Author: Martyn

An Over Rated Library Exercise.

If libraries have really changed over the years, then it has
been as a result of how information is delivered to us all.

Yet the way in which books are taken in or out of Libraries is
only now starting to change: –
thanks to the introduction new library equipment.

Yet the issues around the use of self issue and self return
machines within libraries are never fully understood by most
people who use libraries, or even the library workers who use
them.

– Many people view such machines a threat to jobs.

– Yet others view them as a way in which they take away the
regular human contact that they have with those who work
within libraries.

The truth is that far from being a threat to jobs,
such machines can liberate those of us who work in libraries,
and we can now really use the information skills which we all
have.

It also means that library staff are freed up from a lot of
very repetitive work, and thus can spend more time in helping
people with their information needs.

There is also another issue which kicks in here.

Books are not those lightweight paperbacks which people
imagine library workers float about with all day.

– Books are made of paper.
– Paper can be very heavy.
– Books are made of Paper.
– Books can be heavy.
– A Lot of books can be very heavy.

Now just image what it can be like to lift a lot of books each
and every day of your working life.

I still remember how my arms ached the first few weeks I
worked within a library some 37 years ago.

This was the result of spending my working days lifting heavy
tomes.

I Still have some very well developed arm muscles.

Now just imagine what it must be like to site at a desk and lift
up a couple of very heavy books for several hours a day.

It can put a lot of strain upon ones arm muscles,
and result in repetitive strain injuries ( RSI ) .

If you don’t believe me, then try lifting upon and down a couple
of coffee table books in your outstretch hand while your also
in a seated position.

Just keep doing it for about 10 minutes, and you will start to
realise just what a pain it is to spend all day issuing &
returning library books.

That’s why we should all rejoice in the use of self issue &
self return machines within libraries.

As I write this there is an ongoing public & trade union
opposition to these machines being introduced in to the
libraries of the London Borough of Camden.

This is all very silly!

What trade unionists should realise is that It’s not a
management trick to cut jobs.

It is trade unionists which should be demanding that All
Libraries have such technologies installed within them,
as it is a way to protect all library works from RSI.

This really needs to be said,
and understood,
both by library workers,
all other library users.

A Fine Example of Information Work.

Sometimes one comes upon a website which is so awful that you
wonder just what use it might be to anyone.

I came upon such a website the other day.

Here are some of the highlights which are to be found upon it.

– A home page which is full of organisational abbreviations,
but which fails to explain just what they mean.

– A section of External Reports which reads
‘ Sorry, no link items are available to view at this time.’

– The Links to related organisations
Shows exactly the same message.

– The Latest Newsletter which is dated
Autumn 2007 – 10 Sep 2007

– While the section of regional news has not been properly
updated on a regular basis.

Don’t laugh too hard,
but I’m referring to the website of the
Society of Chief Librarians.

I could make a few comments upon just what this website might
teach us, but you might like to note them for yourself.

Let’s Celebrate!

There are many reason why we should all celebrate,
and many of these should become bank holidays.

Here are some of the days I would like to see become the Bank
Holidays of the Future.

– Good Atheist Values Day.

– Peace Veterans Day.

– Peace Movement Activists Day.

– Animal Rights Day
( Also known as Vegie Day ).

&

– Pedestrian Liberation Day

In the meanwhile it would be good if Europe Day,
May 9th,
became a bank holiday throughout Europe.

What would you like to add to this list of mine?

Things Can Change, But Not By Me Living In the Past.

Things can change,
but it might take some time for radical social changes to
become really noticeable.

I was thinking about this the other day as I reflected upon just
how few people smoke these days.

One of the things that I have always noted about politics is
that a lot of what goes on is very much based in terms of
debating the struggles the past.

Now it might all be very fascinating to a debate what we ( I ) did
in the past, but you just can’t keep doing this and expect to
maintain a clear view upon just what the current issues or
political problems might be.

Having been involved within the peace movement for over 40
years I recognise this danger within myself, but the question is
just how do I get rid of the kind of historical baggage which
comes with a long history of activism?

