About Perkins
September 1, 2010
Letter to Leaders of London councils
This letter was sent to most of the leaders of the London councils.
Dear Councillor
LLL is the representative body for public library user groups across the whole of London . As chair of LLL I am writing to you, as Leader of your council, in the matter of the forthcoming budget round.
Everybody recognises that councils have enormously difficult tasks in facing the budget pressures that arise from the national need to reduce the deficit of public expenditure over income. If proper priorities are established then the public library service makes no special pleading other than that which it merits by value of the service it provides to individuals and groups in communities. We believe that such value can be improved and have published a charter for how to do that, which I have attached. We look for and request your support and that of your council for the articles of that charter.
In the pursuit of the reduction of costs I want to make some specific requests, which are these
1. Please do not close libraries, reduce book funds or opening hours in community libraries, nor reduce the hours of front line library assistants
2. Please do not approve plans which will rely on untried volunteer schemes to operate the core work of the library service. There are none that are proven to be reliable.
3. Instead please look diligently for savings that can be made in the following areas in your own library service
- Bibliographic and cataloguing services, which nowadays can be provided free by suppliers
- Internal storage and stock distribution within the council when it can be provided at nil or reduced cost by suppliers
- Excessive senior and middle internal management costs in the library service
- Excessive administrative and office activities in the library service, of those not actually working permananently on opening hours rotas of libraries
- Library overhead and associated council overhead costs of any kind.
- Council support services
- Systems development work
4. Please examine these matters thoroughly within the activities of your own council before participating in schemes to share work with other councils. It is our belief that the removal of most of these activities I have listed will have little impact on the quality of service to the public and that they will yield savings far in excess of the targets that are needed and will indeed allow funds to be allocated to make improvements to front line services .
In addition to these requests, which we are making of each individual council, we make the further requests of all the London Boroughs collectively
1. Please adopt as a matter of urgency, standard and identical specifications for physical processing of library materials, systems and data interchange so that there is no longer a need for individual libraries or councils to operate or manage their own specifications for any of these things.
2. Please stop replicating further activities in councils which are of no benefit to the service given in individual libraries to the public. We believe that across London £50m per annum is wasted on needless library activity, which funds should be being used to make improvements
I request that you put both the matter of our Charter and our priorities for savings in front of your council and adopt these measures as soon as possible.
I would be grateful if you could arrange for this email to be acknowledged.
With kindest regards.
Tim Coates
Chair LLL.
Continue reading "Letter to Leaders of London councils"
Posted by Perkins at 8:15 AM | Comments (3)
Comments
Posted by: A Loughton Library User at September 1, 2010 11:55 AM
Very happy and, of course, keen to work with librarians to save and improve the public library service.
Posted by: perkins at September 1, 2010 12:54 PM
Surely the real question is "Are the Librarians prepared to listen to and work with the library users to save and improve libraries?"
Posted by: Martyn at September 2, 2010 7:07 PM
August 29, 2010
Hung up on buildings
It was interesting that Ed Vaizey said "I hope we don't get hung up on buildings" when he talked to the press about public libraries.
Library buildings have been absent from much of the debate about public libraries over the past ten years. Continual attempts to persuade themselves, if not the public, that the public library service now takes place online have pervaded the chat rooms of the library profession. They almost seem to forget that for a library to make a contribution to the local community, it has to have a building and that building has to be agreeable, well-stocked, welcoming and open,
The state of library buildings was absent from the all the DCMS/MLA/Audit Commission inititiatives to create standards and measures for public libraries until the Kaufman Select committee eventually drew attention to the omission. Nothing was said about them in the recent modernisation review. It is hard to understand why: any retailer with 3,000 buildings acquired over a long period, would regard them as a most important asset.
