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Library Of Birmingham 2013

ellbrown said:
Can't you go up in person at the library and book an appointment?

If you don't want to wait over an hour on the phone?

Just that Internet communication is faster.

Might end up with a call centre in Scotland or India!


You only have Monday to Friday - 11am to 5pm to get them by phone. Good luck.
Click to expand...
I wish i was as mobile as you !! being as i am DISABLED i find the journey an arduous one, particularly with whats going on around Paradise Circus. we ALL should be able to contact VERBALLY with OUR library, paid for by the rate payers of Birmingham.
 
Of course, if you haven't got an Internet connection at home you can always use the library's facilities to contact them... Oh, sorry. No you can't cos the bloody place is closed! ;-)
 
ellbrown said:
Can't you go up in person at the library and book an appointment?

If you don't want to wait over an hour on the phone?

Just that Internet communication is faster.

Might end up with a call centre in Scotland or India!


You only have Monday to Friday - 11am to 5pm to get them by phone. Good luck.
Click to expand...
I wish i was as mobile as you !! being as i am DISABLED i find the journey an arduous one, particularly with whats going on around Paradise Circus. we ALL should be able to contact VERBALLY with OUR library, paid for by the rate payers of Birmingham.
 
Oisin said:
Of course, if you haven't got an Internet connection at home you can always use the library's facilities to contact them... Oh, sorry. No you can't cos the bloody place is closed! ;-)
Click to expand...
Oisin you are a star. Lol Brilliant
 
Happyguy said:
I wish i was as mobile as you !! being as i am DISABLED i find the journey an arduous one, particularly with whats going on around Paradise Circus. we ALL should be able to contact VERBALLY with OUR library, paid for by the rate payers of Birmingham.
Click to expand...

What kind of information do you need?

Sorry to hear that you are disabled. Do you use a wheelchair, or something similar?


Last week I noticed they had loads of books on WW2 and VE Day.

For me it's easier to find info via Wikipedia.

Obviously personal family info won't be on there (maybe on those ancestry websites, although heard you have to pay a subscription for those).
 
Just a note that you can still get a bus from outside Centenary Square on Broad Street (to Colmore Row). The bus stop is just before the Paradise Circus roadworks and still goes around onto Great Charles Street Queensway.

The equivalent bus stops from Colmore Row are still opposite (near the former Municipal bank and Arena Central site).

The buses are low floor (the driver might lower the floor or open a ramp if you need it), have space for one wheelchair and two buggies.
 
ellbrown said:
...The buses are low floor (the driver might lower the floor or open a ramp if you need it), have space for one wheelchair and two buggies.
Click to expand...
Ah, there is the rub. From my experience there are quite a few who wont or do so very reluctantly.
 
Hello, just to update on my situation with OUR library. I got through on the phone immediately on Friday morning ( 11.15 ) the guy i spoke to was excellent, he said i was the 2nd person he had spoken to that day who had the same experience as me. He said that the problem was obviously a technical one, with their phone not working correctly. He was able to put me through to The Wolfson Centre where two members of staff spoke to me and were able to sort out the files i wish to see ( an appointment was made for next week. So im just waiting for an email to come to confirm the details of the file. Alls well that ends well i guess !!!! pity about the phones though !!!!!!! .
 
They may have lost there phones the other week when that power cut happened, so have no idea how long it took to get everything back online (not been back inside since that happened) but have walked past it several times this week.

Also with all the cuts, they may have less staff now.
 
The varied correspondence regarding Birmingham New Library perhaps reflects the difference of opinion people have to this building and its use. There remains a groundswell of opposition to the present opening hours. I recollect two student sit ins since the new library hours were introduced and security are kept busy at every closing time. What other library in this Country has had such a reaction to the restrictive hours that have been introduced?

Ray Shill
 
i was at the library yesterday and still feel that the 5 automatic booths they have for the electoral rolls have to be the most unfriendly and time consuming contraptions i have ever seen...as said before on this thread only one booth can be opened at any one time so you have to wait for the person who is in a booth to find what they are looking for then get out so it can be closed and another one opened....to save waiting around to get into the booth i wanted what i did when i got in was to take out 6 e rolls books at a time..also the down escalator from the archives dept was not working...please note that the staff did not want these booths for the reasons i have stated they wanted the e roll books all out on open shelves as they have always been but had no say in the matter..

lyn
 
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Lyn
when I went there, that was what I did. half a dozen books to table at a time. One of the escalators wasn't working then either
 
mikejee said:
Lyn
when I went there, that was what I did. half a dozen books to table at a time. One of the escalators wasn't working then either
Click to expand...

great minds mike..thats the trick isnt it...grab what you can once you are in and run lol
 
The list of inconveniences continues to grow, I see. There are however many accessible sources, sadly with family research there are always those key items that have to be ordered and compared to the pre-2012 time when research was often straightforward and records accessible, the current situation is a lot harder. Where a day or two there might resolve an issue, that period has been extended to weeks or longer.

