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July 31, 2006

The Cost of Library Management Systems

From limited figures I have seen in a number of councils I estimate that, across the country we spend £50-80m each year on licenses for public library management systems

Among the problems these various systems bring is one of incompatibility of the system in one council with that of its neighbours.

Would any council or groups of councils join me in setting two objectives: firstly that the overall cost should be halved and secondly that each should be compatible with the others? Would those councils agree to an "invest to save" programme, to achieve these two objects?

Would any supplier. or potential supplier of a library management system like to discuss the opportunity?

Posted by Perkins at 8:56 AM | Comments (1)

July 30, 2006

Libraries in Northern Ireland to double expenditure on books

DCAL, the Northern Ireland culture office has published a report on the immediate future plans for the public library service ("Delivering tomorrow's libraries")

This follows a long and well conducted review and consultation

The document calls budget for book purchasing to rise to £3 per person. (The figure has already been raised by additional government expenditure to £1.50 per person in 2006-7 and is targetted to rise to £2.50, in 2008-9).

This new figure will achieve the level called for in the Kaufman Select Committee report of last year, and if the new high purchase discounts now being offered in England are achieved in NI then this will come close to the figure I called for in "Who's in Charge".

If this rise were implemented across the UK it would raise book purchasing from £95m per annum to £190m per annum. It is a tremendous improvement. The money is to come from re-allocation of existing taxpayers funding of the service.

The document calls for a new emphasis on service to customers and a shift of resources to achieve that and the appropriate re-training that requires. It follows up the strategic move last year that will place all the library service of Northern Ireland eventually under one management structure of responsibility

The document lays out a set of library standards which are far clearer and much more comprehensible to the public than those in operation in England. The advantage of them is that for in the community surrounding any library it will be possible for local people to see if their library achieves the standards laid down by government. The current "Public Library Service Standards" in England do not make such an understanding possible.

For example small libraries are asked to open at least 7 hours a week outside the normal 9-5 working day.

This is an excellent, clear and cleverly compiled document and plan, which should be copied by Scotland, Wales and England immediately. It shows the kind of leadership for which we have been looking. It is very good news for the libraries of Northern Ireland.

Posted by Perkins at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2006

Biscuit attack

The site was struck by an avalanche of biscuits this morning. I dare not reprint the rude message they placed.

You couldn't get onto the site and all you could see was an unpleasant message placed by someone else. I don't know whom. Thanks to Trevor and all at Berkshire Publishing for looking after us.

Posted by Perkins at 3:36 PM | Comments (1)

July 28, 2006

Someone agrees

This came tonight.

"Hi Tim I've been following your blog for some time now and I think it's great.

As someone who has direct experience of the Library Service and particularly its budget it is very apparent to me that by following the simple 'instructions' you are posting (especially the experiences and practices of Grimsdyke) EVERY Library Service in the country can flourish but most importantly with the same budget they have now.
Libraries do have the correct funding in their budgets NOW but they spend it in the wrong areas.

Rotas are historic and back office staff costs are embarrasing and extortionatley high.

The Library Service is fundamentally about offering books and information to users at the front line. Back room costs need to be an absolute minimum, preferably zero and when you have book suppliers who are able to do for free what costs each Library Service hundreds of thousands of pounds the answer is simple - let them do it and move the savings to the front line! - open longer and buy more books. How can any Librarian disagree with that?

I see you offer your advice openly and if I can help I would happily talk to anyone who wanted to discuss their budgets in more detail.
Sorry to rant but it's frustrating when the answer is staring you in the face"

Thank you, that is much appreciated

Posted by Perkins at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)

Money

One of my regular readers was so amused and or pleased by my recent entry about libraries in Scotland he has actually sent me a cheque. I am extremely grateful. This whole campaign has been very expensive and it should have been paid for by the government, but they haven't and I have to take a very large burden personally.

Cheques, however small (or large!), are very welcome and greatly needed: 169, Fordwych Road, London NW2 3NG

The book of Mr Grimsdyke's memoirs is going to be published hopefully soon, so if you would like to reserve a copy, let me know.

Posted by Perkins at 7:54 PM | Comments (3)

Authors save libraries

By and large authors have been terrfic about taking action to save libraries/ alert people to problems/ harrass ministers etc. Here is Nick Arnold again doing his best for the libraries of Devon

Publishers, I regret to observe, have not. I don't know why.

Posted by Perkins at 7:51 PM | Comments (1)

Closing the library service in Wales

The Western Press has a gloomy article about the implications of closing three libraries in Powys. Well done to the people of the three villages who have raised their profile to the national press in their attempt to save the libraries.

Out of the blue the Councillors of Powys, seeking from these closures to save £30,000 per annum called a scrutiny meeting for August 3 which is a day when everyone will be on holiday. This was at about 6 days notice as far as I can tell

The real problem with Welsh libraries can only be solved by some leadership from the Welsh Assembly. The people of Wales pay £50m per annum for public libraries, which they will recognise as a lot for what they receive in return.There are about 300 libraries- so that's over £150,000 per annum per library. Most of that money, however, doesn't reach the libraries because it pays for 23 councils to have 23 management structures, 23 bibliographic departments and all that paraphernalia.

Wales needs one or two library services at most with very little management- and the libraries should be run for the specific benefit of their local communities by local library managers, not by councils.

There is no need for Powys to close these three libraries - in fact they should have access to much bigger funds for books.

But no one in the Welsh Assembly has been told these things- because the only people who would advise them are the professional librarians and managers who might just lose their jobs if they said it. Poor Welsh people. Sorry to see the end of your library service. It's up to you to tell your Assembly what you want.

Posted by Perkins at 6:56 PM | Comments (2)

The Dumchurch letters July 28

My dear Chrysanthemum

On July 24 I explained that by analysing the rota of each of the branch libraries I had prepared a "Ritoa" (Ready if the opportunity arises) for the cost of opening each one of them for longer and regular hours.

Now I am going to do the same thing for the central library. We have taken each of the main areas of the library : the reference rooms, the local history room, the childrens area, the newspaper room, the computer terminal section and the main lending library.

For each there is a pattern of hourly and daily use so we can see when we need people to be there and how many are needed. I have drawn these needs on a graph as hourly blocks so we can plan the staff presence during the day to match the needs of each room. I am determined that we should try to get the central library open from early morning until at least 10pm each evening, but only with the staff that are needed in each section.

I have also observed that each room tends to overprovide staff coverage "so that the staff are safe and well protected", but I think that will be more effectively done if we have a presence of uniformed security guards who can patrol the whole library and are much more reassuring.

In this way I have now prepared my "Ritoa" for the central library

Posted by Perkins at 9:48 AM | Comments (1)

July 26, 2006

Powys

Here is the story from Powys

"Llanwrtyd Wells is the smallest town in the UK and ours is a small community library in a very pleasant building, part of a complex which also houses the primary school and the community hall. Ours is one of the three libraries which is threatened with closure in Powys. The others are Talgarth and Llanfair Careinion. All are successful libraries, well-used and well supported. Membership at our library is rising every month. We have a thriving book group, a local history group and a writing group all of which we set up and help to run.

The people of Llanwrtyd Wells are shocked, angry and upset. We had the same thing happen to us two years ago and we won that battle, such was the uproar from the communities. This time something tells us it is going to be a harder fight.

