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June 20, 2006
CILIP
CILIP stands for Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. This body used to be called the Library Association (LA)
A decade and more ago a government of any colour wanting to provide the people of the country with a public library service turned to and depended upon CILIP to tell them how to do it and provide the management.
CILIP gives "accreditation" to its trained and paid up members so a council can turn to them and make an appointment of someone whom CILIP had endorsed.
Readers of this blog can see easily that the management of the library service is a total shambles. CILIP no longer has any credibility and its endorsements are obviously hopelessly wrong.
No council could or should depend on CILIP for advice or "accreditation". We desperately need a new regime of management training. CILIP is just one of those dreadful bodies that have endeavoured to wrap the government in influence for their own benefit and not for the public. It is not a body to which anyone (in public libraries) could belong with any sense of the pursuit of public service. Its members need to tell the management to go. If they are to provide collective good - then they need a new agenda.
Posted by Tim Coates at June 20, 2006 8:11 AM
Comments
Are you saying that all library managers endorsed by CILIP are no good? Everywhere? Where library services are 'failing' isn't it more the case that they are constrained by government funding and policy?
What about accredited members of CILIP who don't work in public libraries? Are they all no good as well?
I agree with the priciples of what you are trying to do, but I find some of your statements rather sweeping and bordering on the offensive, given the years of training, experience and dedication of many library managers and staff.
I'm not a library manager and I don't work in public libraries.
Posted by: Claire at June 20, 2006 7:20 PM
Claire- thank you. I am only talking about the public library service as I said in the entry. The causes of the problems of the service have been argued at length and, although many find it hard to see and acknowledge, I agree with last year's Select Committee that funding is more than adequate and has been for a long time and the sense of policy is basically right.
I know that some managers of the public library service will be provoked by my criticism of the training they have received, but there are many others who agree with me that it lacks relevance to the needs of users of the service now and the management pressures that are a feature of the operation these days.
I call for the members of CILIP to demand improvement because many are frightened to do so for fear of their own jobs and careers. The issue needs to be raised. Nothing is more important to the service than the quality of its future management. This is a very serious matter and offence is not intended but frankness is. Tim
Posted by: Tim at June 20, 2006 10:10 PM
Tim, was there any one from CLIP at the Conservative meeting? Who was that little man who got up at the end and asked everyone to go to the library on the Queen's 80th? There were a lot of undercurrents going on that I didn't understand.
Posted by: Maxine at June 20, 2006 10:10 PM
The "little man" was the chief policy adviser to the Government on libraries.
There are lots of undercurrents that to a member of the public are a complete mystery. That is one of the greatest problems of the service. Many people who manage it believe that the public have no business commenting on how it is run and what the public thinks is not something of which they need to take note. It is a private fiefdom run to a totally self defined agenda. That has to change and is why the meeting arranged by the Conservaives was so good and so unusual- they allowed the public to see what goes on, for the first time, in my experience.
Posted by: Tim at June 20, 2006 10:18 PM