Wednesday 16 July 2008

The Barbican Public Library: July 10th 2008

(photo take from http://www.ukattraction.com)/

On our tour of the Barbican, we had the opportunity to learn about the Children's, Adult, and Music collections and resources available to patrons. Our guides warmly welcomed us and even provided refreshments.

We began our tour in the Children's section of the library with our host Ann Holden. The Barbican Children's Library is the largest children's library in London, with over 25,000 loanable items. This collection includes books for children under the age of fourteen. The latter I found interesting as I wouldn't think that a 13 or 14-year-old would want to be associated with a children's collection. With regards to space, the Children's Library is colorful and welcoming.

A couple of interesting facts I learned through the tour of this section of the library:

1. Government Initiatives: It was wonderful to hear about the BookStart Initiative, a government funded program that promotes literacy through providing parents with free packs of books (up to age 5). These packs are compiled with literature for three age groups (0-18 months; 18-36 months; and 36-48 months). Mrs. Holden noted that it is the libraries responsibily to distribute these packs.

2. Parent's have access to what books their children are taking out. This fact I found in contrast with many of the local libraries located in Albany, New York. I have heard many public librarians describe angry parents who are appalled that they cannot view what his or her child has taken out due to privacy policies.

After receiving our tour from Mrs. Holden, we then proceeded to the Music Library where we were greeted by Liz Wells.

The library boasts a wonderful music collection that was the result of the thriving arts and cultural community present in the Barbican area. The collection includes 16.5 thousand CD's that are organized by genre. To support the usage of the collection, there are ten listening booths available to patrons as long as they had a valid photo id. In turn, the Music Library includes musics scores and more enticing, archives of audio and video interviews and live performances (http://www.musicpreserved.org.uk/). One particular unique aspect of this library is the availability of a piano. Patrons can book the piano up to one day in advance.

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