Barry Gibson: Is Kirklees’ library talk all about nothing?

THERE’S a lovely scene in an old Simpsons episode from the 1990s where the family visits Washington DC.

An establishing shot of the White House shows the world’s happiest protestors standing outside with placards saying things like “Everything’s fine” and “No problems here.”

I wonder if these are the sort of people whom Kirklees Council hopes to attract to the latest stage of the consultation on its plans for the area’s libraries.

You may recall that earlier this year officers came up with a money-saving proposal to withdraw paid staff from seven village libraries around Huddersfield.

Cue outrage in Slawit, Golcar, Lepton, Shepley, Honley, Denby Dale and Kirkheaton.

A petition signed by more than 8,000 people demanding that these village libraries are protected will be dropped onto the top table of the council chamber in Huddersfield Town Hall next month.

Kirklees, in one of its opaque non-announcement moods, has already dropped a hint the size of a blue whale that its proposal to target the rural population of Huddersfield is about to be consigned to the green bin of history.

So all’s well and good, then? Not quite.

That budget still needs to be cut and there are some officials in the council still determined to get their pound of flesh from the library service.

But instead of targeting just the Unlucky Seven rural centres, Kirklees is now consulting about all 26 libraries in the district from Marsden to Birstall.

The first open day took place in Kirkburton yesterday and it’s Skelmanthorpe’s turn this afternoon (2.30pm to 6.30pm, if you fancy).

But why should you take time out of your busy day to pop along to one of these consultation events? Let’s see if Kirklees can explain.

“Your Library, Your Voice” announces the A5 leaflet that you may have seen on the wall of your local library or adorning the noticeboard of some other council building.

The flyer goes on to explain that the council wants to continue to offer us things like “welcoming, helpful and expert staff”, “support for reading” and “access to IT”.

“Come along to one of our Open Days,” the leaflet advises. “Help us to shape the future of your Library and Information Service.”

So let me get this right. The council has worked out what we like about libraries – books, computers, librarians – and it wants to go on providing these things.

If that’s the case, then what is there to discuss? Why should anyone take the time to attend one of these open days?

The leaflet makes no mention of the possibility of cuts, no suggestion that spending is going to be slashed so you had better speak up now for whatever it is you would like to be spared the knife.

To go by the leaflet, all’s fine and dandy with libraries, but Kirklees would love you to come along for a chat anyway.

Why would that appeal to anyone except the fictional characters who wave placards saying “No problems here”?

If I was a cynical man – which I am – I would suggest the council has made its consultation leaflet deliberately vague to discourage residents from taking part in the process. It’s a lot easier to cut a service when you have “proof” that people don’t even care enough about it to attend an open day.

But wait, perhaps my world-weary scepticism was misplaced. I’d forgotten that the leaflet also includes a website address where you can get more information about the consultation.

So I toddled off to www.kirklees.gov.uk/yourlibrary to learn more.

And what did I find? Well, it was an environmentally-friendly webpage since it was essentially the leaflet recycled for the web.

To be fair, there was some new information on the webpage including the revelation that involvement in the open days would be taking place “face to face” (note to self: do not bring C3PO mask to consultation event).

But where are all these wonderful meetings taking place? The webpage doesn’t actually say, so it’s back to the leaflet for the nuts and bolts of the consultation.

There will be 26 open days, though not a single one is taking place in a library. Every consultation event will occur in something called a LIC, which the leaflet explains is a “library and information centre”.

Except it’s not, is it? You don’t say: “Oh, I’ve just remembered that my library and information centre book is due back today. I must get down to the library and information centre to return it. And I’d better take my library and information centre card with me to the library and information centre in case I want to get another library and information centre book out while I’m there.”

Not content with trying to alter the English language, Kirklees is determined to change the map of Huddersfield as well.

Next Friday, the leaflet informs us, there will be an open day at a LIC in somewhere called “Birkby/Fartown” followed three days later by a consultation event in a place known as “Rawthorpe Dalton.”

Checking the council’s website, I see that “Birkby and Fartown Library and Information Centre” is on Wasp Nest Road – a street which is in Fartown and, at the risk of applying logic to the situation, is therefore not in Birkby.

I hadn’t realised that the people of Birkby were such sensitive souls that the council didn’t have the heart to make clear to them that a trip to their local library involves an epic journey to the other side of Halifax Old Road.

Libraries should be named after the area in which they stand, not every neighbourhood they serve.

My local library is called Slaithwaite Library because it’s a library and it’s in Slaithwaite. It’s not called Slaithwaite Hill Top Crimble Lingards Linthwaite West Slaithwaite LIC.

I rather like having a library in the village and, if there have to be cuts, I’d rather like to have my say about what should get the knife and what should be spared.

But why, dear Kirklees, should I bother going down to “Slaithwaite LIC” on October 10 for a “face to face” meeting to discuss the fact that everything’s fine?