The agenda of 'co-location', which means trying to save money by putting council services into the same building, assumes four things that are rarely analysed: firstly that library buildings are generally expensive; secondly that colocated services will be in cheaper premises; thirdly that the capital costs required to make the move are freely available and fourthly that the resulting library will be as good or better than the old one in terms of its comprehensiveness and efficiency for those using it. All those factors might work in favour of a move, but they equally well might not, and inituitively one is doubtful about all of them without some persuasive evidence.
Many public library buildings are freeholds that were acquired years ago and are very cheap indeed. The property bill for libraries is far less than it would be for any retailer trying to set up the same kind of operation now.
The current argument about whether Hammersmith and Fulham council should close Baron's Court library has made me reflect on a number of these things.
I confess I haven't been in it for four years and I hope it has improved a lot since then because when I went to see it it was truly one of the worst anything I had ever seen-- not just a bad library, but a place from the darker pages of the Inferno. It was filthy, the shelves were empty, the lights were dim and the staff were horrid. I was there just before lunchtime on a wet cold day when the brave residents who had come to use it were turned out on to the streets so that the four members of staff present could have their lunch in peace. It can only have got better since then.
Now those same residents are protesting in large numbers that the council are going to close it. They don't want to be forced to have to journey either to Hammersmith or Kensington to use a local library.
It is a fairly modern building which has been allowed to fall by previous council administrations to ruin. It is perfectly large enough and in an accessible location in a quietly well educated part of London. One would have thought a clever architect and designer could - without excessive expense at all- make it really quite smart and useful. Restoration is probably cheaper than the construction of a new multi purpose building in Hammersmith centre, where one would have thought land was more expensive, too. No one seems to have made estimated and written down figures to be looked at. The assumption that a larger colocated library service is going to be all round better seems to have been made without any detailed thinking at all. It certainly hasn't worked in other places, because normally when it is done, it is done for all the wrong reasons.
'Efficient' - as in 'Comprehensive and efficient' has to mean efficient both for the council and the residents who want to use the service. It is not right, in my view, for councils to argue (as one increasingly hears them do) that 'effiicient' means one large library in the area, because that is cheaper for the council. The calculation of efficiency also has to consider the time and expense and ability of residents to make the journey to such a new place and its usefulness to them when they get there. The money, after all, whether they spend it themselves, or they allow the council to spend it for them, is all theirs. If they currently have a local library to which they can walk it is bound to be less efficient for them to make any kind of longer journey, with buggies and barrows, to a library some distance away unless, on balance the visit is a hugely better experience. That might happen but it is unlikely if what you wanted was a small intimate story time with your friends or just a quiet place you could walk from home to read or do your homework.
I think library buildings are a terribly important part of the debate about how to improve libraries to the point that I have written a book about them! I think we do need to get just a little bit hung up on buildings, just as much as we need to get hung up on books.
The case for closing Barons Court libary has not been made at all. But the case for keeping small community libraries, of the kind which Barons Court ought to be, have been made in abundance in many places, not least Hillingdon, which I hope the councillors of Hammersmith will go and see for themselves.
Posted by Perkins at 7:46 AM | Comments (3)
Comments
Barnet Council to sell off its library buildings and lease them back?
http://tinyurl.com/374v68r
Posted by: Martyn at August 29, 2010 8:40 AM
"Continual attempts to persuade themselves, if not the public, that the public library service now takes place online have pervaded the chat rooms of the library profession."
I really do feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall on this one, but I'll give it a shot.
Where exactly has it been written that the 'public library service now takes place online'? I've not seen it anywhere. What I have seen (as you well know) is discussion around the shift in library use. Let me reinforce the point (for the umpteenth time) and see if you actually post my comment for a change and deal with the issue rather than obfuscate.
Before the growth of the library website, library users had to rely on visits to the library to renew or request books. As you know (and frequently point out) library opening hours are not flexible enough to meet the needs of the users. As people can now renew/reserve online, many have switched to that method rather than visiting the library. This has a clear and obvious impact on visits to the local library. For example, a person that would normally visit a library to make a reservation and then collect it would make two visits to the library. By switching to online reservations they would only visit once. Hence, this would lead to a 50% decline in visits for that one person. Factor in renewals and you can begin to understand why library visits are down 1% year-on-year and website visits up 50% for 2009.
