@coates_tim

Tim Coates, former ceo, Waterstones, is a consultant in publishing and library industries in the US and Europe. He is the author of 'The Freckle Report 2021'

Joined May 2014
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  • Followers462
391Media
Tim Coates retweeted
Tim Coates@coates_tim22h
Replying to @Sillyshib
Completely right - not just one, but several senior civil servants. This is very serious and urgent
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The eternal cry is "we don't provide enough money for decent public services" - but the reality is that we do have plenty of money, but, by habit and practice, it goes to the wrong people. And it is in the interests of those people to cry "we don't provide enough money ,,,etc"
Tim Coates@coates_timOct 24
Replying to @coates_tim
What that council wanted me to say was that central government should give them more money - but that would have been complete nonsense.
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Tim Coates retweeted
Tim Coates@coates_timOct 24
For that reason I would never, without interrogation, believe a council, a library service or a trades union who told me they did not have sufficient money to operate a decent service. It might be true - but it most probably isn't.
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In the very first project I undertook for a large, wealthy council, I found two whole departments doing exactly what the council was paying an outside contractor to do. There was 拢2m of annual 'waste'. When I said it, no one disagreed, but I was told to keep quiet.
Tim Coates@coates_timOct 24
Replying to @AmandaPCraig
For 30 or more years all local government operators (councillors and officers) have regarded their responsibility as that of employers. They don鈥檛 make people redundant. That began to change in 2010 but generations of managers were brought up in that mindset . It鈥檚 embedded
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What that council wanted me to say was that central government should give them more money - but that would have been complete nonsense.
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For that reason I would never, without interrogation, believe a council, a library service or a trades union who told me they did not have sufficient money to operate a decent service. It might be true - but it most probably isn't.
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Tim Coates retweeted
Tim Coates@coates_timOct 24
Replying to @coates_tim @MichaelLCrick
They know - because they learn - that for many customers, the chat with a shop person is the only conversation that person may have that day - so they try hard
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Tim Coates retweeted
Tim Coates@coates_timOct 24
Replying to @MichaelLCrick
One ought to have heartfelt affection for everyone who works in shops, or cafes or restaurants and other similar - it is exhausting work and poorly paid - and actually very tiring trying always to be nice to customers who feel they are allowed to be grumpy
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Stumbling around in interesting biographies, I just came across this, from the Athenaeum magazine of May 11, 1843: "The publishing season has commenced with what looks like unusual activity after the stagnant state into which the print trade had subsided" ...
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From the outside one might think that the political world of 200 years ago would be much easier to cope with than current confusions. But it's not! By a long way.
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This is all coming from the caring civil service who looked after us so diligently during covid And a minister who likes being on the news - and feels a bit deprived of the opportunity
Alexandra Wilson@amwilson_operaOct 23
Replying to @zatzi
What the hell is a wind-up radio anyway?
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I laughed yesterday when someone said 'you will find the books by Sally Rooney next to those by Salman Rushdie'. No, you won't. Between the two authors lie works by several authors, not least many shelves carrying the works of Ms Rowling.
Tim Coates@coates_timOct 21
Replying to @suladoyle
Anyhow - the books are still around - like yesterday ....
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Can writing be beautiful? I am reading two biographies of the same person. They both impart the same information. One is poetry that is irresistible. The other is an exercise in academic sociology verging on torture. Yes, writing can be beautiful.
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Tim Coates retweeted
Tim Coates@coates_timOct 21
Replying to @MargoGontar @EHChalus
In the past ten years American public libraries have removed and not replaced 160 million books ( that鈥檚 the figure from the Institute of Museums and Library services in Washington)
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Public library websites generally have 2 or 3 separate catalogues. One for their print collection and the others for digital. We are trying to arrange that they have one catalogue for everything, like Amazon, with every version of every title whether in their collection or not
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This is not a 'unified' catalogue, in the sense that librarians have traditionally intended. Any branch library can offer this, without dependence on other libraries. It is using standard book industry methods which are available.
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This work is alongside serious plans to increase their holdings (and the quality of them) of print and physical material on the shelves of each branch library. This project is called 'every shelf, every day'. Libraries are welcome to join.
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It is very hard to enthuse about large public library buildings of the last 70 years. Mostly, they are an indulgent cross between an airport terminal, a hospital A&E department and a malfunctioning toaster. Think of Whitechapel, Birmingham, Peckham, Swiss Cottage and the rest
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Not only were all of those planned without thinking what collections they might hold, and how people would read them, but they took vast amounts of (now lost) public money without proper preparation for how they would be run in the future.
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We have had to watch with real horror how public officers rejoiced, not in spending wisely, but in spending as much as they could.
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