The 'D' word.

No, not that word.

Continuing the theme of getting back into the swing of things, it's that time of the year when the 'dissertation' word keeps popping up in social media feeds and in my own brain once in a while. So far I have completed the taught part of my post graduate degree, which if you study full time at my university lasts from September to May. This gets me a Post Graduate Diploma. To make it into a full Masters degree I have to spend my summer months writing a dissertation.

Now, after the pure hell that was April/May I seriously considered not completing it. Just skipping far, far away with my PGDip and never worrying about it again. However I have decided, against all my grumpy thoughts, to do it. Why? Three golden reasons:

One: I paid lots of shiny money to do this course. I'm getting all the teaching time/access to recourses with my money that I possibly can squeeze from this degree.

You know you're old when this makes you grumpy rather than happy. WHAT AM I PAYING FOR DANGNABBIT?!

(Picture Credit: Reddit)

Two: It's only 18,000 words. Which sounds like a lot, but it's only a similar length to my undergrad dissertation (even though that one was creative writing based and probably was a lot more fun than this one is going to be).

When you over use a thesaurus because you need so, so many words.

(Picture Credit: weknowmemes)

Three: I'm sort of a completest. I was the kid who had to get every single gem on each level of Spyro. I'm the adult who never (almost) gives up on a book, even if it's awful and boring, because I've started, so I MUST FINISH so I can give it a sucky one star review on Goodreads. So I feel like if I complete this degree to the end, I have completed it, very fully, all levels passed and there's no re-doing it. Inner satisfaction will reign.

Nothing felt more satisfying than this ever 

(Picture Credit: addictedgamewise)

I'll hopefully be writing about Mobile Libraries, conducting case study, interview and questionnaire research in order to see how they're utilized today, what communities they serve and review best practise suggestions from leading bodies with the aim of suggesting improvements to either the services or the advice given by leading authorities on the topic. A little side-aim is to help add to the literature justifying the need for Mobile Libraries, as all the articles recently seem to be about closures to services :(  All I need is consent from a few county councils to come and look at their vehicles and talk to their libraries, which so far is proving more difficult that I would have guessed. First, no-one will answer your emails, then you're passed from person to person which so far has left me with no-one willing to chat with me about it. I will persevere. I hope the librarian ideals of being helpful and sharing information will come out in some council authorities soon and they'll be willing to work with me. I'm a nice person, honestly! 

Wish me luck,
Over and out.

I'm back from hell and blogging again. My thoughts on the Manchester homeless protest...

It's been nearly five months since the last post. That's mainly down to the five months of being stuck in an endless cycle of assignment hell. I don't think I've ever been more stressed in my entire life. Never do I ever want to go through that ever again. Ever. My education journey ends when I submit my dissertation in September. But enough of that misery. Something that's very much on my radar right now is the homeless protest at Manchester Central Library.

Now, this is something that both the local and national press have picked up. Even if you don't really know why they're doing it, most in Manchester have now seen the cluster of tents pitched outside the central library building and the adjacent town hall. The council continues to battle to evict them as we speak, and continues to talk with them about their concerns. Their aim, so far as I can tell, is that the protesters want homelessness to be addressed properly by the council, after figures of homeless people shot up within a year: "Government figures show homelessness was up 79 per cent from 24 to 43 people in Manchester between 2013 and 2014" As of the 7th May the court allowed them to stay in their current location for at least another week, until their appeal hearing.

Picture from The Guardian

This is all very well, but what does it have to do with the library? Apart from the fact that their tents are pitched all around the entrance? The picture above shows the entrance to the library with tents right up to the front door under the arch. The library itself hadn't been under much fire from the protestors, as they were mainly focussing on the council, who occupy buildings next door to the library. But then this happened:

From The Guardian: “Unfortunately, the protesters had to be removed from central library on two occasions yesterday, after physically attempting to force their way into the building in order to occupy it, causing distress to children and families using the library as well as members of city council staff. Members of the group were arrested for public order offences and assaults on security staff,” he said in a statement.

The library had to close early and as a result homeless persons have been banned from the library, including use of their toilets. Now I have several thought on this.

1) Surely there must be some homeless people not involved with the protest who are now really pissed that a small few have restricted their privilege to what should be a free and open space for all. I'm not saying that the library should become a shelter for the homeless, but I often see homeless persons in the library simply reading the newspaper, or possibly just sitting somewhere safe for a few hours. I've never seen them be abusive or distressing to others. The actions of a few have decided the outcome for a large number of people.

2) A library is supposed to be a free and open space for all. Its one of the only places you can go without a reason to be there. you can just walk in and browse or sit. But when offering a service like this, it comes with a certain amount of trust on both sides. The public trusts the library to provide them with materials and services, the library trusts the public to use them well and fairly. With the storming of the library the balance shifted and there were consequences to this. What did the protestors expect would come of this?

3) One thing it did achieve was to give the protest more fuel, as in: "the council won't let us use the library, our rights are being infringed" etc. The action of barring the homeless from the library paints it in a really bad light, when they really only did what they could do ensure the safety of the other library users. How would they have looked if they continued to allow the group access, and set up camp in the foyer or if something more extreme happened, causing someone from either the protest group, the library/council or another member of the public to get hurt?

4) In the protestors defence, I do believe access to the library should be allowed by all. However after banning the homeless, the library could concentrate more on it's outreach provision. I wonder how much central library does in their provision of services to homeless shelters or temporary housing. This could be a way of appeasing both sides.

5) Homeless people can usually use libraries, provided they abide by the 'house rules' that apply to everyone e.g, not being aggressive or abusive to staff and other members. However many can not become members of the library, one reason for example, might be due to having no address. This is a tricky one. Libraries are underfunded, that's sort of a given right now. So if stock is lent out to the homeless and is either not returned, or returned damaged from rain or other factors that might arise from living outside and being on the move often, then the library will have to replace it. It might be considered a cost that can be avoided. However the library wants to have as many people as possible using the service, so providing materials to the homeless might be one way of boosting usage.

It's a difficult situation, however (and I may be shouted at for this) I believe the library's reaction to the storming was justified. I just think it could have been tailored: perhaps just banning the certain individuals involved in the protest. But overall I think they did what they thought was best for the majority of the library users. I think they need to talk on neutral ground with the protestors about library services for the homeless and re-evaluate what the library expects from it's users to keep the balance of trust. Otherwise this is going to go no-where, and the protestors will continue to use the banning as fuel for their campaign.

On a more light-hearted note, hopefully I'll be blogging more often now the bulk of my work is done, so keep an eye out for further posts. Sorry this was so long and serious!

Over and out.