The council say they have a shortfall of £30,000 (!) so have to close three libraries in order to keep the Bookrunner (a mobile library which visits schools once a term)on the road. They say they will also reduce the book fund by £25,000 next year. "

Is somebody really looking at the accounts here? The service in Powys receives over two million pounds each year from the taxpayers.

Posted by Perkins at 8:16 PM | Comments (0)

Hall of Shame: Buckinghamshire

Just so there is no doubt about whom the people of Buckinghamshire should not vote for ever again, here is the list of "Cabinet members" who are responsible for the closure of 8 libraries. Between them all they have not found time to explore alternatives to the plan and cannot account for £4m lost expenditure on libraries, so these libraries are having to close.

Posted by Perkins at 7:43 PM | Comments (0)

Gloomy climate

I went into a large library today which has been subject of consultation among the local people because it is proposed for a major refit.

I asked at the reference desk it might be possible to see the plans but the person to whom I spoke explained that the consultation period was now over and they no longer had the display to show.

So I asked if it she believed it was an attractive plan. She said "The staff view would be different to that of the public".

I thought it was the strangest answer as I was only trying to make conversation and although she was very civil she made me feel that there was some barrier behind which she was hiding. (I'm quite sure she had no idea that I have an interest in the subject- she assumed I lived in the area of the library)

She was trying to tell me something about her working life and that of her colleagues

It reminded me of training we received years ago in the retail company for which I worked called "climate management". The theory behind this was that the staff who deal with the customers will convey the way they feel about the company for which they work. If they feel imposed upon and unimportant then they will be unhelpful to customers and frightened that they will somehow get into trouble for stepping outside the rules of the organisation.

I had encountered a "gloomy climate"

That is why I would encourage council library services to break down their management structures. Often they lie like lead weights on the shoulders of the people who deal with the public. It isn't just that many management structures are far more expensive than they need to be, but also they result in unsatisfactory customer service

Incidentally one of the key messages of that "climate training" was that the standard of service is set by the most senior people in the organisation and by and large people will follow their example. So if everyhthing is run strictly to a rule book and people have no ability to take the initiative- then that will be the nature of the service given to the public.

Very often it it is in smaller organistations: local shops, charity shops, small companies, that service is much better. It is very hard for people who feel themselves to be part of a large and formal organisation to give really good service. You have to work at it and small empowered management groups and teams is one way.

The theory would be that the person I met feels that no ownership or real influence and her view is not valued. Until that changes she will convey that feeling to the public. It wasn't her fault- but it can be changed and would be, if she just felt happy at work.

Then she would have either said "The new design is great, it's very exciting; or the whole thing is awful, it's a terrible waste of money", or any variant of those two extremes, and not worried for one moment whether she was going to get into trouble- because what she thought mattered and is important and valuable. Which, of course, it is.

Posted by Perkins at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2006

Public libraries in Scotland

Those who have read the early entries on this blog might remember the astonishing exchange I had at a distance with Elaine Fulton who is head of SLIC and therefore in charge (hem hem) of the public libraries in Scotland

Following that episode an honourable member of the Scottish Parliament asked the Minister responsible to comment on the state of the public library service in Scotland

I was shown a copy of the briefing note that SLIC gave to the Minister which starts with the immortal line "There is no evidence that councils mismanage or over bureaucratise their libraries" It goes on to remind the Minister of the achievements of those responsible.

Well, Elaine, here is some evidence that was omitted from the brief that was given to the Minister:

I have listed below, for each council the decline in book issues betwen 1999-2000 and 2004-5 These are directly from CIPFA, the official source who give the figure as "loans per 1000 population". These are the most recent published figures.

Book lending
Aberdeen -31.9%
Aberdeenshire -23.6%
Angus -20.0%
Argyll and Bute -29.8%
Clackmannanshire -28.7%
Dumfries and Galloway -21.6%
Dundee -24.0%
East Ayrshire -19.6%
East Dunbartonshire -24.5%
East Lothian -16.6%
East Renfrewshire -26.8%
Edinburgh -26.3%
Falkirk -35.3%
Fife -32.7%
Glasgow -26.7%
Highland -9.2%
Inverclyde -24.7%
Midlothian -28.7%
Moray -30.3%
North Ayrshire -14.8%
North Lanarkshire -20.4%
Perth and Kinross -38.6%
Renfrewshire -23.9%
Scottish Borders -34.4%
South Ayrshire -29.7%
South Lanarkshire -29.1%
Stirling -21.6%
West Dunbartonshire -35.5%
West Lothian -32.9%
Eilean Siar -10.3%
Orkney -23.4%
Shetland -15.5%

Total Scotland -26.2%

The National Visits
figures are -3.2%
for the same period

No management problems here- obviously.

Elaine- there was one comment in the brief, which apparently you didn't think would be made public, that said "some of Mr Coates' comments would seem to be inaccurate"; but you didn't say which. That is a serious accusation for a senior civil servant to have made about one to a Minister and because it is unspecific it is impossible to respond. If you had asked for clarification of anything I had said, I would have answered immediately. You could have done that before briefing a Minister and Parliament in that way. My source of figures is exactly the same as yours and, errors apart, to my knowledge I have not presented anything that could be described as "inaccurate" or indeed misleading. I should, of course, be grateful if you would correct the impression of my "inaccuracy" that you have created in the mind of the Minister and the Members of Parliament. If there has been a misrepresentation of some figure, let us correct it; I am not aware what it is.

Posted by Perkins at 8:31 PM | Comments (0)

Waiting to be served

By my calculation we are long overdue a report from the MLA on the state of library buildings. The research project was given to consultants last August and completed in October. We have to assume that the results are pretty unpleasant and for that reason the MLA and the Ministry of DCMS don't want to publish. (Either that or they simply can't find the office pen)

Also the famous Price Waterhouse Cooper report which we already know completely evades all the main issues about the costs of the Library Supply Chain is now overdue.

There is a habit of waiting until the Parliamentary summer break to issue reports so that there is no political discussion about them. MLA and DCMS did that last year with their response to the Select Committee report and the PKF report. Now they have done it again with these two important projects.

They clearly answer to no one, which is of course the best kind of work if you can get paid a lot for doing it.

Posted by Perkins at 8:30 AM | Comments (0)

The Dumchurch Letters 25 July

Dear Chrysanthemum

I have just realised you have the same initials as CS gas. Please forgive me.

The next part of my analysis is simply to ask each library to add up how many metres of shelving they have for books, for DVD's and for anything else. I ask them to distinguish adult non fiction, reference, fiction and children's books. We could be more detailed but there's no need at this stage.

We will come later to how best to fill the shelves to provide the best and most appropriate quality, but at this time, I want to make sure that we know how much money is required to keep the shelves full and smart and that is, mainly, a question simply of size.

Again, as with yesterday's estimate of staff costs, this is not a calculation for the budget, yet, but another "Ritoa" - "ready if the opportunity arises". I want to know how much the stock fund should be ideally, and this is the first step of the calculation. I intend to build an ideal stock fund for each individual library.

In these libraries there are many empty spaces and shelves upon which Perkins finds room for a doze.

Grimsdyke

Posted by Perkins at 6:09 AM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2006

Alert in Powys

The Shropshire Star reports that Powys council are going to call in the decision to close three libraries.

