PRIVATE EYE
Issue 1252
25 December - 7 January 2010
LIBRARY NEWS
Country singer Dolly Parton’s visit to launch a reading scheme in Rotherham made headlines in 2007 even though the event was marred somewhat by a row over a council meeting being postponed so that the bigwigs could hobnob with the celebrity. But how are things going at Rotherham’s Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which offers under-5s one free book a month?
To date the scheme has cost £277,000. It was envisaged that this would be met by donations from individuals and community groups and Rotherham council even invited staff to have regular deductions taken from their wages. But donations have stopped at £1,880 and only 20 employees signed up to have their pay docked.
Thus the vast bulk of the cost has been met by Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber of Commerce and from the Local Authority Business Growth Incentives pot. Locals want to know why public money is being spent on Dolly’s project when free books were already available from the town’s libraries - a service that could be severely restricted when the cash-strapped council sets its budget in the new year.
Still, none of that stopped Rotherham council leader Roger Stone from enjoying a trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, earlier this year to “provide inspiring remarks about the replication of the Imagination Library in the UK”.
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