This is not about the website replacing the library, it is about the website providing services that are more convenient for the user. It demonstrates how unhelpful statistics related to library visits are when you put this in context.
Posted by: Ian at September 1, 2010 10:32 PM
Ian, you are most welcome here. Make no mistake, not only is it important that we tackle these issues, but also it is important that somehow we bridge the gulf between what library users say they want and what librarians say they want to do and do do.
In this case my argument would be that opening hours should be longer. You can't borrow a book online. The public want their libraries to be open when they need them. That is where the resources should be spent in preference to most other activities. The website service is an incidental extra, it is not a substitute for being open. Think how John Lewis would approach the same issue. They have do to both. Closing early is never an option. I would have spent money on opening hours rather than a website, if the cost was significant.
Posted by: perkins at September 2, 2010 10:44 PM
August 28, 2010
Will Gompertz
Many thanks to the observant reader of this blog who has spotted this article which carries many sensible comments as well
Posted by Perkins at 9:00 AM | Comments (1)
Comments
I spotted this blog, too (yay me!) and was particularly taken with these two sentences:
"Too many libraries are stuck in the last century, offering poor service, indistinguishable aisles of books, outdated administrative systems and an impressive, intimidating atmosphere. Their only concession to the 21st century is often a huge reduction in the books they carry, which have been replaced by banks of faceless computers."
Now you might think I'm about to viciously deride faceless computers and the faceless ***** who mindlessly tried to shove them down my gullet twice a day for fifteen years. Well, I will if you like, but the phrase that actually interested me most was "outdated administrative systems."
Having been condemned to read, first, the LA Record and then the marginally less awful Update for what felt like 883 years, I was beaten down by endless pretentious buzz words, wearing obsession with systems, and most of all endless overcomplication by neuro-typical librarians (non-Aspergers) who, to put it tactfully, had gone completely up their own backsides. The result of all this bull's excrement, I submit, was a complete inability to make any system in a library simple, which should have been their aim in the first place. I will never forget a top cataloguer's brilliant idea re how to solve the problem of long Dewey numbers by, wait for it, making them even longer. Hence the result, outdated administrative systems which nobody but an obsessive compulsive would want to tangle with! Certainly not the general public whom they are supposed to serve. Please note I don't mention OCD lightly. People with Asperger Syndrome (ie me) can have similiar symptoms, I am by my own admission pernickety, I just loved AACR2, but if even I was warning the blocks of dead wood in my former so-called profession that they were overdoing it, then they really should have listened.
But no, off they went on their merry little way to Dingly Dell, liberally stuffing their minds with useless consultants' reports and other stuff only fit to be satirised by Franz Kafka, producing and "overseeing" libraries with incomprehensible systems, stuck not in the 20th century but maybe in the 19th!
It takes real intelligence to make things simple, my former colleagues, so take a good guess what I think of you.
Posted by: James Christie at August 31, 2010 2:15 PM
August 25, 2010
London Libraries Change Programme to appoint more consultants again
The London Libraries Change Programme which now enters its third year of changing nothing yet is about to appoint the fourth set of outside consultants to think what it should do next.
If the rumours that reach Perkins ears are to be believed another £100k or so is to be spent by the LLCP board with consultants Mott MacDonald.
This will make a total of more than £400k on consultancies so far -- which have nothing to show for what they have done.
They will be asked to think of answers to questions like
For the Change Programme what should be
1. The Programme direction including stakeholder engagement and programme management ?
2. The strategic business case-- to be answered by December 2010 -- for the transformation of London's public libraries service including options appraisals of the different models available. The option appraisal for each model must include.
- the business case
- financial plans and assessment of options
- risk assessment
- legal and consultation procedures and issues?
