What is a library doing selling off books that are not surplus to requirements, but part of the superb collection of rare books built up by the founders of Cardiff's Free Library (pictured), John Ballinger and Ifano Jones. A collection that impressed Thomas Edward Ellis, MP and J. Vyrnwy Morgan.
Now, if this was just a city/town library in England, then the existence of a collection like this would be an oddity, no more. But this is the capital city of Wales! Cardiff needs a world-class library, not just a mediocre 'multimedia centre.'
A spokesman for Cardiff Library Servives talked about the proceeds of this cultural vandalism as preparing the way for a 'twenty-fist century' library. So the twenty-first century will not care about the records of the past, but try its best to forget it? 'Oh, brave new world that has such people in it.' If this really is the way of the new world, I might as well go and drown myself in Cardiff Bay.
