Libraries are beginning the apartheid practices of excluding men. Libraries do this by having women only library tables, or women only library days. However these services are paid for by revenues that we all pay for. In Leicester, the County Council is being legally challenged over this issue, and taken to court. The council will be contesting this issue in court so demonstrating a deliberate will to impose this discrimination.
Libraries are staffed mainly by women and therefore there is an automatic tendency to stock information that favours women. As an example the Cambridge main library information service has computer searches giving details of local groups. Entering the key word ‘women’ gave about 50 references, typing in ‘men’ gave 0 references. The library acted swiftly to correct this obvious gender imbalance. A second example was that the library had a ‘women’s issues’ shelf but no ‘men’s issues’ shelf. Again the library acted swiftly to correct this imbalance and with the help of donated books a men’s shelf was soon available. This suggests that there was no real intentional bias and that maybe libraries are ‘demand-led’.