Barnet's libraries to receive £250,000 technology update

12:40pm Thursday 21st February 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Natalie O'Neill

Hendon Library in The Burroughs Hendon Library in The Burroughs

More than £250,000 will be spent on installing self service kiosks and Wi-Fi in Barnet’s libraries.

Barnet Borough Council will pay for the new kiosks which will allow residents to borrow, renew and return books at the touch of a button.

The council says using machines will help free up staff to deal with more complex enquiries and to run events and activities.

Councillor Robert Rams, cabinet member for customer access and partnerships, said: “When I launched our library review we pledged to invest money in modern technology to ensure that our library service continues to be one of the best in London.

“Over the next few months we will see our library service brought into the 21st Century with the installation of self service kiosks.

“In some libraries we are spending up to £40,000 to enable us to do this, but residents will see the benefits for many years to come."

Work will be carried out at nine libraries across the borough including Hendon, Mill Hill, Osidge, Edgware, Church End, Grahame Park, Chipping Barnet, Childs Hill and East Barnet. 

Libraries already using the self service machines will have their machines updated while other libraries will be able to use the kiosks for the first time.

The libraries will be closed temporarily while the work is carried out over the coming months. To see a list of closing dates and times visit www.barnet.gov.uk/libraries

Comments(5)

Mr Reasonable says...
12:58pm Thu 21 Feb 13

What a shame that this investment is being funded by making highly qualified and experienced librarians redundant. I wonder why that does not get mentioned. Barnet Times please try and get a balance in these articles rather than simply reproducing the Council's press releases.

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Treenut says...
1:40pm Thu 21 Feb 13

@Mr Reasonable: Sounding a bit unreasonable there Sir. I'm thankful for this article as was hoping to go to my local Library soon to get some work done, but am thankful for the article to highlight the link for the closing and reopening dates. (ps-being pedantic there is a missing 'o' in the .gov bit in the link just in case others were having problems; www.barnet.gov.uk/li
braries. Really happy about the Wi-Fi installation. The Librarians will still be there for the knowledge and other activities to free up time to help bind the community together, so a great idea and investment! Thanks for the article!

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Mr Reasonable says...
2:55pm Thu 21 Feb 13

Hi Treenut, Sadly many of the librarians will not be there, that is the key point. The redundancy process is on going. Next time you are in your local library just ask the staff if any of their colleagues have been made redundant and listen to the whole story.

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Barnet Parker says...
1:31pm Sun 24 Feb 13

I fear both Mr Reasonable and Treenut have fallen into the trap of thinking that all people who work in libraries are librarians. A librarian is a profession requiring a qualification from the Chartered Institute of Information Professionals. Unison reports that it is all these frontline staff with their wealth of knowledge and experience who are being made redundant. In time it will become apparent that skills, which cannot be replaced by machines, will have been shown the door and the service will be the poorer for it. I presume that when usage drops the libraries can then be closed and the machines retrained to collect parking charges.

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Mrs Angry, Broken Barnet blog says...
3:26pm Mon 25 Feb 13

Mr Reasonable is right: the real question to ask is about the deprofessionalisatio
n of our our library service. We had what was regularly assessed as one of the best value, highest standard of library provision in the UK. Since this Tory council came to power in 2010, they have vandalised the service, completely unneccessarily, simply on ideological grounds, and because they simply have no understanding of intrinsic value of a library, culture, the arts, history or heritage. They are in short intellectually challenged philistines, who know the price of nothing and the value of nothing.
From Andrew Carnegie to Robert Rams? What a catastrophe for this borough.

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