Tonight I caught part of the news for the South east on the TV.

First people were being interviewed about san ‘organisation’. They were saying things like:
‘if only we could get people to come in they would see that we were not boring, stuffy old people’
‘we are quite normal really and like to have a laugh’
‘we don”t ask the children to be quiet anymore’
‘we want everyone to feel they can visit here for as long as they like’
‘we are here for the whole community’

People were then interviewed about this ‘organisation’:
‘It’s not for me’
‘I don’t know where my nearest one is’
‘It’s full of old people’
‘I want something a lot more exciting than that’
‘They watch you whenever you go in there – like you are going to nick something’.

Next I was interested by the response of the people from the organisation again:
‘we want to make the gardens look nice so we are more attractive’
‘we are thinking about more relevant stuff to attract young people’
‘we are building a cafe to attract people in’

All of this made me think … you’ve guessed it … church!

But no! How wrong you can be when you miss the start of a news report.
the organisation in question …. libraries.

It’s interesting to see that with falling figures, like the church has done in the past, they are turning to gimmicks to attract people to them.

A case for emerging libraries maybe?