in Scariff a few years back. Helen says that around the country there were significant improvements made to libraries. “During the Celtic Tiger the quality of libraries would have improved significantly up and down the country and some beautiful buildings were built. People come in to libraries not just to borrow books but because of the events that we organise and also because they are nice public spaces to visit.”
She says the usage of libraries was strong in the good times, but people might have been coming for different reasons then. “In the good times communities were using the spaces and now in recessionary times people are genuinely coming in to borrow books. Usage can vary depending on what the external conditions are.”
That they offer extremely good value for money is something that can hardly be argued with. “For a family it’s ten euros and for an individual it’s five euros. There are categories that are free of charge, young people in school and third level are free of charge and it’s free of charge for people on social welfare.”