Tag: Central Library

I visited Hull central library yesterday and mentioned that they had a book sale on which started today. I told myself I wouldn’t go as I didn’t need any more books, but like some demented homing pigeon, I found myself there by two in the afternoon. To be fair, I’m surprised that I lasted so long.

I’m a little disappointed in the library service as well, as they were discarding books for £1 that had been in the collection for over 125 years. They were primarily from the music library where the librarian must have decided they didn’t need such heritage on their shelves, but it’s a loss to the collection that seems unnecessary for the small return they’d get. Most of the books were though more recent, but even so, I have no idea why so many are being discarded.

I promised myself that I’d only buy one book, even though I had a feeling some books were worth a fair chunk more than the £1 that was being charged. So, I got myself this, one of my favourite series of books and they’re challenging to find, although libraries usually have their local book. These aren’t easy to locate and it’d probably sell for £5 or more, but for the moment it can fit onto one of my book-shelves. I can find space.

A throng of people waited outside the library waiting for it to open, which isn’t surprising as the opening hours are rather limited and so there isn’t much time in the day to actually visit the library. The library’s relatively short opening hours can’t be a good investment for the future and I do wonder what Andrew Carnegie would think of this. The attendance at the library was also sadly relatively low, the main demand on the building seemed to be to use the computers.

One aside here, one customer was using the library as his computer at home had been performing a Windows Update for six days. I was going to intervene and suggest that he needed to give up with that, but he seemed content with the situation and was happy to be at the library, so I returned to thinking about how short the library’s opening hours are.

The outside of the original part of the library building which was built at the beginning of the twentieth century, although the bulk of the premises are now in a more modern extension which is from the 1960s. The internal signage is hopeless, but after meandering around the building I found the historical books that I had been seeking. The local history collection is disjointed, but sufficiently large in size.

All of those boxes are books that will be for sale from tomorrow, although just in case I end up buying some of them, I’ll stay away from that. They had the books out later on in the day and I’m bemused that they’re so keen to discard some of them, they look expensive titles and it’s hard to imagine why they’re suddenly surplus to requirements.

The library did though meet my essential requirements of being relatively quiet, feeling spacious, having table space and in stocking a satisfactory selection of books for my needs. Which is nice, because I live in Norwich and the library there is louder than a Wetherspoons and has fewer tables.