Carnegie

I was dipping in and out of Twitter today trying to follow some folk debating whether libraries should be closed down to save money or kept open. The Twitterati I follow tend to be technology-based so a fair bit of the argument was of the "buy everyone an iPad/Kindle, and close the libraries. No one reads any more!" type.

This argument ignore the millions of unemployed people in the UK created since Thatcher lit the blue touch paper to the manufacturing industries, attacked the unions, and walked away, inspiring a culture of greed and selfishness which has not abated since (yes - millions. No matter what way the governments slice and dice the statistics, there are millions who are unemployed. I think the latest weasel words are "those actively seeking employment".) And also the children, whose parents are struggling to get their children to read in the face of the game console onslaught, and the mother and toddler groups, and the Citizen Advice Bureau and all the other small groups across the country who use libraries as a community hub.

Anyway, I felt inspired to take this picture of my local Carnegie-endowed library in Bangor. Safe from the recent batch of cuts, it has had a fairly recent restoration and extension, unlike the library in Holywood, six miles away, which has been closed down.

Please excuse the raindrops on the lens. I was sheltering in shirtsleeves in the doorway of a church across the road trying to keep the lens dry, without success!