The imminent closure of the British Council KL library ends an important chapter in the history of its existence in the Klang Valley, writes FRANCIS DASS.

BOOKS have been flying off the shelves lately at the British Council in Kuala Lumpur. No, it’s not caused by the release of yet another J.K. Rowling book.

It is occasioned by a rather sad development actually — British Council KL (BCKL) is closing its library section on June 1.

British Council Malaysia director Gerry Liston said only BCKL is affected by the Council’s move.

(BC Penang, which has a small library, is not affected while the centres in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, and Kuching, Sarawak, do not have a functioning library.)
“All the books that we don’t need in the BCKL library will go to Perpustakaan Negeri Selangor (Selangor State library) and Perpustakaan DBKL,” said Liston.

The only books that will remain at BCKL will be the children’s books. These will be kept at the English Language Learning Zone for the use of “families whose children are studying English with us”.

One of the main factors that has led to the BCKL closing its library is that Klang Valley now has many public libraries as well as large book shops that are well stocked. Of course, there’s also the all-pervading Internet.

Operating cost is also right up there among the reasons for the library’s closure.

“It costs us £100,000 (RM700,000) a year to run this library. This money comes from a British government grant,” Liston explained.

The fund is spent managing the library — buying new books, subscribing to periodicals online, staffing needs (handling enquiries and handling of books, keeping the place tidy, for example).

According to Liston, there is a “lot of other stuff we can do with the money to benefit a larger number of people, rather than running a library”.

The space cleared by the library (about 80 square metres) could either be turned into two additional classrooms or a display area. It is a decision that will only be arrived at after the architect has presented BC with both schematic options.

Every year, about 10,000 students sign up for BC’s English language courses.

On an average day, it looks like a veritable United Nations. It is believed people from as many as 40 nationalities learn English at BCKL!

“The demand to learn English and teach it is going up and we are trying to respond to it,” Liston admitted.

If in the early days British Council was synonymous with recruiting students to study in the United Kingdom, now it is more aggressive in its push to develop partnerships between UK and Malaysian institutions and encouraging best practices in teaching and research between the two nations.

“We work with the Education Ministry, conducting workshops on teaching literature and training teacher-trainers on Maths, Science and English. Our latest pilot programme is on teaming up teachers who teach Science and English,” he added.

When Liston was in the country in 1970, teaching Physics at Maktab Teknik Jalan Gurney, Kuala Lumpur, he observed that the British Council library was an important centre to provide access to books. It also doubled up as a centre of knowledge for school-going children in Kuala Lumpur as well as the literary and art circles in the Klang Valley.

The British Council is reported to have opened its doors in Malaysia in Jalan Tanglin in 1947 before moving to its famous Bukit Aman premises on May 16 in 1956.

From its longstanding location in Bukit Aman, BCKL moved to Wisma Selangor Dredging in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 11 in 2002.

(The former Bukit Aman BC premises has been bought over by the police force, and it is expected to be turned into a training centre.)

Is the closing of the library a global trend for British Council then?

“There are relatively few places where we run libraries,” said Liston, explaining that developing countries such as Myanmar still has a great need for a large-scale physical library facility.

With a presence in Malaysia that goes back 61 years, BC continues to maintain facilities in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. Altogether, there are 130 staff in the council’s employ at present.

The UK magazines that are always made available to readers at BCKL will remain part of the centre’s services till end of the year.