And all that kind of thing!
Did anyone know about all this before it happened-- for example were the good people, the library users of London - involved in any discussion about all this before it happened? Of course not.
But somebody has money in these desperate times of shortage. We could even have bought some books with this.
Outrage! Particularly because if you translate those questions into English they say "Please - what are supposed to be doing?"
It is sad and pathetic when everyone is being told there is no money. I think it is time that people were dismissed. Don't you?
This week I asked at the MLA if they would tell me who is in charge of the LLCP these days now that MLA London no longer exists, but they refused to say. In fact they got rather cross with me for asking. So I have sent them an FOI question to get to the answer. We run the library service like Stasi, the secret police in Romania. This is a long way from The Big Open Society.
Posted by Perkins at 4:37 PM | Comments (8)
Comments
Perkins. You must remember that the MLA does not have a good track record of answering FOI questions. They have a habit of missing things out. You ought to remember that of all cats.
Posted by: MaCaverty at August 25, 2010 8:36 PM
The 'Big Open Society' was dreamed up by David Camerons press relations man, you know, the ex-News of the World critter. You really believed all that stuff?
And its only weeks ago that you were pontificating on how nice it was to have a strong government. Oh dear.
Posted by: Andrew Preston at August 25, 2010 8:56 PM
The 'Securitate' were the secret police in Romania, not the Stasi...that was Eastern Germany....according to my local online Ask a Librarian service. Thank God for public librarians.
Posted by: Ed at August 25, 2010 11:05 PM
Andrew.. I know you won't forgive me but I am still hoping that this government and Ed Vaizey will be able to sort all this out.
Posted by: perkins at August 26, 2010 9:02 AM
Perkins, don't hold your breath - Ed Vaizey is currently running a series of trials on alternative forms of library provision in conjunction with the MLA - which includes a bookshelf in a Suffolk pub. According to the BBC programme which visited the pub, it wasn't a "very large shelf" but the landlord apologised, assuring the presenter that it was the only one they had.
Mott Macdonald (a large international engineering conglomerate) are obviously flavour of the month. They are currently providing 'advice' to people who want to set up their own schools under new government plans. Three guesses as to what sort of provision they might favour (a) for schools and (b) for libraries.
Still I shouldn't be cynical. They may be taking advice from rival consultants KPMG and giving their services to London Libraries Change Programme as volunteers?
Posted by: Martyn at August 26, 2010 4:00 PM
A council's inability to formulate strategy and manage its services is very good news for consultancy firms, like Mott Macdonald, who have identified public services as a lucrative avenue of activity. It is likely they will welcome an opportunity to get a foot in the door by means of a modestly paid consultancy in the hope of the ultimate prize, that they will themselves be taken on to manage the provision of services.
I have it on good authority that when consultancy firms are asked to provide a service for which they do not have in-house expertise, they contract in a specialist. It would seem intelligent on their part for them to hire Tim Coates.
P.S. I have said, in Swindon, that if there are no cuts to libraries and library staff I would eat my hat. Problem is, Ed Vaizey asked me for my hat in July and I gave it to him. Will he eat it on my behalf, should that become necessary?
Posted by: Shirley Burnham at August 27, 2010 6:35 AM
As an aside (and not sure how to contact you) I found this recently posted article 'What next for the local library?' on the BBC News website which you may possibly be interested in commenting on -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/willgompertz/2010/08/what_next_for_the_local_librar.html#comments.
Posted by: zebedeee at August 27, 2010 11:20 PM
I started off likening CILIP (may they rot in hell...) to the People's Front of Judea so it seems like a good time to widen my analogy to include the LLCP, who seem totally incapable of using plain language to make commonsense decisions. We seem to have entered an era of Orwellian doublespeak where, rather than it being imposed from without, everyone is taking refuge behind poncey language. Is it any surprise Gene Hunt of 'Life on Mars' was so popular? He talked like we all sometimes wish we were still allowed to. Pity we couldn't just fire up the Quattro, ram-raid the LLCP and put them in the cells for the night. Or longer.
