Comedian Frank Skinner visited, and indeed joined, Church Street Library this week following an invitation from local resident Don Mackenzie.
Mr Mackenzie had read Frank’s recent article in The Times newspaper (Sorry, the demise of the library is well overdue, 27 August 2010 – enter your library card number to read the article on Newsbank) and wanted to challenge some of the ideas put forward.
“I was prompted to reply to Frank’s article as, having been involved for the last two years in the reconstruction of our library and seen the general reaction of the public to its reopening recently, I felt his few memories of local libraries were not only old fashioned and out of date, but did not accord with my observations of our vibrant new library.”
He felt that the comment that “…the books almost certainly carry the diseases of their previous borrowers” was really unfair and misleading and saying that “… local libraries are quaint examples of British eccentricity” didn’t match up to the reality of many libraries, especially Church Street! So Frank agreed to come and ‘put his money where his mouth is’ and, having joined, he’ll now be able to say that he’s “…just off to return my library book”.
Edited to add: Frank Skinner writes in the Times (1 October 2010): ‘Why I’m on a new page with local libraries – it was my ideas that were dog-eared, not the places themselves‘. Cheers Frank.
[Edited Feb 2013 to fix links]
wcclibraries.wordpress.com 
That’s a really great response all round – both from Frank Skinner and also from Don McKenzie. So many times the media air out-dated ideas about libraries and those of us who love libraries and the work they do need to shout about it.
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