As I strolled out on Saturday morning I spied Crockatt and Powell booksellers open for business and attracting passers-by. The window display is chock-a-block with the latest literary fiction, as well as more idiosyncratic offerings. Walk inside and you are greeted by shelves carrying classics, a well-stocked children's section and a display where Frederic Jameson's The Modernist Papers nestles up to Jack Kerouac's On the Road.
The "shop" next door is, in theory, no less devoted to books, but the comparison with the trendy bookshop at its side shows the philistinism and bad faith eating away at our local libraries. At 2 o'clock the shutters are still down, but what strikes me most - as it has struck me for many months - is the sign across the length of the building that declares "Waterloo jobshop and library".
When the library opens at 2.30pm what is revealed is probably much the same as at many local libraries the length and breadth of the country: hard-working, informed staff and a book collection that looks like it is hanging on by the skin of its teeth. The fact that a good chunk of the library building is now occupied by the "jobshop" (and not forgetting the late Saturday opening) may have you grinding your teeth and spitting "no resources!". But while the lack of money undoubtedly plays a part, it is only a symptom, not the sickness at the heart of local library services.
The real damage has been done by the philistine conflation evident in "jobshop" and "library". In this mean-minded, narrow view of things, the plebs can't have culture without a good dollop of sobering instrumentalism. Sure, read some books if you want, but don't forget that life is about the nuts and bolts - getting a job, paying the bills, reading the latest council missives on housing or healthcare. The message is that libraries serve a functional purpose and ideas and imagination are secondary luxuries at best.
Wrong. Libraries should first and foremost be an open house for the intellect, where access to the best in culture and literature is truly democratic and where you forget the bare necessities of life.
What is being forgotten in our libraries is any notion of the best literature for all. The shelf of classics, well cared for, at the back of Waterloo library is proof that some still have faith. Yet what a tide there is to swim against. I bought Michel Houellebecq's much-praised Atomised for 10p from the withdrawn-for-sale shelves. Apparently books are withdrawn when new stock comes in - not enough shelf space.
So what stays and what goes? In a nutshell, the least popular books get the chop. Have you ever heard such a recipe for dumbing down? Surely there is only so much Maeve Binchy and Wilbur Smith our library shelves can hold. I am not knocking those books or the people who read them - what needs a good kick is the criminal abnegation of authority, the lack of balls to say "this is on the shelf because it is the best and it will stay there for the same reason".
But then books-for-books'-sake has become less and less the raison d'être for libraries. I should be pleased that Lambeth libraries are finalists in the Love Libraries awards. But the reason they made the final has nothing to do with valiantly clinging to that shelf of classics. Apparently it's because Lambeth libraries put on evening variety shows for young people. Fandabidozi - but what has turning the local library into the Kids from Fame cafeteria got to do with reading or books? And it's not just Lambeth - none of the Love Libraries finalists list "promoting the best and most challenging literature" among their achievements.
A reminder of why this matters walked in as I was about to leave. Barely up to my waist, carrying a blue plastic bag bulging with books to be returned, she excitedly asked where she can find more. She deserves the best - doesn't she?
