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Spotted something for Mediawatching? Email us at: mediawatching@cilip.org.uk


L


IBRARIES have been part if the circular economy since before the term was even coined, and it is no wonder to see innovation


that supports the concept. So, we start this month’s issue of Mediawatching with news from a Finnish library that has upped its game and is moving beyond book loans. Turku City Library, in south west Finland, teamed up with Toyota to offer electric car loans to library card holders. The three-week trial is thought to be the first of its kind in the world, with Library Services Director Rebekka Pilppula saying: “We were the first in Finland to introduce an electronic library bus. We now offer the possibility of borrowing an electric car from the library, and we are probably the first library in the world to do so. In Turku, it is always an honour to be the first.” The scheme was open to anyone with a library card, a valid driving licence and, crucially, less than €10 in fines (https:// yle.fi/a/74-20030157).


With efforts being made to help reduce waste and emissions, that can only be a good thing for wildlife – which might not make council chiefs in Folkestone all that happy. A report in the Kent Messenger (https://bit.ly/427tgZy) highlights the fact that too much nature isn’t always a good thing.


It says: “Nesting seagulls have been blamed for causing some damage forcing the closure of a town centre library.


“Kent County County says cracks in the building housing Folkestone Library, caused by the birds, mean the Grade II-listed structure has significant damp, mould and water damage.” The damage has been estimated at around £2m and there are fears that the building will never re-open as a library. And spare a thought for Binghamton University student Hannah, who took to Tik Tok (picked up by The Daily Mail Online https://bit.ly/3LUi1hg) to let the world know she has amassed almost $12,000 in fines for failing to take hundreds of books back to the university library.


Hannah borrowed hundreds of library books, but instead of returning them she has left them stacked up at home as she finishes her dissertation.


April-May 2023


An electric Lotus that was not available for loan at Turku Public Library.


However, she failed to alert the library to the fact she wanted to renew the loans, and several years later she has been hit with a fine of $11,900. She told her Tik Tok followers: “[Renewing them] was on my to-do list but it kept falling to the bottom because it was such a small task.” Not only does she now face a huge bill, but she will also not be able to borrow an electric car from Turku library.


Thanks to Ray Ward, who has been in touch with two Mediawatching nuggets unearthed from Atlas Obscura. The first has graced the pages of Mediawatching before, but is worth revisiting as a reminder of the pioneering work librarians do and have been doing for decades. The article looks at Kentucky’s Packhorse Library of the 1940s, which saw library books and newspapers distributed to hard-up families in rural Kentucky.


The deliveries were largely carried out by women on horseback, and were part of the state’s efforts to help families suffering the effects of the Great Depression (https://bit.ly/42t5N4V). With many libraries today operating food banks and warm banks to help with the cost of living crisis, it is a


timely reminder that public libraries have always had a social context to their work.


The second story from Atlas Obscura is about hidden apartments at some of New York’sl ibraries. The apartments are no longer used, but were created when New York’s Carnegie libraries were built as a place for library custodians and their families to stay and look after the buildings after closing time. The article (https://bit.ly/3AZ5XoE) takes a look at some of the 13 remaining apartments and says: “When these libraries were built, about a century ago, they needed people to take care of them. Andrew Carnegie had given New York $5.2 million, worth well over $100 million today, to create a city- wide system of library branches, and these buildings, the Carnegie libraries, were heated by coal. “Each had a custodian, who was tasked with keeping those fires burning and who lived in the library, often with his family. ‘The family mantra was: Don’t let that furnace go out,’ one woman who grew up in a library told the New York Times.” IP


INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 53


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