One of the reasons that I gave my own archive to IISH in
Amsterdam, was so that it might free me from this kind of
looking back on the past,
and thus free myself up in order to get on with some new
projects.

By and large this seems to of worked for me,
but it would still be worth while if I could do a couple of oral
history recordings within the next year or so.

That way I wouldn’t be tempted to start playing the grand old
veteran in about 20 years time,
but still get to record what I’ve done in the past.

What I don’t want to do is write up my own autobiography.

Now I might like us to note various dates in my own history,
but I would not like to write them all up.

Writing up ones own history is very much like trying to proof
read ones own work:
It’s best left for someone else to do it for one.

So now I’m looking for someone to sit down for a few hours
with me in front of a microphone.

After that it will be time for me to really concentrate upon
something new.

I’ve seen too many activists surrounded by their old paper
documents, which can hold them to thinking about the past.

I’ve also noted just how nice it is to live in a place which is not
ones own political archive.

I know just which of these two lifestyles I want to enjoy in my
old age.

Just FYI :-
What sparked me to write this has been some of the recent
work I have been doing in terms of changes with some of the
projects in which I am currently involved,
but more on them at some other stage.

Pensions & Library Workers.

Here is The Deal.

Library & Information workers get below average incomes,
but most will get a pension after years of service.

Such pensions are based upon years of hard work on low pay,
and the below average wage which they may be receiving at
the point of retirement.

The deal being that one will put up with such low pay in
exchange for a pension that will lift one above the penury
which is the state pension.

Now some clever investors are claiming that this is an
unreasonable deal for the tax-payer.

Well you can’t have it both ways!

Either you start to pay the real economic worth of library
workers during a working life,
or
you pay what is not an unreasonable pension.

Though it might also be remembered that:

– All pensions are paid for over a working life time by those
who receive these pensions.

&

– A pension is a form of savings during ones working life, which is withdrawn in stages after one retires.

So it is not the tax-payer who is funding these pensions,
but the workers themselves.

If anything does need to be done in terms of pension reform,
then it should be the ending the spouse or partners
allowance.

Such an allowance is a form of Discrimination against single
people.

This would also release a lot of money which could be better
used to make sure that everyone who has a pension might
continue to do so,
and increase the level of pension pay-outs for all.

Enough said …….. We are not all overpaid bankers.

Renaming and Rethinking the world.

I have a small undated J Bartholomew atlas of the world,
which must of been published around the start of World War
one.

Looking at the maps in this work is a lesson in history,
for within this atlas you will find the following places: –

Galicia,
Bohemia,
East and West Prussia,
Schleswig-holstein,
Christiania,
Siam,
Nubia,
Ceylon,
Manchuria,
Austria-Hungary,
Servia,
Peking,
St Petersburg,
Annam,
Persia,
Rhodesia,
Silesia,
Moravia,
German South West Africa,
German East Africa,
&
The Belgium Congo.

Though the more knowledgable of you may be able to place
these counties, regions, or towns upon the map,
it might prove be very difficult for those individuals who are a
product of our modern education system to be able to do so.

The point being that many of those places have changed their
names since the publication of this atlas,
much in the same way as national boarders have oscillated
over the centuries.

This is turn might be a very good starting point for a lesson in
linguistics.

Even a fleeting glance at this atlas will confirm just how
much the political map of the world has changed over the last
100 years.

It all goes to show that there is nothing static about politics,
or just how we see and name the world about us.

Yet while the Russian, Japanese, Dutch, Austro-Hungarian,
French, Spanish, British, and German Empires
of the last century have long gone,
we are still exploiting the world in the very same way.

We need to start thinking about the world in global terms,
and not via the names of states which will continue to come
and go.

Only then will we be able to start dealing with global issues
at a local level,
and not be bound to thinking about the short term shifting
needs of the nation state.

The Sharpness Action.

The Shapness Action was a Nonviolent Airect Action that
many people know nothing about.

Sharpness Docks is at the enterence to the Gloucester Canal.

