Cardiff libraries suffer as new city centre library opens

A decline in the number of Cardiff residents using their local libraries was discussed by councillors yesterday.

Local facilities have been criticised as being below the Welsh average in comparison to the new £18.5m city centre library which opened in March 2009.

There has also been a 15% decline in spending on new books, figures from the Welsh public library standards and performance indicators 2009/10 revealed, due to cuts in library funding since the economic downturn began.

The reasoning behind the decrease in new acquisition of books is due to libraries such as Canton, Ely and Cathays (currently under refurbishment) using part of the budget to upgrade the facilities of the libraries by enabling wi-fi in each of the libraries.

Speaking at the meeting yesterday, Caerau Councillor Jacqui Gasson argued

"if we are to get young people back into libraries we need to provide state of the art equipment. We need to get more schools involved and get children more excited about reading."


Currently 79,518 individuals borrowed an item within the last year according to the CIPFA definition within Cardiff due to the impact of the new Cardiff central library representing 25% of the total population.

Cardiff has 280 public work stations across all libraries; however the age of the PCs has been subject to great scrutiny for poor performance and lacklustre internet connections. £70,000 of capital funding has been identified to replace and upgrade the facilities over two years.

The council is strongly backing libraries to get behind the introduction of MP3 and ipod docking terminals to allow the introduction of E-books which it believes could appeal to a wider market and be a cheaper alternative in this tough economic climate.

Technology or Welsh?

In an era when technological advancements have never been more prominent in libraries Rhiwbina Councillor Adrian Robson of the economy and culture scrutiny committee raised a point which revealed only 41% of public access PCs were taken up by users. Robson argued that the valuable space taken up by the computers could be replaced with bi-lingual classes for Welsh classes to library visitors."

Cardiff Libraries business plan has outlined regeneration for the city's libraries to build on the opening of the new central library.

Improvements to the library network were also announced, commencing the modernisation of Radyr Library, the upgrade of Cathays library and exploring the avenues of hiring more staff per library (some which currently only have two members of staff on any given day) to allow more flexible opening hours which benefit the public.