If anyone reading this knows any of the councillors mentioned or the journalists on the newspaper, please tell them I can help provide evidence for the scrutiny committee that would show how the libraries can be kept open.

contact via tim.coates@yahoo.com as fast as possible

Posted by Perkins at 9:57 PM | Comments (0)

The Dumchurch letters July 24

Dear Chrysanthemum

Having a clear understanding of how many people are needed on the rota of each of the libraries in Dumchurch, as I described yesterday, I then addressed what seems to me to the problem of greatest priority.

In Dumchurch the libraries are not open long enough and their hours of opening are not predictable. There are some which are open some mornings and some afternoons; others open for a whole day and then close the next; some open on Saturday mornings and one opens on a Sunday afternoon.

For someone who lives in the town, as they go out in the morning, to know which library might be open at that time on that day requires an expertise equivalent to high proficiency in The Times crossword puzzle. It is neither helpful, nor, as the jargon goes, inclusive, for those unfamiliar with libraries.

Therefore, having carried out our calculations on the rota, we were able to ascertain reasonably well the cost of having each library open regular hours every day of the week. I suggested we start by identifying, for each library, and by discussion with those who work on the rota, what would be involved in opening every library from 10am to 6pm every single day.

We found that there were several people on the rotas of different libraries who would prefer to work different hours to those which they currently do. So, as before, by a discussion among those involved we were able to establish a fair cost for a new and much longer set of opening hours.

This didn't mean we had a firm plan with which to procede; it meant we had a realistic idea, library by library, of what would be involved and when it might be possible to make the changes.

These plans for each library are not "Budgets" they are "Ritoa's" which stands for "Ready if the opportunity arises" as it might, for example if someone's circumstancesa change and they wish to work different hours.

Perkins generally comes with me on the visits to libraries. I think he misses the sea air, however people in libraries are inclined to make a fuss of the library cat and he likes that.

Grimsdyke

Posted by Perkins at 1:11 PM | Comments (0)

New posts advertised at the MLA

In response to concerns about the state of the library service, its buildings, its collections of books and its management the MLA, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council continues to expand

In addition to opening 12 regional offices, this morning the Guardian jobs site has the following jobs advertised at the MLA in central London.

One doesn't need to be a Government Minister to spot that the cost of these posts alone far exceeds the saving that has been demanded, for example, in Dorset or Devon or Lancashire, which has lead to the closure of dozens of public libraries. I think the public should be very cross that this all goes on and those responsible don't trouble to respond to the cries for explanation.

Performance & Planning Managers
MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£41,400 - £53,200 pa
Performance & Planning Managers are required.

Head of Communications
MUSEUMS LIBRARIES ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£41,400 to £53,200 pa
Head of Communications required.

Internal Communications Manager
MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£30,100 to £42,700 pa
Internal Communications Manager required.

Marketing Officer, Framework for the Future
MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£30,100 to £42,700 pa
Marketing Officer, Framework for the Future required.

Head of Marketing
MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£41,400 to £53,200 pa
Head of Marketing required.

Publications Manager
MUSEUMS LIBRARIES ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£21,900 to £31,100 pa
Publications Manager required

Administrative Assistant (Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art)
MUSEUMS LIBRARIES ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£16,200 - £22,800 pa
Administrative Assistant required.

Export Licensing Assistant
MUSEUMS LIBRARIES ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£16,200 - £22,800 pa
Export Licensing Assistant required

Head of Museum Policy
MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES COUNCIL
Central London
£51,800 - £70,400 pa
Head of Museum Policy required.

Posted by Perkins at 8:35 AM | Comments (4)

July 23, 2006

30,000 hits on this blog

We had over 1600 hits on Friday and the number for July will be well over 30,000. Thank you again to everyone.

There is obviously a lot of interest in the subject- please pass on the address to book readers, library users, would-be users, people who work in libraries or in national or local government- anywhere in the world.

One of my inspirations is the Samizdat writing of Czechoslovakia in the 70's and 80's. Ivan Klima, the author, wrote that you get a special relationship with readers of Samizdat. He and some other wonderful writers brought the downfall of their government by making fun of them. Photocopying machines were not permitted so each writer typed a few pages with carbon paper copies. These in turn were copied by perhaps one or more typists. These few thin sheets were then passed from hand to hand and read avidly by many people. They were about the activities of members of the Government and they were called Samizdat.

I was fortunate to be with Ivan, his family and many of his friends in Prague during the Velvet revolution of November 1989. It was a frightening but very exciting time. I recommend his book "The Spirit of Prague" published by Granta. As a child he spent many years in Terezin concentration camp from which most of his friends were sent to be murdered. Later he was labelled a "dissident" and unable to work or move with any freedom. So he has seen more strange bureaucracies than almost anyone. As a writer he stresses the importance of connection to a country's literature and its history for he has seen them deliberately disconnected several times in Prague in his own lifetime and suffered the consequences of such acts. Generations that are brought up without being close to their inheritance of literature and honest understanding of their history are not so wise. These are essentials and it is perilous to treat themlightly or without care.

Ivan is 75 this year.

Posted by Perkins at 11:35 AM | Comments (4)

Who's in charge?

Much press attention has been given, rightly, to the fall in the number of books in libraries available for lending. The number reported has gone from about 105m in 1997 to 80m now

I bet it is in fact a lot lower than 80m because the computer system in each council believes many books to be present which were lost a long time ago. Perhaps the figure is as low as 60m

For a long time the senior managers and civil servants were saying that this discarding of books was right: that libraries now are about far more than books and the emphasis needed to change in the era of advancing technology. Few people outside government and library management realised this was a deliberate strategy

When the public found out about this nonsense the outcry in Parliament and in the press was so emphatic that the message has now been changed. We are told that there needed to be a "clean-up" of the stock but there was never any intention to reduce the quality of the book collections.

Once more it is "OK" to say that books are important. Government propaganda has been turned on its head.

But who is going to restore the stock in both quality and quantity? The Government Minister with his new found enthusiasm for books, despite the enormous and expensive teams of officials and quangoes that surround him, repeats all the time that it is not for him, or them, to run libraries- that is for councils to do. (What these officials and quangoes do and why we pay for them is still a mystery)

However, more libraries in the country are run by Conservative councils than any other party, by a long way. Indeed Conservative councils have been just as responsible, if not more so, for the decline in book collections. So while the Conservative party rightly find fault with the Labour Government that has allowed this perilous decline to take place, they now find themselves with the job of leading the change of direction and putting all this right

If the Conservative leadership is sincere in its call for books and reading to be put back at the heart of the library service (and I believe it is), then it is already in their hands to do something about it. They have spotted this - and now we have to see if they are up to the job of addressing the problem. I hope so.

They have already indicated their disdain for the mechanisms and quangoes of Government, which is a good start. Now their own local councils need willingly to help them form a joint vision for libraries, which is new and different to the current one.

Councils willing to join the campaign should contact Mark Field MP and shadow Minister. He's the man trying to make this all come true.

I have listed the English Conservative library authorities below. If you live in one of these councils, petition them to join Mark. If you live in other councils, by all means ask them to make contact with Mark's office or even me, there's no reason why this good work should be confined to Tory councils at all.

