BC in Malaysia

David Blackie's excellent blog has this post on the situation in Russia.

In the comments to this article, a reader has posted up a leaked internal memo from British Council Malaysia setting out the secret strategy for closing BC libraries in South Asia (apart from Burma) .

Email to staff
Dear Colleagues

This is to inform you about major changes in our library provision in KL next year and the impact on staff.

The British Council continuously reviews its services against demand and value for money as the world changes. As part of this we are reviewing library provision worldwide, as in many countries costs are going up, membership is falling and there are many other sources of books and information for people – public libraries, bookshops, internet. In countries where this is the case, we are redeploying our money into other activities – mainly regional projects – which can provide more impact for our target audiences.

In East Asia we will only continue with libraries for the general public in Burma. In other countries – including Malaysia – we will restrict provision of information services to members of our teaching centre. We need more discussions with staff and customers to work out exactly whether these services are just the current ones provided by our ELLZ or whether they will include some magazines and English readers, and how we best use the space released.

We will make an announcement for the public later this month and will not accept new members from the general public by the end of November. We will stop the service to the general public at a date to be fixed in April or May 2008.

We have explained to staff in the library that their jobs are unlikely to continue beyond next May and they have the option of taking a redundancy package or of applying for vacant jobs during the next six months. We currently have four vacancies at grades H and J and will provide coaching for library staff in applying for jobs and doing job interviews.

I would be grateful if you would not talk about this to the public until we make our public announcement. If you have any questions from the press at any time please refer them to Reezal Esa and do not answer them yourself.

We will be keeping you updated as we plan these changes in more detail. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to write or speak to me.

Best wishes

Gerry( Country Director BC Malaysia)