It was there on the Fourth of July 1979 that I took part in an
action which held up the loading of low level nukiller waste
which was destined to be dumped at sea.

It was this action, and the following one in 1980,
which focused a lot of attention upon the issue of how
nukiller waste was being dumped at sea,
and helped to stop this practice.

While the action managed to generate a lot of publicity upon
the issue, there were many unplanned aspects to it.

These included:

– being held by the police on the way to the docks.

– Having no one in their pre-planned locations when the
shipment was transported in to the docks.

and

– A spontanious sit down in front of the dock yard train.

I wrote a long report upon this action which appeared in the
Anarchist paper Freedom on July 28th 1979.

The photos I took during the action are now with my archive at
the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

I recently wrote a long analytical piece about just what
happened on the action,
or just what went wrong at the time.

I’ll write more upon this subject once this article is published

Books to Love & Keep – Library Books to Pulp.

Having a love for books does not mean that I don’t pulp old
books from time to time.

This happens in all public libraries,
and I do it with some of my own outdated books too.

I recently commented upon just why this is something
that needs to be done.

Here is a summary of just why library books get pulped :

– There is a major difference between a lending or reference
library, and an archive.

– Libraries are not archives.

– Any outdated medical or legal book will provide dangerous
misinformation.

– Technologies change.

– New editions get published.

– Our thinking upon various issues,
such as works of art,
changes over the years.

– We constantly discover more and more about the world
about us.

&

– Libraries are places in which people find books to educate
themselves.

To sum this all up:

– People want to be able to access what is the best current
information upon any subject,
as opposed to looking a dangerously outdated data or ideas.

– Library stock should be the very best possible in order to
achieve these various ends.

Books are not sacred objects,
but a medium via which to spread information and ideas.

If only more libraries were to explain any or all of the above,
then we wouldn’t get such a bad press every time that a book is
withdrawn from stock.

This needs to be said – time & time & time again.

A Walk In The Urban Wild Life Park.

There is something which I keep noticing:
a lot of areas of waste land within our city centres.

Areas that have been flattened after various buildings have
been pulled down, and which currently serve no socially
useful purpose.

These are places which are surrounded by fences, and that
are now starting to turn in to urban wildlife areas.

Such patches of waste land are very indicative of just what
has been happening to society over the last few years.

– How certain parts of the economy slowed down and came to a
complete standstill.

We now keep being told how the recession is on the turn,
yet I’ll not believe that the economy is starting to work again:

– Not until there are signs that all of these waste grounds are
being opened up and new buildings are being constructed.

Yet that is not the end of this story………

Continue reading A Walk In The Urban Wild Life Park.

The Last Rotten Borough.

I keep reading about just how important it is to vote,
or what some people call ‘exercising ones democratic rights’.

Why Bother ?

You may well ask ….

I’ve always thought that if one really believes in exercising
ones rights,
then one should do much more than vote for someone to
‘represent’ one every so many years.

The truth is that a real involvement in politics involves a lot
more than just voting.

I’m also very critical as to just what the various political
institutions are able to achieve.

I’ll skip yet another lecture upon parliamentary corruption,
state repression, state surveillance, or how the voice of
protest is constantly being ignored.

I’ll just give one example of how the voice of the people is
constantly being ignored:
the 2 million people who marched in London again the second
gulf war.

There is an old myth you may recall:
about how voting can change the system.

Yet you should always remember that when voting changes
the system, then the system may well be abolished,
and I am not just thinking about military coups.

This happened with the GLC ( Greater London Council ) when it
started to make some real social changes.

The GLC was abolished.

Yet the ‘last rotten borough’ has still to be challenged.

I refer to the ‘city Vote’ which exists with the City of London
corporation.

I was born within the City of London,
and so this is a question which is very close to my heart.

Only when the city vote has been abolished will I believe that
any voting will be worth while.

Only then will I start to believe that voting can make any
difference to the way in which we live.

It is the difference between being governed,
and that of taking part in a process of social change.

If the City of London Corporation represents democracy,
then the whole concept of democracy needs to be rethought.