Barnet
Bedfordshire
Bexley
Birmingham
Bracknell Forest
Bradford
Bromley
Buckinghamshire
Cambridgeshire
Cheshire
Coventry
Croydon
Cumbria
Dudley
Ealing
East Sussex
Enfield
Essex
Gloucestershire
Hammersmith & Fulham
Hampshire
Harrow
Havering
Hertfordshire
Hillingdon
Isle Of Wight
Kensington & Chelsea
Kent
Leeds
Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
Medway Towns
Norfolk
North Lincolnshire
North Yorkshire
Northamptonshire
Oxfordshire
Peterborough
Poole
Redbridge
Rutland
Shropshire
Solihull
Southend-On-Sea
Suffolk
Surrey
Swindon
Thurrock
Trafford
Walsall
Wandsworth
West Berkshire
West Sussex
Westminster
Wiltshire
Wokingham
Worcestershire

Posted by Perkins at 9:58 AM | Comments (0)

The Dumchurch letters July 23

Dear Chrysanthemum

In order to address the problem of the budget I described in my letter of July 21 I wanted to start rebuilding the budget from its very base.

I requested that each individual library should for only a week, keep a record every hour of how many visits and how many loans were made. Alongside that we were able with the help of the crew of each library to write down how many staff were present during each of those hours.

In this way it was possible to see that there already some very large variations between the staff present and the staff that were needed simply to deal with the presence of readers in the library. We were also able to discuss how predictable or not were those patterns of reader visits.

From these discussions we made some very sensible and easy changes to the staff rotas for the different libraries. We were also able to see when there were times for doing jobs that did not require presence at the counter of the library and how much time was available for doing those things.

All those discussions took place with the library staff themselves and did not involve the management of the service. In this way the staff were in a position to say to their managers that there are a number of changes to the rota which will be improvements for our customers but which will not affect the cost of running our library.

Just common sense really, but a great deal was learned from the discussion.

Grimsdyke

Posted by Perkins at 9:24 AM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2006

American precedents

Philip Kerridge quoted from President Lyndon Johnson. Here's another quote to give heart to those who are struggling to save their library services

‘We must begin with the simple but basic observation that democracies do not survive unless officials do what they are supposed to do and citizens maintain vigilance to see that they do.’

This sentence is the opening of the report of the Special Prosecutor into the Watergate affair, in August 1974

Posted by Perkins at 4:16 PM | Comments (0)

Wise friends of libraries

The BBC filmed a threatened library in Hertfordshire yesterday for a news item on BBC "Look East" on Monday morning.

I asked the journalist why the campaigns to save libraries have attracted the press so much. She said "Because the local people who campaign are articulate and understand the subject better than the councils or the civil servants"

As if to bear that out my good dear and long suffering friends of the "Save the Carnegie" library group in Herne Hill sent me a copy of a letter to their new Councillor in Lambeth. Readers of this blog know that you can hardly get worse libraries than in Lambeth.

Here the Friends Group have realised for some time that the Government "Public Library Service standard number 10" which is intended to encourage the renewal of collections of books is actually taken by librarians as a reason to throw away their valuable back list. They constantly draw this to the attention to everybody from the Minister, their own MP (who is Tessa Jowell and therefore responsible) and all the appropriate officials. Despite being absolutely correct in their analysis of an extremely serious problem everyone patronises or ignores them, which is outrageous.

Nevertheless the group are diligently polite and straightforward when they write : "the people of Herne Hill have had to watch the number of books decline to one quarter of a book per person. We ask that the book fund be restored to its level of 1906 of one and a half books which is the level prescribed by the secretary of state, our own MP! (They intend extensive celebrations of their centenary and a few books would help).

The attached petition, which hundreds have already signed, calling for this increase also begs that a wise selection be made so that the books do not have to be discarded after only a few years."

The council responded by cutting the book fund.

Posted by Perkins at 9:36 AM | Comments (0)

Dorset sizzles

Here is the announcement in their local paper, the Echo, that Dorset County Council has cut its book fund and postponed its decision on the closure of 12 libraries.

And here is a coded message for the councillors of Dorset: Ask for help. now before the next round of budgeting starts in September.

Posted by Perkins at 8:24 AM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2006

Syrup sponge

There is a little unheard of group called "The All Party Parliamentary Group on Libraries". Don't be fooled. That sounds jolly good but "All Party Groups" are normally sponsored by interest groups, they are not in any way part of the proper Parliamentary process. This group is not a body hell bent on sorting out public libraries; it is however, surprise, surprise, sponsored by CILIP, the body that is paid for by librarians. So the parliamentary group is not so much about improving libraries, but advocating the importance of library professionals, which devotees of this blog will know is not the same thing at all.

I notice last week they had a boisterous reception in the House of Commons at which Lyn Brown MP "who serves on the MLA council" said that the MLA had had " a very difficult start, with one reorganisation after another". How sad; I shall cry all night. They should learn a lesson from the DLA (Delay) and stock up on the biscuits. Under its current name and its previous name "Resource", the MLA has been operating for 5 or 6 years: how long does a "difficult start" go on?

She also advocated more agencies like the London Libraries Development Agency. I hope she is planning to pay out of her own handbag. With 87 regional offices of the MLA, we need another few dozen development agencies "like my rose bush needs more flies" as a resident of Winchester put it when told that the central library was to be turned into yet another coffee bar.

Libraries are closing, book funds are being slashed and 50 MP's and God knows how many hangers-on are swilling champagne and feeling sorry for the MLA. I'm sure the members of SYRUP will be jolly pleased that to learn that they are being sponged off in this way.

(Mr Grimsdyke was not invited!)

Posted by Perkins at 11:02 PM | Comments (1)

Philip Kerridge

I am deeply indebted to Philip Kerridge for his letter in The Bookseller today, which I copied here. I believe he has also written at length in an article to be published elsewhere.

I am certainly willing to enter into meaningful discussion but only if I believe there is likely to be a positive outcome as I have described on this site before. We are not engaged in a debate about public libraries, we are in an emergency.

20 July 2006 : The Bookseller

Hard times for rural libraries

Public librarians know our buildings are in disrepair, they close for too long and issues are in decline. Despite a minister, a Museums Libraries & Archives Council (MLA), public library standards, and a framework for the future there's little change in these fundamentals.

This year the fabric of public libraries has become a little more tattered with announcements that 100 libraries may close. As a manager of Cornwall's libraries it's alarming but no surprise that Devon and Dorset lead this trend. Small rural counties are the Torquay Utd of the library spending league. In 20004/05 Devon spent £12.24 per head compared to London authorities spending £25.

In Cornwall we made savings of £250,000 this year. We didn't close libraries or cut book funds but avoiding this will be difficult if the next two years bring similar reductions in government grant settlements. Since Cornwall isn't unique in this respect, hundreds more rural library closures are likely before the decade is out.

For once the MLA lacks a strategy. Like Rooney in the Portugal penalty shoot out, when it really counts there they are sitting on the touchline. If they really loved libraries they'd talk to Tim Coates, who has a cunning plan. What is there to lose? Tim's ideas might benefit public libraries or if we convinced him we're efficient, we'd gain a great publicist. Lyndon Johnson would remind us it's better to have Tim inside the library tent pissing out than outside pissing in.

Philip Kerridge
Bodmin, Cornwall

Posted by Perkins at 1:18 PM | Comments (1)

Libraries in Hertfordshire

There are, I think, 4 libraries in Hertfordshire threatened with closure and an articulate and well informed campaign in progress to prevent that happening. The campaigners are offering to help make the library service better.

I have looked at the performance of the Hertfordshire library service and over the past few years, simply against the basic government measures, it has been very poor.

