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June 25, 2006
Conservative and Labour
When I first got involved with the public library service the question I was asked was "from your experience as a book retailer can you offer any helpful advice to the library service?"
I did my best to do that and I and many others, much more experienced and wiser, with more understanding of public and private sector than I have, tried to do the same. The reponse to all we have offered has been characterised as "Libraries are not like book shops; leave us alone we are doing our best; to criticise us will defame the library service" I would say that none of the advice has been used even though it has been carefully articulated in many places at length over nearly six years.
The library service, of course, does not belong to the professional librarians, it belongs to the people of the country. These professionals have no business closing their ears.
In the early days I assumed that there would be somewhere some political leader or senior civil servant who would say. "This is helpful advice, let us listen to it and discuss how and if it can be used and make sure that any benefit taken." Much of the advice has been about the avoidance of wasting large amounts of public money, so investigation was important. Yet, apart from in some very special local councils, none has ever done that. As I have often explained on this blog, the professional librarians have been promoted, of course, into all those positions of influence within and around government to which a Minister would ever listen. So a succession of Ministers have been advised, long before I or any of these other sources of help could approach, that we are "trouble makers" - which means that we are a threat to the optimistic public relations presentation of the public library service. I have several emails from ministerial offices decribing me as a trouble maker. I was astonished initially but I have become quite used to it. That is why I make fun of them all. There is no point in attempting a grown up dialogue. I have never spoken to David Lammy and I have no route to him. My several notes have been returned or ignored.
On the other hand four months ago I was approached, unexpectedly, by the Conservative Party. They asked me and many others to explain my view of the state of the public library service. They listened, asked questions, watched presentations and absorbed ideas, from many different sources. For someone with no particular political allegiance it has been impressive and for someone who wants to be listened to, enormously gratifying.
When I was on the radio yesterday in a debate about modernising libraries, Mark Field, the MP and the shadow Minister to David Lammy, observed that many of the problems of keeping libraries up to date and relevant have been addressed and solved in a perfectly satisfactory way by others including book retailers. There are marketing, management, technical, financial and especially leadership problems all of which are perfectly readily solved. He knew exactly what he was talking about because it is his team of researchers and he himself who have listened so diligently to points of view on the subject and understood the matters in hand.
He said that it is not for a Minister to tell everybody what to do, but by his actions he has shown that what a Minister can do is make sure that the appropriate voices are listened to and that problems are not avoided even when they are difficult. Mark Field has demonstrated to me that he would be a much more effective Minister for the Arts than David Lammy is.
That is why, because the public library service is operated by local councils, I have advocated that Mark should lead a Conservative initiative to renew the service. He doesn't have to tell people what to do, and I'm sure he won't; but I anticipate he will quietly insist that the right people are listened to and that issues are faced rather than avoided. I am sure that we would make the progress that has failed to have been made over the past 7 years. The Labour party could always do the same- perhaps under Gordon Brown they will- but for the moment, there is one route forward that has not been available for a long time and it is with the Conservative Party.
Posted by Perkins at June 25, 2006 9:01 AM