Sandy Row Library.
Belfast Library Board are "consulting" on the closure of the bijou and petite library on Sandy Row. As Baudelaire might say an oasis of culture in a desert of ennui. The thing is, if libraries keep closing it is only the children of the cogniscenti who will get the chance to read. "I made it into the generation that read - just" (Hans Koning). Thoreau wrote on reading. But it is the powerlessness of the public that is underlined. If apathy were a national sport Britain would easily get an olympic gold. Have we just become junk food munching chavs diverted by reality shows? There may be no more pounds,shillings and pence but are we a nation who know the price of everything but the value of nothing?