Tasmania is set for a name change.
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In the lead up to the state election, the Liberal party vowed as a re-election promise that it would change back LINCs to libraries.
This week it’s been revealed that the state budget will contain $250,000 to do just that.
Shakespeare famously wrote, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, and perhaps that’s true for Tasmania’s LINCs.
The official name change, from libraries to LINCs, took place in 2009 under then Labor premier David Bartlett.
It was changed to LINC (Learning and Information Network Centre) to reflect the changing breadth of services the institutions offered.
They are all encompassing hives of information – books, plus online access, decades of archive resources.
While on paper, it may have made sense, in reality the new branding never quite caught on.
Almost a decade later, Tasmanians have only just started to recognise the name LINC. After all it’s not uncommon to still hear Woolworths referred to as Roelf Vos’.
The Examiner’s readers were pleased to hear of the name changed, shocked at the cost, and still aghast that the name was altered in the first place.
For others, it was the first they’d heard of the word LINC at all.
While it will take some months for all the re-branding to be completed, and the word library to return to government vernacular, it has not changed the quality of the resource.
In Launceston, the LINC (soon to be library) is a treasure.
Renovations over the past five years have created spaces for all sorts of information seekers and book lovers.
It has dedicated staff to help the community research its family history, where they can pore over microfilm from newspapers, title deeds, and documents.
Young readers are introduced to the magic of books, through specialised children’s programs and events.
And classic bookworms are catered for with shelves upon shelves of every category.
Whatever name it is under, Tasmanians are lucky to have such free access to their LINCs.
Let’s just hope we are not faced with a government seeking to do another name change in 10 years’ time.
At $250,000 for a name change, it is a venture far too costly to repeat.