Posted by: James Christie at August 30, 2010 12:40 PM
August 24, 2010
Mumsnet
Both Alan Gibbons and I have made a link to mumsnet today because someone had picked up Terence Blacker's article in the Independent last week.
I can see two potential concerns- one in Gloucestershire and one in Hammersmith and Fulham.
I'm hoping people will make contact. Here is the link to the mumsnet debate.
Posted by Perkins at 9:28 PM | Comments (3)
Comments
As discussed. Please email me, thanks.
Lauren
Posted by: Lauren at August 25, 2010 1:30 PM
Can you post link to discussion at Mumsnet.com? I'm curious, but can't find the forum/page.
Posted by: Karen Christensen at August 25, 2010 5:13 PM
Karen, you have probably found the Mumsnet link by now but, if not, here it is :
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1025834-to-think-that-we-NEED-libraries-This-is-horrific?pg=1
Posted by: Shirley Burnham at August 27, 2010 6:38 AM
August 20, 2010
Thank you
I was in the John Harvard library in London Bridge this afternoon. I am not a member there and needed some assistance.
The gentleman librarian who looked after me was extraordinarly helpful and thoughtful. It was a real pleasure. Thank you
Posted by Perkins at 8:38 PM | Comments (1)
Comments
And thank YOU for thanking someone. Too often we forget and only report on the bad - the good needs to be said.
Which reminded me that I had not publicly thanked the young man at Kettering Public Library for purchasing (not personally, you understand) a complete set of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan as so many of the volumes had "gone missing".
Posted by: Hazel Edmunds at August 22, 2010 2:50 PM
August 19, 2010
Library use falls dramatically
Despite all the attempts by the DCMS, MLA, CILIP, TRA, SCL and almost every council in the country, to diversify and popularise the library service, according to the DCMS figures published today..........
"Since 2005/06, there has been a steady decrease in the proportion of adults visiting a public library (from 48.2% to 39.4% in 2009/10)" By visiting they mean people who have been at least once through the door for any purpose.
The table with these figures shows that if you ignore those people who visit just once or twice a year, only 29% of the adult population use our public libraries. That figure was 38% just four years ago. The fall is truly dramatic.
At the same time , the very same report records that reading is the most popular cultural activity for most people in the country and three quarters of people read, 80% of those every week.
So why are libraries unpopular? Because they don't cater for people who read. It's blooming obvious.
If libraries concentrated their effort on people who do read (as the law says they should) they would be twice as popular as they are (vide Hillingdon) . What could be simpler?
Even a kitten could understand that. The whole management strategy is wrong.
Posted by Perkins at 8:19 PM | Comments (13)
Comments
The use of libraries is not confined ot physical visits. If the respondent asks what counts, the definition includes remote online access etc.
I find the regional analysis unhelpful. It owuld be interesting to analyse by library authority, because this could lead to questions about the quality of service provision and its effect (if any) on usage,
Posted by: Christopher Pipe at August 20, 2010 2:44 AM
Christopher. The online use of public library websites is a trivial figure. The 150 council sites achieve just over 100m hits each year. Google achieves 400m visits in England every day. The idea that somehow the online public library service is either provides quality or value - after all the years and attempts - is laughable. How many times have we been told that there is a 24 hour service- and who, in public terms, has ever heard of it or used it? The DCMS are right not to bother with it.
In terms of online need-to-know access to information, the public library service got left behind six or seven years ago.
Libraries now are about free access to reading material and a place to sit and read or work privately. Let us pray they don't get left behind for those, too. They could easily, if the profession and the management don't sort themselves out.
Posted by: perkins at August 20, 2010 8:45 AM
Lets not get carried away.
Library stats have always been suspect. What is included and not., who uses the libary but doesnt borrow, how many go in just to use face book and so on.
