The Lean Fifties
The beginning of the 1950's saw celebrations to mark the centenary of the passing of the first Public Library Act of 1850, with a ceremony in August at the grave of Edward Edwards in Niton churchyard, a memorial service, and a garden party. But this nostalgia served only as a backcloth to the next five years of depressing cutbacks, closures, and lack of money.
In May, 1950 economies were sought by reducing the number of periodicals; and the request for an increased subscription to the National Central Library was turned down. A Margery Hume Memorial in Freshwater providing £5 a year for books over 10 years was gratefully accepted. Just £6,000 was spent on books in the year 1951/52, and by 1954/5 the library had reached the nadir of its fortunes, the expenditure of 10d.(4p) per head being the lowest of all of the 45 counties in the country. The purchase policy for this year prescribed the buying of only a limited number of "serious" non-fiction. More popular non-fiction was to be bought remaindered, while only "outstanding" novels would be added. No requested books would be bought, except those for serious study. As a further economy, half-day closing was begun at Ryde, Cowes and East Cowes, while in 1952/3 only two out of four staff vacancies were allowed to be filled, in accordance with the revised reduced establishment.
Not all closures were purely for economy. Apse Heath centre and Yarmouth sub-library closed in 1950. The new travelling library, however, took over these areas, as it also replaced the majority of village centres, leaving by 1951 centres only at Binstead, Brading, Brighstone, Havenstreet, Nettlestone, Northwood, St. Helens, Seaview and Wootton. More prosaic reasons caused Newport to close for a month and Bembridge for 20 days - they were being re-decorated.
Periods of shortage tend to attract custodial legislation, and the 16 Bye-laws and 36 Rules and Regulations reported in July, 1952 as having been approved by the Ministry of Education included such exhortations to propriety as:
3. Admission. No person shall be admitted who is disorderly, uncleanly, or in a state of intoxication.
34. Readers in possession of newspapers and other periodicals must be prepared to resign them to any other reader ... ten minutes after request has been made by the Librarian.
33. Any person who uses reading rooms for purposes of betting ... is liable to be prosecuted.
(Even children's reading outside libraries could not in that year escape scrutiny. In May the Education Committee examined, then asked the Teachers' Advisory Committee to consider "the possibility of any action upon the present publication of so many comics unsuitable for children.")
After a period of stringency on a reduced budget, there was a restoration in 1956/7 to a slightly more normal figure. Following a year when the Isle of Wight spent £3,183 on books - less than any other English county, total expenditure shot up in 56/7 by £3,000 to £22,000 - a considerable boost in the days when the average price of a book was 17/3hd. [about 86½p].
There was, nevertheless a reliance upon the book donations which readers were encouraged to make, almost reverent gratitude being expressed to them in successive quarterly reports to the Education Committee as lists of the names of benefactors were recorded.After January, 1956 the distinction between fiction and non-fiction tickets was abolished; but in April no action was taken on a recommendation freely to interchange library facilities between the County Library and Sandown/Shanklin Urban District Council Library in view of a previous rejection of the idea by the Urban District Council.By April, 1957 all branches were now equipped with fine boxes, which did away with cumbersome rolls of paper tickets, allowing the fines payer to drop the coins into a box with an observation slot.
The same design is in use today. Fines made a major contribution to the library income in 1956/7 of £22,548. 1957 was also the year when experiments were made in fitting plastic jackets to books for the first time.
The lack of adequate library premises caused concern throughout the year. The expiry of the lease on Pelham House, Bembridge in March, 1958 drew closer, and the small centres at Brading, St. Helens, Seaview, Binstead, Havenstreet and Wootton were reported as being inadequate. A decision to serve all these areas of the East Wight by the new travelling library was postponed because of financial restrictions and the forthcoming re-organisation of local government.
A short-term lease of Dennet Road premises was recommended as a temporary solution at Bembridge, but in the event the library moved to Manna Road in March, 1958. The County Librarian's annual report for 1956/7 bleakly described Newport Library as wearing "an un-inviting, old-fashioned institutional air."
1958 saw a slight change in committees, when in April a Library Further Education and Policy Sub-Committee of 14 Members was formed, reporting to the main Education Committee. At the start of the new committee's second year, it had before it the Roberts Report, a major national report on libraries. To its credit, the sub-committee took the recommendations quite seriously, particularly those relating to the minimum expenditure on books and standards of staffing, asking the Policy Sub-Committee to consider the implications.
In 1959, £1,210 was put into estimates to provide oil-fired heating at Newport branch and to convert the reading room into a children's library. The principle was also accepted that it would be necessary eventually to provide separate accommodation for library headquarters.
In the County Librarian's final annual report of the decade (1959/60), attention was drawn to a bequest from the will of the late Dr. Dockray, who had left to the County Council moneys from the Brigstocke Estate for the development of library services in Ryde during the next 5 years.
"It is a remarkable fact," Frederick Green also recorded, "that the Isle of Wight County Library has a greater ratio of full-time branch libraries to population than any other county library in England and Wales. The Island may be proud of having provided ... full-time service in all urban
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