Imperial War Museum Library to close - sign petition!

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I have been forwarded this message - sad news. Please sign the petition, particularly if you are in the UK.

Good evening everybody,
The Imperial War Museum has made a bizarre and, frankly, disgraceful decision to close its library and make all the library staff redundant as one of their proposed cuts to meet a £4M deficit.

If you feel it appropriate, I would ask you to support the petition below, in the hope this goes some way towards changing the mind of the management. They are doing their best to keep this out of the news at the moment (IWM staff have been threatened with instant dismissal if they talk to the press), although I note it has already reached The Bookseller website this afternoon.
The details are:
https://www.change.org/p/rt-hon-george-osborne-mp-urgently-reverse-current-and-future-cuts-to-the-uk-imperial-war-museum-s-annual-operating-grant-in-aid-so-that-it-can-maintain-services-and-preserve-its-standing-as-an-international-centre-for-study-research-and-education
Please feel free to circulate news of this petition. It's a deeply disappointing situation to find ourselves in.--
Best wishes,

Duncan

 

[Jemiba]

I've signed it, although I'm not in the UK. Such decisions are more, than just sad news. They show,
to my opinion, that for many decision makers "history" just means dates to be celebrated with lots of
speeches, or monuments, suitable for sightseeing tourists, but not collections of information. Maybe
because such collections sometimes show errors, that were made in the past ?

 

[Hood]

I'm agreed with Jemiba, this is beyond sad and makes me angry. It's seemingly ok to spend millions on a fancy redecoration at the IWM and the Great War centenary as a national remembrance event and within the same breath dismantle this vital source of knowledge for the public to access. No use having a research room with no library materials... No doubt the collection would be sold for a very tidy profit too.

Over 430 libraries (fixed and mobile) have closed, or passed to volunteer teams, across the UK since the start of 2014. Last week Liverpool saved its 11 out of its 18 libraries that were planned for closure.