I have noted a few escalators out of use of late and the lifts can be crammed.

Ray Shill
 
The glass lift from level 4 to 7 wasn't working on one of my previous visits. So had to use the stairs.

Don't want to use the other lifts, they take ages to come (if you call them).
 
Last time I was there the escalators were temperamental, the lifts are hopeless. Stairs are all very well but if your knees don't work they aren't an option! I envy you ellbrown! (I like your photos too!)
I used to love looking round the shelves and delving into books but the electronic shelves put paid to that also.
rosie.
 
When there was that power cut (during the "incident"), the escalators stopped, and had to walk down them!


Hope that they fix the lifts and escalators.


The escalators there are not as bad as the new escalators at New Street Station that need fixing!


And they really need a back entrance on Cambridge Street (door is an emergency exit only I think).
 
I wouldn't be able to walk down an escalator, neither would my husband!
How would they manage wheelchairs and scooters?
(I haven't used the Station so I don't know how I'd cope.)
rosie.
 
Not sure how you would cope if you were going down the escalators, and the power cut out while you were half way down or up them! (with people in front or behind you).


Wheelchairs I would assume would get to use the lifts. And think the doors to the discovery terrace and secret garden have a button to press to open them.


Sometimes the revolving doors to Centenary Square stop while you are in the middle of them (only for a few seconds).
 
Coun Holbrook said Google’s arrival was the latest in a number of initiatives designed to make full use of the library, which sets the authority back £2 million a month.
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Noticed the above paragraph in the link article, is £2 million a month a normal cost for running a library ?
 
I imagine there are perfectly serviceable libraries that have been built for £2 million! However, I withhold judgement on this deal to see what happens during and after the 12 months contract has run.
 
Isn't this the problem with the Science Museum Curzon St that too much of it was turned over to commercialism (not that I have ever been there). I wonder how long it will be before they start closing departments of the library down and moving books out?
 
Phil,

You might have hit the nail on the head there. The books will go into an offsite storage facility, rather like that at Boston for the British Library, and you will have to give a week's notice to get access. We have to keep the originals, they're part of our heritage, but for goodness sake, scan them first and put them online so that the public has good access. But then there is resistance to that too, as evidenced by Staffordshire Record Office....."If we put them online, no one will come here any more and we will lose our jobs". Sorry employees, most of your cataloguers have been done away with already and with self-issuing machines, most of the counter staff have also gone. They're not in a reserved occupation, ask the former miners and shipbuilders, but time marches on and isn't it time to consider the public who pay for all this?

Maurice
 
Article in The Times newspaper today (13/8/2015) entitled "New Library can't afford to buy books" by Zachary Spiro. " A council that recently built a multi-million pound library has suspended purchases of new books, claiming that it can no longer afford them. Birmingham City Council has asked the public for book donations. A leaflet said: "Due to public savings cuts, we are no longer purchasing any new books or newspapers. Therefore we are looking for any books that have been published in the last 12 months to be donated to the library". The Library of Birmingham, which cost £183 million to build and was opened in 2013, has already cut its opening hours and staffing levels. The council's cabinet member for skills, learning and culture, said "We are continuing to look at how we secure the future for all our community libraries, but while that work is under way we need to make tough choices to save money. One of those choices is a pause on the book fund." Requests for new purchases will be examined on a case-by-case basis. Dave
 
Dave,

As I recollect, the same problem arose at Somerset Libraries about 20 years ago, though they hadn't just opened a new library, but they had just spent several million putting in a new computer system! When cuts are made, the first thing to suffer is the Book Fund. Since much of this is fiction, this doesn't personally worry me, though I am perturbed if local newspapers are abandoned as well as there will then be a break in the run. Stopping the purchase of the latest fiction largely affects the pensioners and those that can't afford to buy these books. Anyone else has to prioritise where they spend their money.

But it does make you wonder why such a large amount was spent on a new building and the public now have difficulty in accessing its contents.

Maurice
 
I gather (https://www.theguardian.com/books/c...-hit-birmingham-libraries-public-donate-books ) that this notice was not sent by the council, but by one of the libraries. It was probably to draw the public's attention to the matter, in case the council itself did not well advertise the book fund restrictions. Not that that makes it any better. As Maurice says, if newspapers are not purchased then it potentially means a gap in historical records in the future.
 
Seems to me they just stumble from one disaster to another. How long, I wonder, before all the books are removed and the building taken over for an alternative purpose.
 
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