It would have been so much more convincing to local people if the service had improved over that time and then the council had said, "we contemplate rationalising some of the building network, please discuss it with us"

Rather like when there were proposals for closing hospitals, nobody trusts the council to provide a good service. So when they use an argument for closing libraries, nobody believes they actually know what a good library service is or how to manage one.

It isn't just a question of economics or incomprehensible council politics, it is also a question of trust. I'm sure that several county councillors will lose their seats over this particular issue.

There are a lot of votes in local libraries. Believe me.

Posted by Perkins at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

The Dumchurch letters 21 July

Dear Chrysanthemum

You will recall that in my previous letter on 19 July I showed the expenditure on the Dumchurch library service for 2005-6 in this way:

Employees- 2,983 (53.1%)
Premises costs- 546 (9.7%)
Materials- 528 (9.4%)
Computing - 381 (6.7%)
Other services- 205 (3.6%)
Transport - 31 (0.5%)
Council Support - 433 (7.7%)
Capital Charges- 510 (9.1%)
Total 5,617 (100.0%)

I also showed that this money came from 2 sources:

Revenue funds from the council 5,177
Income from readers (DVD loans, fines etc) 440
Total 5,617 (ie £5.6m)

In their preparation of the budget for 2006-7 the council had requested the service to plan on the basis that the contribution from the council should only increase by 1.0%. At the same time they promised that there would be no increase in the charge that the council levied from the libraries as their share of the cost of the wider council.

In other words, as all good councils should, they were looking to improve the value for money provided to taxpayers. To me that was a very fair request, and from what I have seen already there was no reason why the service to the public should not be improved at the same time as the cost was slightly reduced. It was a question of looking for sensible economy and improvements in productivity.

However, the library service had already noticed that their income from renting DVD's had declined and was likely to do so again and therefore, unless they could stem that, the total funding of the service would be reduced a further amount and their need for economy would be even greater

They predicted therefore that their total funds would be

Revenue funds from the council 5,229 (last year 5,177)
Income from readers (DVD loans, fines etc) 396 (last year 440)
Total 5,625 (last year 5,617)

The challenge they faced in budgetting was to improve their service to the public while confining their total expenditure to this amount. As we both know the three things that our customers want more than anything else are good stock, the buildings to be opened when people want to use them, and the libraries to be kept in good repair.

Therefore I was very surprised to see how they proposed to face their expenditure target. This is the budget for 2006-7:

Employees 3,150 (an increase of 5.6%)
Premises 573 (an increase of 4.9%)
Materials 358 (a reduction of 32.2%)
Computing 386 (an increase of 1.3%)
Other services 184 (a reduction of 10.2%)
Transport 26 ( a reduction of 16.1%)
Council Support 433 (no change)
Capital Charge 510 (no change)
Total 5,625

Even Perkins can see that a reduction of 32.2% in the Materials fund will have a dramatic effect on the usefulness of the libraries. But that is how it comes about that we read in the newspapers that "a library service has slashed its stock fund". No attempt has been made to improve staff productivity and the wage increase has been taken from the budget for buying books

I have a dread feeling that in many councils such a presentation would go through "on the nod" because superficially it complies with that which the service was asked to achieve. Unless the councillors have their attention drawn to the impact it will have, they won't know. But who would draw attention to this matter if to do so puts at risk their own wages and those of their colleagues?

That is what has been going on for years, and of course in the end it has brought the self justifying argument that "libraries don't really need books" - but omits the reason that "otherwise we won't be able to pay ourselves"

Tell Ron that Perkins is fine.

Grimsdyke

Posted by Perkins at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2006

Concern

I have received this from someone I know and respect greatly - it is in response the article in the Guardian yesterday.

I fully share Rebecca Front’s consideration in her Guardian piece on libraries “that playing fast and loose with free books is akin to mucking about with the state education system.” Some years ago many councils had a perfectly good state school system including grammar schools to help develop the nation’s brightest pupils and they threw them in the bin. We also had rigorous examinations with spelling and grammar being part of the marking. That was deemed unfair(!?) and standards were repositioned. Now councils are throwing library books in the bin as part of their belief in improving their offerings to a broader general public including teenagers, the disadvantaged and non-English speaking citizens while turning their backs on the book lending library user. The leadership and vision by this government and its advisers over libraries is simply wrong. As shown in education mistakes can take decades to reverse (we are seeing many such moves today). If we do not halt the current madness of reducing the funds going into new books for the shelves of Britain’s libraries then the next generations will once again have to undo the mistakes of its supposedly wiser elders.

Posted by Perkins at 8:49 PM | Comments (0)

Welsh libraries close

Powys County Times - Welshpool,Wales,UK

As part of its budget cuts the council's board decided on Tuesday to axe libraries in Llanfair Caereinion, Llanwrtyd Wells and Talgarth.

Posted by Perkins at 8:24 PM | Comments (0)

Lambeth slash the Book Fund!

Blow me down- I wrote about Lambeth on here last night and this morning they have cut the book fund!

Here is an article and here is my piece last night in which I wrote that the people of Lambeth pay £6.2m every year for nine libraries and just 4.5% of that is spent on books. Now the council have Slashed The Book Fund!

Very pleased to see Councillor John Whelan use the expression "Death by a thousand cuts"-- those fine words were first used to describe the writhings of the library service by Mr Elgar Atkins of Bloggington on Sea. I can't remember whether it was on here on another website, but it is such vivid expression (and borne out of great literature)

You should note that the Councillor in the article refers to "The Stock Fund" -- the expenditure on books will only be a part of that, because priority will be given to the purchase of DVD's etc from which an income can be derived. The book fund will be a small part of the Stock Fund.

Posted by Perkins at 1:14 PM | Comments (0)

Ron

Ron is an orphan who lives with the drunks and homeless under the pier on Bloggington beach. He is eight, likes classical music and reads a lot. He knows more about substances than most people. Generally he is to be found in the Carnegie Library on the harbour. You could say that Mrs Sideloader has adopted him, unofficially. She makes him wash.

His friend is Perkins, but Perkins has gone with Mr Grimsdyke to Dumchester. Ron is missing Perkins a great deal, so Mrs Sideloader is giving him treats. They both have rather taken to Mrs Picker's winkles and mussels.

Posted by Perkins at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)

Fantastic Libraries in Oxfordshire

Here's a story I am so pleased to be able to tell. This Article in the Oxford Mail is only the tip of the iceberg.

Caroline Taylor, who is not mentioned in the article, who is now the head of the county library service is one of the new great stars of the library service.

Congratulations to her- sincerely, because she knows that I have been very demanding of her in the past. But the truth is that it was she who set Richmond on the right path, initiated many of the good things that have happened in Westminster and now she is really making a mark in Oxford.

I met an old friend in Oxford a few weeks ago who told me how good the libraries are becoming so you can be sure this article in the Oxford Mail is not propaganda.

The papers are also relating how Caroline is fighting to get a good new library in Thame. It's all so good to see.

Congratulations also the chief executive's office in Oxford County Council who have supported the service over the past few years to lead it in this direction. Hi Neil - well done! You're a star, too! Much of this is down to your bravery in the early days.

Posted by Perkins at 10:31 AM | Comments (1)

1473 hits last night

Apart from the one day last month when the BBC website mentioned this blog as "influential" (!) and we had 3000 hits, the number of visitors has risen cheerfully. Last night was another record (excluding that one day) of 1473 hits. Thank you. It was also the hottest day since 1911. It will be hard to keep up both those achievements.