Only yestedray a report said that the most popular leisure activity, culturally, was us of medsia., meaning online, google, computer games, social networking and TV
We are so far behind, still talking about fines and charging for reading clubs, and not challenging the golden opportunity the present crisis could provide for us? Free access to the worlds literature, whether in print or not. Lets see some marketing, some 'Big Society' of libraries promotion!!
How many more times must we go over the same ground?
Posted by: Frances Hendrix at August 20, 2010 12:39 PM
Our next big campaign may be to make sure we get FREE access to all electronic books, journals and newspapers under an amendment to the Libraries Act. We let them get away with charging for electronically recorded music and films simply because those media appeared after 1964!
Posted by: No Brain at August 20, 2010 12:49 PM
Traffic to library websites *is* low. Traffic would be higher (and users would find it convenient) if Google etc could be used to find a book in a library. Very few UK public library catalogues are indexed by Google or other search engines. So a Google (books) search gives me lots of useful information and a dozen or so ways to *buy* the book (and sometimes that is cheaper than a notionally 'free' loan from a library) but the 'find in a library' option rarely leads to success. A few local authorities (and more universities) allow Google etc to index their library collections and make them more easily discovered. I'm not sure why more don't do it. It's not hard or expensive...
Posted by: Ken Chad at August 20, 2010 3:32 PM
Frances. Is it time to get carried away. These figures don't come from the library service. They are part of the independent "Taking part" market research survey which asks people about all kinds of activities. The figures quoted are for any reason for visiting a library. They are entirely consistent with themselves and others sources. The public library service is in terminal decline: not because there is no market for it, but because those who manage it are incapable of addressing the public need. There is no excuse and no defence. Like the Crimean War - we are losing the fight, it is time for the light to be turned on. We need to change the generals
Posted by: perkins at August 20, 2010 6:29 PM
Perkins makes a very good point: libraries need to cater for people who read. This central and basic fact seems to have got lost along the way. Here in Gosport (and I think this is true of Hampshire as a whole), they have been discouraging readers through the systematic running-down of the book collection and elimination of any quiet area for study, while avidly encouraging non-readers. These non-readers DO visit the building - to use Facebook, have a coffee, hire a computer game, go to a hip-hop class or use the services that are an off-shoot of the Town Hall. The library bosses are very pleased because the people visiting now reflect the demographic of Gosport. It seems to have passed them by that this does not make them 'library users', any more than chanting in the stands at a football game makes them 'footballers'.
Posted by: Amanda Field at August 21, 2010 9:04 AM
Amanda. The logic is so simple. Nearly everybody reads in some way. Maybe not fiction or poetry, but travel guides and cookery books- or even just lists of babies names. Nobody can acquire all that they might, of a sudden want to read or look at or find out about. That's what libraries have a reputation for doing, even for those people who don't often use them.
By removing books from libraries we just disappoint people when they come. So gradually people don't bother.
In 2002 both I and the old Audit Commission research department looked at the figures and separately came to the conclusion that unless the strategy changed the library service would have no use for anyone in 20 years. It seems to me that we are right on target for that to happen, even after, how many reviews now -- including the latest one last week-- 30 initiarives in the intervening time. And both you and I could have solved the problem in a fortnight.
Posted by: perkins at August 21, 2010 10:19 AM
Alan Gibbons was in Doncaster yesterday, as campaigners protested to save their community libraries. Something he says on his Blog is so poignant that it has been banging in my head all morning :
[quote] At one point a woman living opposite summed up the whole morning. She had not heard about the possible closure. Staring across the road at her library she said, “But that’s where I borrow my books. What am I supposed to do if it goes?” [end quote]
Think about this woman, and the millions like her, whilst considering what the vandals in government are doing.
