Library champions

Two excellent pieces in the Irish Times on the importance of libraries this week - Saturday's edition saw an essay by Dermot Bolger, poet and novelist, who I have heard reading before. A very engaging and witty writer. He described public libraries as the last truly democractic spaces existing for all citizens of the state. Diarmaid Ferriter, Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin, highlighted the threatened merger of the National Library, the National Archives and the Irish Manuscripts Commission in Tuesday's paper. He argued that these three institutions served completely different purposes and that no money would be saved. As a past user of some of these organisations I could not agree more. OPLs know how difficult budget negotiations are and we often rely on our colleagues in bigger libraries, so we should show solidarity whenever we can.