I am told we have been asked if we would take advertising by a Chinese publisher. As long as they have some tiddlers for Perkins, I'm sure there will be a way to say yes. I wonder what the Chinese equivalent of the DLA (Delay) the Department of Libraries and Archives is called.

Posted by Perkins at 8:56 AM | Comments (0)

Somerset

As if to underscore the point I have been trying to make about inability to manage capital spending on libraries, there is an article this morning in the Western Mercury, the Somerset local paper about how a library which was planned at £350,000 has cost 70% more than it should have done.

At least the council seem genuinely concerned.

Posted by Perkins at 8:13 AM | Comments (2)

July 19, 2006

London Borough of Lambeth

Reading the Guardian article (see next entry) in which one of the librarians moans about how the library service is underfunded and librarians are underpaid, I was reminded of the London Borough of Lambeth

Here sits the Brixton central library and the famous and wonderful Herne Hill Carnegie library. The council has begun to restore the buildings, for which they deserve congratulation. Indeed there is a new party in power since May and I hear they have called for a further programme, which is good news.

But the librarian who moaned to the Guardian would do well to check the figures. What he or she said is not universally true. Anyone would presume from looking at many libraries that funding is short, but in Lambeth the people of the Borough (which like most London Boroughs is a mix of poor and wealthy residents) pay £6.2m each year for nine libraries. The average employment cost is £37,000 per library employee and only about 4.5% of that taxpayers funding is spent on books. There is a lot to be done, but charging customers more for the service is not always the first place to look.

I know this is completely exceptional and my friends in Cornwall will jump, correctly, to say it isn't like that everywhere. But the library service in Lambeth actually isn't very good. They score (at the moment and for a long time past) the Audit Commission and PLSS equivalent of nul points. So a taxpayer would reasonably say: "Why is money the answer? If the management can not do better with twice the amount of money, do they know how to spend money properly? And until they can demonstrate that they do, to give them more is to throw it away"

That is just one example, but to save the MLA spending £200,000 on consultants to see if it is a valid observation, I can tell them that it is. Money does not appear to be the answer and lack of it is not the problem. That is true for Revenue expenditure and Capital expenditure- and I am not alone in saying this. The Audit Commission said it eight years ago in a report called "Due for Renewal" which is as relevant now as it was then.

Until the profession agrees to listen to the advice it is given no one can reasonably believe an argument for funding the library service at all (and certainly not more than now).

Posted by Perkins at 7:25 PM | Comments (0)

Blame the customer

There is an article about public libraries in the Guardian this morning and a host of responses to it on the Guardian website.

I agree with the respondents rather more than I do with the author of the article which carries the headline "The comfortably off are letting the side down"

The argument seems parallel to one I remember a famous old book store using. Two very large book stores next to each other in the centre of a big city. The old and famous one, was dirty, dowdy, badly stocked and closed on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and even some lunch times; the new one was open until 10pm every evening, excellently stocked, bright and colourful.

The owner of the famous book shop said "Sales are falling- people just don't care about books in the way they used to." The new one thrived.

Libraries seem to believe they are entitled to peoples' loyalty. On the contrary, the people who pay for them are entitled to modern standards of service.

Posted by Perkins at 12:47 PM | Comments (5)

Susan Hill

Regulars will spot that Susan keeps a careful eye on what I put on this blog.

She put a wonderful entry on her own blog last night- for which many thanks are due.

Posted by Perkins at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)

The Dumchurch Letter 19 July

To Mrs Sideloader

Dear Chrysanthemum

I was shown the budget for the current year for the 12 libraries of Dumchester and I looked at the way they had spent their budget last year.

First of all I wrote down last year's figures (for 2005-6)

All the figures are in thousands of pounds

Funding of the service
Revenue funds from the council 5,177
Income from readers (DVD loans, fines etc) 440
Total 5,617 (ie £5.6m)

That is all the money and the cost of other resources provided by taxpayers, from whatever source, earmarked by the council for the public library service

Use of funds: that money was spent on
Cost of employees 2,983
Occupying premises - heat, light, rates etc (but no rents) 546
"Materials" viz books, DVD's, playstations, bindings and labels 528
Computing services: inc use of council systems, software licenses 381
"Other services" - office and library operating costs 205
Transport - A vehicle etc 31
Council support charge - A share of the council overhead 433
Capital Charges- Equivalent of rents for council owned buildings 510
Total 5,617

So if those were written as percentages they would be

Employees- 2,983 (53.1%)
Premises costs- 546 (9.7%)
Materials- 528 (9.4%)
Computing - 381 (6.7%)
Other services- 205 (3.6%)
Transport - 31 (0.5%)
Council Support - 433 (7.7%)
Capital Charges- 510 (9.1%)
Total 5,617 (100.0%)

Of the materials fund about two thirds was spent on books; So the book expenditure in 2005-6 was £362,000 which represents just 6.4% of the resources and funds that taxpayers have paid for the service.

Against these figures, in preparing next year's budget clearly one would look to see how these funds were prioritised in order to give service to the public and how that service could be improved.

One would look to make sure that all expenditure that did not give value to the public or gave less value, should be reduced, gradually.

Perkins is not enjoying the heat, but he is well

Grimsdyke.

Posted by Perkins at 9:34 AM | Comments (0)

Book blogs

One of the great skills of a librarian (or a really good bookseller) is to be able to recommend authors and books to read.

When I was at school there used to be a record shop in Stockton on Tees high street called Leslie Brown's. Every Saturday morning the lady behind the counter taught me about classical music. She moved me from Beethoven to Chopin to Tchaikowsky to Brahms to Rachmaninov. How could I ever have known these names, if she hadn't done that. It is a generous gift. I don't know if the shop is still there?

Now there are some really good book blogs that do the same thing and lead you to authors of whom you have no knowledge, which is such a pleasure. Here is a new one just opened by writer Jessica Ruston I found yesterday. I hope it goes on and on. If you start with "Secret History", as she does, you have to be going in a good direction.

Posted by Perkins at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2006

DLA Board Meeting

At a board meeting of DLA (Delay) the Department of Libraries and Archives the Chair Lord Ginger Nut of Television asked if there any figures to look at

Mr Custard Cream OBE, on behalf of the management, replied that there were not

Lord Ginger Nut thanked him for that clear answer and asked if Mr Custard Cream felt that the board should be concerned about recent reports of the closure of the public library service

Mr Custard Cream said that there was no need to be concerned and any statements made by the press that might detract from the glorious role of DLA should be met with a Dead Bat (which is a cricketing expression).The Chief Executive reminded everyone that he was recruiting a further 3,000 staff for his office. "This is only the beginning" he said.

The Chairman invited everyone to enjoy the biscuits said that was the end of the meeting.

Posted by Perkins at 9:39 PM | Comments (0)

Dorset cuts book spending by one third

Having made no visible attempt to improve the efficiency of their library operation, Dorset County Council have been advised by their library officers to cut book spending by one third and have accepted the advice.

Their local newspaper tells the tale.

And these professionals still believe they will have a job in 5 years time. What will they propose in the next round of budgets which starts in September?

Posted by Perkins at 6:51 PM | Comments (0)

Refitting libraries

The Select Committee last year found that half the library buildings in the country are in unsatisfactory condition.

