Mechanics Worldwide 2009 conference diary

Saturday 26th September 2009

Geoffrey Forster, Chairman of the Association of Independent Libraries, cuts a birthday cake in honour of the Association's 20th birthday, and the 150th anniversay of the publication of Samuel Smiles' book 'Self Help'.

Today was a business day with a full list of speakers, as the Association of Independent Libraries held its Annual General Meeting as an integral part of the conference proceedings.

Dr Robert Anderson

Jim Lowden

Dr Michael Powell

Peter Hoare

AIL Chairman Geoffrey Forster, of the Leeds LIbrary, welcomed delegates before handing over to AIL President, Dr Robert Anderson, who gave the President's Address. In preparation for the conference Dr Anderson had done a survey of libraries in places called 'Bath', discovering, among others, examples in Maine and Ontario, where the Bath village library building is named 'Layer Cake Hall' due to its resemblance to the said item of bakery (to see it, click here). He praised the heterogeneous character of independent libraries and their membership, citing examples from the London Library, with its membership of 8,500 and 1 million books, to smaller organisations such as the Bradford Mechanics Institute with 300 members and 14,000 volumes, but also warned that the movement was more fragile than its members might like to think.

Dr Anderson then handed over to Jim Lowden of Melbourne, who told of a massive revitalisation of the Mechanics Institute movement in Australia, with over 500 examples operating in Victoria alone. However he reported that things aren't all positive; the library at Beechworth, an historic mining town in north-east Victoria, is faced with closure, and a petition (which delegates were invited to sign) is being raised.

The next speaker was Dr Michael Powell, Librarian of Chetham's Library in Manchester. In his paper, A Library for the literate: a Museum for the masses, he told of a very different establishment from Beechworth's, established by the merchant Humphrey Chetham for the 'Cure of poverty by cure of ignorance'.

Housed in a grand building and catalogued in Latin, Chetam's library was uncompromising in its dedication to scholarship, but acquired, almost against its will, a collection of donated objects which attracted the interest of the less scholarly. Attempts to accommodate the library and collection together included having a stuffed aligator hanging from a 12-foot bookcase, and the situation was finally resolved by selling off the collection in the 1870s. Dr Powell said the experience stood as a reminder of the difficulties that can arise when an organisation attempts to fulfill a dual purpose.

The final paper of the morning was from Peter Hoare, former Chair of the Historic Libraries Forum, who spoke on Mechanics, Artisans, Operatives, Labourers and others. He told the story of 19th Century library provision in the English county of Nottinghamshire, and of the rivalry that broke out when the 'Operatives', unhappy with the middle-class philanthropy (and censorship) of the Mechanics Institutes, formed their own breakway libraries, mostly operating out of pubs and unafraid to stock popular fiction as well as books which courted religious and political controversy.

In the end it was the Operatives' libraries which died out (sadly, most of the pubs died too), but they struck an important blow for the rights of working people to read whatever they liked, not just what their 'betters' thought fit for them.

Next the UK's Association of Independent Libraries held its 20th AGM (a report of this will appear on the AIL's website at www.independentlibraries.co.uk). After lunch (a particularly fine buffet served by volunteers from the BRLSI), delegates returned to the Elwin Room for the afternoon's papers - and a change of schedule.

Geoffrey Forster

Roger Brien

John Killen

The afternoon's first speaker was AIL President Dr Robert Anderson, in his capacity as Vice-President of Clare Hall, Cambridge, with a paper entitled Where are the Mechanics Museums? Mostly gone was the answer, with the expense of maintaining them a major factor and municipal museums the main recipients of dispersed collections. Some still survive though, including one in the charmingly-named New Harmony, Indiana, the Wagner Institute in Philadelphia - and the Beechworth in Victoria, which once staged a lecture on The Geology of the Beginning which ran over two days.

The AIL's newly re-elected Chairman, Geoffrey Forster, came next with Samuel Smiles in Leeds. Although Scottish by birth, Smiles came to prominence (and wrote Self Help) in the Yorkshire city of Leeds, where he became Editor of the Leeds Times in 1838. Mid-life career changes were clearly an option in those days, as Smiles had, in fact, trained as a doctor (a profession to which he later returned, although his medical skills were not widely admired) and also became Secretary to the Leeds and Thirsk Railway. More importantly, he was a great supporter of electoral reform, public libraries and Mechanics Institutes. His death in 1904 prompted extensive coverage in Leeds newspapers (even though he lived in London by then) and he's commemorated by two plaques in the city.

Next came the change of schedule; since some delegates needed to get away early on Monday afternoon, it was felt best to bring forward the Panel Discussion on the future of Independent LIbraries, and the important decision of where to hold fhe next Worldwide Conference. No concrete decisions were made, but there was support for the idea of having the next conference in three years' time rather than five, and for holding it in North America, with Philadelphia emerging as a strong contender.

Tea was then serrved, with authentic Bath Buns and two special birthday cakes (for the AIL and Self Help) made by Alan Snow, whose remarkable range of achievements include winning a New York Times award for best children's illustrated book and working for Wallace and Gromit producers Aardman Animations. Delegates judged the cake his finest achievement yet, with many asking for recipes.

Back in the Elwin room, Roger Brien presented The Devon & Exeter Institution: Past Present & Future. Roger is the Librarian at the 'DEI', and gave an illustrated history of an Institution which has adapted from its early days, when the South-West England city of Exeter's main industry (production of serge cloth) was in ruins, through its shocking appointment of a female librarian (members ended up begging her to stay when she decided, after 11 years, to move on), to its modern incarnation in partnership with Exeter University, complete with visitor-attracting coffee shop (other Institutions take note). Roger, incidentally, claims to have been named by a lending library - the management of Boots, where his father and mother worked, forbade them to call him 'Timothy' because of the name's associations with rivals Tomothy White's.

Saturday's final speaker was John Killen, Librarian at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast. The oldest library in the city (founded in 1788), and the last surviving subscription library in Northern Ireland, Linen Hall has remained more prominent in the city's cultural life than the municipal library which, in other places, would typically have eclipsed it by now. As well as the controversies typically faced by 19th century libraries (fiction and poetry found disfavour with the Clergy, who eventually sold the building's freehold to the library in order to distance themselves from it), Linen Hall has lived through two centuries of civil unrest in the Six Counties. It's responded by amassing the only complete collection of the printed output of the late 20th century Troubles, with over 300,000 items from books to pamphlets and posters representing all sides in the conflict.

Before closing, Robert Anderson announced that delegates had raised £120 for the BRLSI's Adopt a Book scheme, which restores volumes from the Institution's library. BRLSI Trustee Dr Evelyn Lewis, who runs the scheme, thanked delegates for their support, and invited them to sign a plate which will be inserted in the restored volume.

It had been a full, and very rewarding, day. Sunday is a rest day (with some delegates taking a coach trip to Salisbury and Stonehenge). The conference reaches its final day on Monday, with another full schedule.

The Conference Panel, from left: Dr Peter Ford, Dr Robert Anderson, Jim Lowden, Geoffrey Forster.