Tim Coates, former ceo, Waterstones, is a consultant in publishing and library industries in the US and Europe. He is the author of 'The Freckle Report 2021'
Joined May 2014
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Tim Coates retweeted
Completely right - not just one, but several senior civil servants. This is very serious and urgent
The eternal cry is "we don't provide enough money for decent public services" - but the reality is that we do have plenty of money, but, by habit and practice, it goes to the wrong people. And it is in the interests of those people to cry "we don't provide enough money ,,,etc"
Tim Coates retweeted
For that reason I would never, without interrogation, believe a council, a library service or a trades union who told me they did not have sufficient money to operate a decent service. It might be true - but it most probably isn't.
In the very first project I undertook for a large, wealthy council, I found two whole departments doing exactly what the council was paying an outside contractor to do. There was £2m of annual 'waste'. When I said it, no one disagreed, but I was told to keep quiet.
What that council wanted me to say was that central government should give them more money - but that would have been complete nonsense.
Tim Coates retweeted
They know - because they learn - that for many customers, the chat with a shop person is the only conversation that person may have that day - so they try hard
Tim Coates retweeted
One ought to have heartfelt affection for everyone who works in shops, or cafes or restaurants and other similar - it is exhausting work and poorly paid - and actually very tiring trying always to be nice to customers who feel they are allowed to be grumpy
Stumbling around in interesting biographies, I just came across this, from the Athenaeum magazine of May 11, 1843:
"The publishing season has commenced with what looks like unusual activity after the stagnant state into which the print trade had subsided" ...
This is all coming from the caring civil service who looked after us so diligently during covid
And a minister who likes being on the news - and feels a bit deprived of the opportunity
I laughed yesterday when someone said 'you will find the books by Sally Rooney next to those by Salman Rushdie'. No, you won't. Between the two authors lie works by several authors, not least many shelves carrying the works of Ms Rowling.
Can writing be beautiful? I am reading two biographies of the same person. They both impart the same information. One is poetry that is irresistible. The other is an exercise in academic sociology verging on torture. Yes, writing can be beautiful.
Tim Coates retweeted
In the past ten years American public libraries have removed and not replaced 160 million books ( that’s the figure from the Institute of Museums and Library services in Washington)
Public library websites generally have 2 or 3 separate catalogues. One for their print collection and the others for digital. We are trying to arrange that they have one catalogue for everything, like Amazon, with every version of every title whether in their collection or not
This work is alongside serious plans to increase their holdings (and the quality of them) of print and physical material on the shelves of each branch library. This project is called 'every shelf, every day'. Libraries are welcome to join.
It is very hard to enthuse about large public library buildings of the last 70 years. Mostly, they are an indulgent cross between an airport terminal, a hospital A&E department and a malfunctioning toaster. Think of Whitechapel, Birmingham, Peckham, Swiss Cottage and the rest
Not only were all of those planned without thinking what collections they might hold, and how people would read them, but they took vast amounts of (now lost) public money without proper preparation for how they would be run in the future.