Posted by: Shirley Burnham at August 22, 2010 12:50 PM
Visits to libraries are down and the reason could be that the search and discovery of items is easier now. People are doing it not only by searching the libraries' online catalogues to find and reserve what they want, but also sites such as Amazon to find books and then going to he lib. website reserving them or checking that the service has them. This would mean fewer but more efficient visits to libraries as you can do more at once - including picking up the books you already know you want or are there waiting for you.
Posted by: Debby Raven at August 23, 2010 10:29 AM
Having trashed my CILIP membership and with the benefit of disillusioned perspective seen, oh so terribly clearly, what a waste of time it all was (see People's Front of Judea, Life of Brian); I am profoundly digusted to see, while there are hardly any professional library posts left, people like the gray-faced lipless wonder I saw at a meeting are blandly intent on jacking up the entry criteria while ignoring the basics which differentiate the library "profession" from others. In the end, and I suspect the end will be soon, librarians will cease to exist and all that will be left will be (as per the term Ronald Searle coined) a bunch of robot ant boys who can't see anything but computers and who couldn't catalogue a book to save their worthless lives.
I'm not even that interested in the statistics. Some benefits cannot be defined by league tables. The far-sighted scholar and humanitarian, Jimmy Reid, who just died, got his education at Govan library. That's what libraries are there for. End of.
Over the years, I've jokingly said we should march on London. Well, why don't we? I can guarantee the robot ant boys in CILIP and in Government won't listen otherwise, because they've filled their heads with so many carefully-chosen nonsense phrases, they won't get the message any other way.
Any protest should of course follow Gandhiesque principles of non-violence, but I don't know what else would work, and I certainly don't want yet another consultation.
We don't need no more thought control! It's just another brick in the wall...
Posted by: James Christie at August 23, 2010 11:41 AM
In my library authority 2009/10 recorded searches of our online resources numbered over 207,000, that excludes the library catalogue and community information database. The databases available are all selected by professional librarians on the basis that the information they contain is either not indexed by Google, or is only available for a subscription. Access is free. The cost averages out at 11p per search. I don't accept that this is either trivial, or fails to provide quality and value.
Posted by: E-librarian at August 23, 2010 4:20 PM
If you were to look at my library records over the past fifteen years you would see that my borrowing figures have steadily fallen.
Is this because I dislike libraries? No. It's because my library, on the Walworth Road, which used to a treasure chest of wonderful books, a place I discovered authors who do not feature in the top one hundred at Waterstone's , and haven't for some time, has taken the decision to remove books which are not popular. So the choice of books has become increasingly narrow, and replicates the shelves of Waterstones. The library has also become much noisier, with people routinely answering calls on their mobile 'phones. As the library has Wi-Fi all the seating space is taken up by people using their laptops. The closure of our reference library has been documented n these pages already. Using the library has become less pleasant for those who want to look at and borrow books. There shouldn't be a competition between internet access and books. They complement each other, but each require adequate space and proper funding. we have also lost our librarians. The library appears to be staffed uniquely by library assistants.
Interestingly, a local independent bookshop in Kennington realised that it could not compete with the large chains and the deals they offer, so caters for a readership that does not necessarily want to read the latest Dan Brown offering. It appears to be flourishing, and certainly has good local support.
Posted by: Isobel at August 25, 2010 2:26 PM
August 17, 2010
Council public library services
So far as I am aware, with all the pressures on budgets there are few councils still investing in the buildings and stock of their small community libraries. Most are talking about closing them or turning them into library links or other facilities that will make them not really libraries at all. Others are reducing opening hours or their funds for buying books.
There is however at least one council who sees things differently. This autumn they will complete two more full refits of their small libraries, increasing their opening hours and augmenting their stock. The staff of these libraries will be given more control over their own budgets. This is happeing because the council knows from their previous experience that this investment which can be made because of overall savings in the library budget, will be extremely popular with the local people and an electoral asset for the council. This is the London Borough of Hillingdon, who will have completed the restoration of half their libraries within the next year. Their plan continues despite all the budget pressure, because the council find it to be of greatest possible value. We would wish all councils had got themselves in such a position
If there is any council elsewhere in the country who would like to embark on a similar programme, please contact this blog. The Hillingdon project originated here and the lessons learned are available to any councillor who wished to take the course.
