Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

August 2004 Volume 2 (4)

President's perspective

Concerns worth sharing

Moira Methven wants to revive the letters' page in Information Scotland. So its over to you...

I wonder if a few years from now people will regret that they sent emails or fax messages rather than wrote letters. Such messages are generally discarded shortly after they are received and that is the end of it. It seems generally accepted that what comes by email or is sent by fax is of less value than something which comes through the post. Text, fax and email are all very convenient and fast, and much of it is justifiably binned, but it strikes me that some of it might have been worth keeping and may well have been had it been sent by post.

Would Pepys's diary have survived if it had been The blog of Samuel Pepys? Is it not just possible that the delightful 84 Charing Cross Road would never have existed if Helene Hanff and Marks and Co., Booksellers, had fired off text messages to each other instead of letters. And, taking things into the realm of fantasy, could we still be stirred by the words of The Declaration of Arbroath if it had originally been sent to Pope John 22nd as a fax message? The Fax of Arbroath somehow doesn't carry the same weight or power. I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at here.

We are unwittingly doing future generations a disservice for the sake of speed and convenience and risk eventually eradicating the craft of letter writing altogether. It would have been a profound loss if we had been unable to read the letters of Jane Austen to her brothers, Neil Gunn to Professor Nakamura, or the correspondence of Hugh MacDairmid or Oscar Wilde, because it's in these letters, anyone's letters, that the real person is revealed. I don't think biographies however good, and certainly not autobiographies, paint the full picture. We may not want to read the full warts and all account of a life but the natural inclination of anyone writing about themselves is inevitably less than objective.

Even factual accounts of the seemingly mundane can make fascinating reading with the passage of time. Our Local History Departments are regularly receiving donations of old bills, cash books and receipts which provide a valuable insight, not only into individual enterprises, but also the day-to-day lives of earlier generations. In the electronic age, will today's equivalent be preserved?

This seems an appropriate time to resurrect the letters to the editor page in Information Scotland. Our editor Debby Raven is all for it so please get writing. Over the past few months I have met and talked with quite a number of you and have become increasingly aware of your concerns on a number of issues facing our profession, including the ‘CILIP Framework of Qualifications', subscription rates, and the very future of the profession itself.

A letters page is a reflection of the issues of current debate and could help library managers keep in touch with grassroots thinking.

Few people read a magazine or newspaper cover to cover. It would take me a week to get through my Sunday paper if I tried, but most take a look at the letters page to see what people are thinking and talking about out there. So our own letters page in Information Scotland could develop into an interesting forum for discussion. Ironically of course, many letters will be sent in by email.

To set the ball rolling this month's issue has its first letter to the editor. It's from one of my colleagues, Shona Donaldson, and it's on a subject I think we will hear more about in the coming months as a growing number of publishers target the adult market with books originally intended for children. If you have a view on Shona's letter or on any other issue you would like to raise then please write to Debby by either putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard.

And so to some book recommendations. I've just read Andrew Greig's new one, In Another Light, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it's his best yet, although I did find the continuous switch of location with each chapter slightly annoying. It's a clever device, mind you, as it makes you want to keep reading to get back to the other part of the story. I've also recently finished Lian Hearn's Across the Nightingale Floor and thought it was an excellent read, and it is of course, just the kind of book Shona Donaldson is referring to. It's a good book. But is it a good children's book?

Keen to distract the audience during my Presidential address at Peebles, I enlisted the help of a local Dundee rapper, Mark Thomson, and commissioned a poem in Dundonese on the subject dearest to our collective hearts. It seemed to go down well, in spite of the potential language barrier, and so I thought I'd give Information Scotland readers the opportunity to enjoy Mark's work, although it does lose something when not being delivered by the man himself.

If you want to enjoy a video clip of Mark's performance, go to www.dundeecity.gov.uk

Stuck on Words

Wi met in the library as eh took shelter
eftir eh got caught in ah that ren,
its a mystery how wi met there
its a place that eh widna
normaly freqent.
So em standin there like a droond rat
an feelin like a rite prat
eh huvna been in here fir years
an em a wee but wet between the ears.
Yi see, em no great reader "O" books
but eh did hae a partial fancy
fir hur good looks.
Can i help you sir, shi says ti me,
would you like to book on,
one of our pc's.
Well as a matter "O" fact,
em no a member,
em still due fines fae 1979
in late november.
This is ah new fir me
eh jist come in fae aff the street
ti save misel fae gittin
drewkit an soaken weet.
Well why not kill an hour
al show you round
an you can weather
the shower.
So awah eh went,well eh wiz aboot
ti discover a world
that eh never kent.
Its no ah aboot readin books any mare,
thir wiz mithers an fathers,
bairns an boffins, an eh swear
ti god thir wiz some dodging
thir coffins.
But this lassie thats showen me roond she
wiz dodgin nothin, shi wiz
strollin an strutin
an far fae a lamb
dressed up as mutton.
So eftir shi showed me ah the
videos cds an dvds,
eh asked ir oot,
"O" shiz a stunner
is meh Louise.

By Mark Thomson (markthomson@hotmail.com).

Information Scotland Vol. 2 (4) August 2004

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Last updated: 14 September 2004