WATCH THE NEW VIDEO DEDICATION TO CARDIFF COUNCIL HERE! Following our correspondent's story yesterday highlighting the LibDem/Plaid Coalition nefarious plan to auction of our city's cultural treasures to the highest bidder on the sly, we have been bombarded with emails from concerned citizens. We will post up contact details for the Cardiff Heritage Friends campaign shortly.
Now bombard local politicians with letters demanding that our cultural heritage be saved. The more letters, emails, etc, that can be sent to the Council's Executive (and to your local ward councillors and your Assembly Member and MP), the better. One thing to request specifically is that the matter be put on the agenda of the next Council Executive meeting. Also the more letters to the press and postings on websites, the better!
The email address for Cllr Nigel Howells, the Executive Member for Sport , Leisure and Culture (and therefore the councillor responsible for libraries) is NHowells@cardiff.gov.uk
The report recommending the sale of the collections is published on the Council’s website. The report is entitled - we kid you not - ‘Disposal of Surplus [sic] Library Stock’. Cardiff Council have made Farenheit 451 a reality!
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Letter to the Western Mail
Sep 13 2008
City’s book heritage is being squandered
SIR – The reports in the Western Mail (September 3) of the decision to sell a part of Cardiff Library’s collection of valuable early volumes, among them some of specific interest to Wales in the fields of historiography, cartography, topography and literature, is a matter of deep concern and dismay.
It is inconceivable that the capital city’s historic library should take such a course of action – in a city that is home to a renowned university that boasts a Nobel scholar, a major university teaching hospital, and a national museum; a city that not long ago sought the title of European City of Culture.
One cannot imagine a major library institution in Dublin, Edinburgh or London treating such treasures in its collections as disposable assets.
Clearly the people who took the decision to take this course of action are fully aware of the market price of the volumes but, alas, they seem to know little of their value.
They also seem to be unaware that their role is surely that of careful custodians of the collection and not irresponsible owners.
We, the undersigned, urge the executive committee of Cardiff council to take immediate steps to prevent this action which so impoverishes our capital and country’s cultural assets and so demeans the status of its major library institution.
Gwynedd O. Pierce
formerly of the School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University and President of the Glamorgan History Society
EMERITUS PROFESSOR J GWYNFOR JONES
Formerly of the School of History & Archaeology, Cardiff University
EMERITUS PROFESSOR GLYN E JONES
Formerly of the School of Welsh, Cardiff University
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