Posted by Perkins at 8:47 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2010
Haringey to close 9 libraries out of 10 in the borough
There is a rumour tonight that the London Borough of Haringey proposes to close 9 of its 10 public libraries, leaving only one central library in Wood Green
Closures would include Muswell Hill, Hornsey and Highgate.
Haringey has been one of the most successful library services among the London Boroughs since Diana Edmonds became manager there about 5 years ago. Prior to that it was awful.
If other councils operate in a similar way there will be no more community libraries in the country and a there will be a loss of more than 20,000 jobs in the sector.
Haringey is a Labour council which includes the constituency of former libraries ministers David Lammy and Andrew McIntosh.
Posted by Perkins at 10:45 PM | Comments (7)
Comments
Hi, we're the local paper for west Haringey - we wrote a story about a similar rumour about a month ago, which was denied by the council. Do you have any more info on the story, or a source of where the rumours are coming from?
If so, please email me.
Thanks
Posted by: Ham&High at August 16, 2010 10:21 AM
This would be terrible for the people of the Borough who got back into the 'Library habit' with the developments in service during the Interim period between 2002 and 2004 #more than 5 years, Tim# and since.
The borough is very large and diverse and the service points were community hubs - it does haringey no good at all to plan this if the rumours are true.
Posted by: Richard Beveridge at August 16, 2010 5:30 PM
This would never fly? Please, can you see Highgate, Muswell and Hornsey [correct spelling] closing? The affluent users would be up in arms. And Diana Edmonds certainly wouldn't sit back and take this. She's oe of the few managers who could get the press on her side.
Les-- thanks for spelling correction. Have made the change.
Posted by: les at August 16, 2010 9:25 PM
Hi,
Can you please disclose the source of this news?
Cheers.
Posted by: Aaron at August 17, 2010 12:29 AM
I've had it from three sources now. All reliable and each quite separate, I believe. Can't reveal them.
Posted by: perkins at August 17, 2010 8:30 AM
I am so sorry to hear this if true. I used to live and teach in Haringey. Libraries are so important. Not everyone can afford to buy a personal library of books plus a local library can be the hub of a community in so many ways.
Posted by: Christine Michael at August 17, 2010 12:12 PM
With their poor record for producing library use statistics within a reasonable time frame, and their failure to make these available to the public, I should think CIPFA must be next in line?
Perhaps some of the money paid to them could be redirected to LISU at Loughborough?
Posted by: Martyn at August 19, 2010 11:18 AM
London Libraries Change Programme
Word reaches Perkins that the London Libraries Change Programme, now in its third year, has this week commissioned yet another consultants' report at a cost of a further £100,000.
This follows more than £300,000 already spent on consultants - with no visible change or improvement so far.
Why? -- and why were library users not involved or consulted in the decision in any way? Why do all these things have to be done in secret as if ordinary people were too stupid to understand the complicated mechanisms of government?
Who has accounted for the expenditure so far? Who has authorised this new work?
What were the actions taken as a result of the previous work?
When will we actually see some improvement, because at the present all we can see are plans for library closures?
What did happen to "WILL" the rather cumbersome mechanism for searching library catalogues across the city. Could it not have been improved? Why have offers to keep it going been ignored
And what on earth can this latest commission be intended for?
Library users in London are very cross with the scornful way with which Government, its Quangoes and the London agencies treat them. And they are justitified in being so. Patience is running thin.
Posted by Perkins at 8:40 AM | Comments (0)
Hum.
I take it you really don't want to work with librarians in defence of good public library services then?
Combined with your comments in the Quentin Letts thing on radio 4 this sets out a pretty general attack on the role of skilled professionals in organising the library service.
How does your letter correspond to the charter?