Yet a recent report has shown that although £277m has been spent on libraries in the past 5 years, it has mostly been wasted because so many different architects and designers were given the opportunity to "express their view of a library of the 21st century". Despite that expenditure, no improvement in the overall condition of the library buidlings is discernible. No sensibly managed retail operation- shop, bank, restaurant chain, from smallest to largest, or any other public body, would behave in this way and achieve such little progress with so much money.

Retailers use a project manager to keep tight control over costs and times, to minimise disruption to customers, staff etc. It's a much better method than employing an architect or designer to lead the work, in my experience. You get far far better value for money

Local councils rarely have the capital budget they want and there is unlikely to be funding readily available. On the other hand what an officer needs is a plan that is always in place so he can show the council what can be done if funds can be allocated. There needs to be an ability to offer both cosmetic improvement to branches, which is relatively cheap, and a programme of full refurbishment over several years which keeps the estate in good order. Then at any point funds can be used to best advantage.

Posted by Perkins at 9:51 AM | Comments (0)

Volunteers in libraries

Volunteers are used nowadays in many activities, particularly government-funded cultural projects like museums, yet for many local authorities the idea of involving volunteers in libraries has been taboo.

This authority appears to be being open and sensible. It may help others to see what is being said.

This is a Friends of Libraries group asking the council officer responsible to elaborate his view about using volunteers so they could discuss it.

We are developing a policy on volunteering. In this context, we would like to test a factual interaction between our employees and members of the community who may have an interest in what we do. The result will hopefully inform a document that will contribute to the policy.

What criteria will be used in the choice of volunteers?

There may be four:
-one essential criterion is the willingness to champion the services we provide by standing next to us every day (or so).
- an additional criterion has to do with the fundamental willingness to give up our time on a voluntary basis.
-the third has to do with knowledge, which may relate to computing, love of books, art, etc.
-the last one pertains to one's ability to relate to members of the public. We would be looking for someone who truly enjoys engaging with people of all walks of life.

Will they be vetted?

Yes. There will be a formal selection which results in the volunteer committing to volunteer and the service committing to support the volunteer.

What training will be given?

This will very much depend on the type of contribution the volunteer is prepared to make. It can go from full training, as we do with our own staff, to an introduction to what is available in the building.

Will they replace qualified staff?

No.

Has Unison (the Trade Union) expressed a view on this?

As I said, this is a new area for us, (this project) is very much an experiment, which may lead to exceptional results in terms of engagement with the local community, active participation, improved dialogue with users and non users, etc.
We started talking to Unison representatives within the service, but there are limited comparators to express a view. One common point is that the introduction of volunteers will not replace qualified staff.

Will the hours of duty be negotiated?

In theory, yes. But we would like to see a firm commitment to the service.

What happens when volunteers are unavailable either due to sickness, holidays or other commitments?

These may be replaced by other volunteers

Will there be a contract of work?

No. There will be an agreement between the volunteer and the Service, whereby we respectively agree to provide services and to support the aspirations of the volunteer.

Is this policy intended to widen the hours of opening or to save money on staffing?

Widening opening hours may well be a result of this, because it may allow us to deploy our staff in different ways.
There will be no savings on staffing, only improved services.

Will they be IT trained to a reasonable standard to help the public?

Again, this is up to the volunteer. They decide how much or how little of the opportunities we offer they are willing to take. If they enjoy using computers and would love to sit next to a friend showing them how to make the most of Google, we can equip the volunteer with the knowledge to do just that.

How will this scheme be funded and what are the considered costs?

This is very much a test of us. The scheme will not require additional funding. The costs will remain within the service's budget.

It is a great pity this is not being made known to the wider public.

Again, this initiative is not ready to be widely applied. We need to test it enough to develop a better understanding about the interactions that may result from introducing volunteers in our libraries. My authorities have done it for many years, but we are new to this and willing to learn.

Can you also see from this the positive contribution a "Friends of Libraries" group can make in support of a council officer who is trying to make improvements? This is impressive stuff.

Posted by Perkins at 8:39 AM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2006

The Dumchester Letters 17 July

To Mrs Chrysanthemum Sideloader
The Carnegie Library
The Harbour
Bloggington on Sea

Dear Mrs Sideloader

My efforts in Dumchester have begun with an appraisal of the number of staff working in each library, the times at which they work and the numbers of readers visiting and using the libraries at different times of day.

The people are amiable, but Perkins does not like Black Pudding.

Yours sincerely,

Grimsdyke

PS I am to stay at the Abide-with-me Freedom Lodge, which allows pets to stay. This is satisfactory in some respects, but the gentleman on the floor below evidently keeps pigeons which is distressing for both Perkins and I. We will become accustomed, I have no doubt, but hopefully they will race soon, which I gather means they will be away for several days.

Posted by Perkins at 10:26 PM | Comments (1)

Saving libraries

There is a tremendous amount of work going in small towns, villages, districts of cities and all sorts of places to persuade councillors and council officers not to close libraries. People are working on leaflets and posters, tracking down local journalists, trying to make sense of council documents and procedures which are not easy to understand. They are running petitions, opening websites, raising funds and often going to considerable expense. It is a struggle by ordinary people in their thousands for something they don't want to lose and are prepared to give their time and devotion to. The ballot box has not proved an effective means of democracy to touch this detail of our lives.

It would be wrong to mention many of those campaigns of which I get to hear in fear that the process might be upset by undue attention. People are having to be persuaded to back track from positions that were fiercely held and arguments that were passionately put forward.

Someone said to me today: where are the MLA, its regional offices, the Reading Agency, the officers of the DCMS, or CILIP or the Society of Chief Librarians, or the Advisory Council of Librarians or CYMAL or SCILIP, or the trustees of LASER or the Love Libraries Mob, or even the Minister of State when all this hard work goes on?

I have no idea.

Posted by Perkins at 8:32 PM | Comments (0)

Good news in Southwark

This article sounds good from Chaucer and Shakespeare country.

Posted by Perkins at 1:40 PM | Comments (1)

July 16, 2006

Intiatives and ways forward

There are 3 ways that we can get out of the crisis that I described under the heading of "efficiency, efficiency, efficiency".

The first is for individual councils to ask for help. Like going to the doctor, when they do this they have to be prepared to take the medicine prescribed. I believe that where there is a need for some seed-corn funding, there are suppliers of various kinds who would, on the basis of a firm and tangible plan for improvement which it is in the supplier's interest to pursue and a high level of management commitment, be persuaded to invest.

The second is if the Audit Commission became so dissatisfied with the value for money being given to the public that it initiated a special urgent project to restore the library service. I would like to see this

The third is if a body replaced the current MLA and undertook a service similar to that which I am suggesting in the first case here. The Minister (or a new Minister) could initiate this. He or she could provide access to seed corn funds and perhaps even some lottery money. That would speed things up. It would also bring about the benefits of support that an efficient and useful central library agency should be providing now.

I would like to see all these things happen and also to see the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties call for and support the same actions. The library service, run by local councils, is their reponsibility as well, although not in quite the same way as the Government's for whom the Minister has a statutory responsibility which the other party central offices cannot have.

Librarians, not only the formal representative bodies, but individuals within the profession and in the library service, could usefully call for, commit to and support these initiatives. The public has a great deal to lose if they are not carried but so, also, do people who work in libraries.

None of these things is happening at the moment. All of them are urgent and, as I have often said, need to be in flow before September this year, when the next round of budgets wil be in progress.

Members of the public should call upon their councils to ask for outside help. I would do my best to act as a facilitator for the first of these methods as well as continuing to call for the other two, which I have done for a long time.

If we do not do these things, now- within only a few years there will be no public library service. I think others are beginning to see this is not just an idle threat made deliberately to frighten- it is actually true and we can already see how the end will come about.

Posted by Perkins at 12:40 PM | Comments (1)

Welcome

There are visitors every day on this site now from countries all over the world, not only too many to list, but too many to appear on the analysis that shows where people come from.

However there is one very regular reader from North Yorkshire Council, the identity of whom I do not know. But North Yorkshire is my home (like Susan Hill). My first school was in Yarm and the Cleveland Hills were my playground. My mother was a primary school teacher who is still remembered in many families. She was extraordinary for her ability to teach children to read while she had them in her class; even our cat could read.

You are very welcome. I am very grateful to everybody for the interest. You can be certain that Dumchester is not in North Yorkshire...

Posted by Perkins at 9:37 AM | Comments (1)

A Third World Public Library Service

News of the collapse of the English public library service is now reported all over the world.

This article is from India.

Will any councils join me in a discussion to work out how to improve the situation?

Posted by Perkins at 8:09 AM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2006

Treachery

No sooner had Mr Grimsdyke's train left Bloggington station than treachery struck the town's library service.

Mr Grimsdyke has always resolutely refused to become a member of SYRUP, the library professional trade body, or SCL, the Society for Closing Libraries or ACL the Association for the Closure of Libraries, and he will have no dealings with all those who have received OBE's for their devotion to Mr Woolly Jumper and the Department of Common Sense (DCMS) or aspired to be subservient to DLA (Delay: the Department of Libraries and Archives). He will not join the Knitting Agency. In other words he has devoted himself with singular resolution to the libraries of Bloggington on Sea

Within the hour after the train with Mr Grimsdyke on board chuffed gaily northwards from the station Mr Garry Baldy, who is the head of many of those bodies, but not all, was on the phone to Mayor Tomato. He and Mrs Dumpling, the head of the Recovery Centre programme in Barsetshire offered the Mayor a special deal. "Come over to our side" was the drift. The libraries of Bloggington can no longer stand alone. Books must be removed here as they have been everywhere else. Mr Baldy claimed to bring messages of affection from Lord Ginger Nut of Television, Mr Custard Cream OBE, Lady Cheese and Tomato Sandwich OBE,RAF,CBI,MI5,CIA,KGB, Miss Bo Peep (just OBE), Mrs Thin Biscuit of ERASE (the charity for removing words from books) and the Countess of Lemon Curd (who spent the day at the races).

The Mayor is always open to deals. We have to hope that he does not see any virtue in this one. Lock up your daughters. The very devil is on the doorstep.

Was the deal with the Mayor of Dumchester set up by these people? It begins to look like a government conspiracy to remove Mr Grimsdyke in exchange for a lifetime supply of strawberry milkshake. The libraries will be turned into Casinos.

Posted by Perkins at 9:09 PM | Comments (1)

Farewell

A small crowd gathered on platform 3 of Bloggington Marina Station this morning to wave farewell to Mr Grimsdyke on his journey North to the city of Dumchester. Trains to the North only leave at 5.30am and take a long time.

He carried a Gladstone bag in which Mrs Sideloader had specially made windows for Perkins the library cat, a small packet of tiddlers for the journey and an old BOAC travel case that someone once left in the Harbour library, which contained his few belongings.

God speed Mr Grimsdyke. Unless you write letters you will only leave sadness behind.

Posted by Perkins at 9:38 AM | Comments (0)

CIPFA

No one can remember what "CIPFA" stands for, but it is the body that publishes figures about the public library service in the whole UK (and Ireland, too, I believe)

It is a private body that charges councils for its work. It doesn't answer to government and the figures it produces are not freely available in the public domain.

In other words there are no public or government statistics about the performance of public libraries. If you want to know how your council has performed, you have to pay to find out.

The Minister has a legal duty to ensure we all receive a "comprehensive and efficient" service, but he has no information with which to carry out that duty. He also has to purchase the data that CIPFA produce.

The CIPFA figures are produced late, they are incomprehensible and several councils don't bother to send their figures, so they are incomplete.

Yet we pay £1.2bn every year for this service. This is cost on the scale of Marks and Spencers and the John Lewis Partnership. Can you imagine that the shareholders of these companies would tolerate a managing director who told them there are no figures about the performance of the company?

At the moment there are no published figures about public libraries which describe activity later than March 2005. That is 18 months ago. So when the board of the MLA meet and congratulate themselves on the "good news" of the library service- what are they talking about? Biscuits on the table at the meeting?

Last year the civil servants responsible for libraries in the DCMS were told by Parliament to "Raise their game". So when they review the performance of MLA, to whom they delegate that responsibility, what information do they look at? (They certainly don't look at this blog!)

Why doesn't the Minister say "Excuse me, where are the figures?"

How can the library service operate without a current, timely and accurate source of management information? How can decisions be made about closures, or how to allocate resources or whether or not to recruit or appoint people, without information about how the service is performing?

Why does this go on year after year? Why don't senior, highly paid managers all over the country do their job? Or why don't they just all go and let us run the library service ourselves

Resign guys. All of you. And sack the others before you go.

Posted by Perkins at 9:00 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2006

Tears in Bloggington on Sea

At a secret meeting in Bloggington City Hall the Mayor of Dumchester has signed a loan agreement with Mayor Tomato of Bloggington. Mr Grimsdyke the Head of Bloggington public libraries is going to travel to Dumchester to sort out the Dumchester library service. He will be away for many months.

Mr Grimsdyke has promised to write letters home to give an account of his progress but who knows whether such a promise will be kept, or whether he will ever be seen again.

Miss Sweet Sixteen, prize winning ace reporter of the Bloggington Bugle, reported that when this news was revealed Mrs Sideloader was seen weeping quietly and alone on the old wooden bench at the end of Bloggington Promenade. She was said to be "looking out to sea"

Mayor Tomato is believed to have secured a seven figure sum in exchange for Mr Grimsdyke and an unlimited amount of top quality strawberry milk shake. Perkins the library cat will accompany Mr Grimsdyke on his journey.

Dumchester is in The North.

Posted by Perkins at 9:58 PM | Comments (0)

"The Lammy Closures": 500 libraries will shut within 3 years

See the item below.

Posted by Perkins at 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

Efficiency, efficiency, efficiency

At the risk of labouring a point I want to extract again the recommendations of the PKF report of June last year. I still haven't found a council or a consortium that has taken these seriously and gained the savings that they should bring:

"Quick Wins
1.10 Outlined below are our recommendations regarding the adoption of good practice across the supply chain, including use of staff and management structures, which can be implemented immediately and that we view as ‘quick wins’:

Adoption of good practice across the book supply chain
• All authorities should adopt the 2004 NAG standards (as a maximum) for the servicing required to make books shelf-ready. In the medium term these standards should be further revised to reflect the additional reductions in servicing which could be presented by the introduction of RFID;
• All library authorities should review their stock procurement processes and structures in light of the recommendations, ensure that where possible staff are re-deployed to customer facing roles and be prepared for external scrutiny of their processes and structures;
• All libraries should review their support functions and understand to what extent these can be shared across local boundaries;
• The lead authority in existing consortia should review the specification terms of each authority in the consortium, identify how they vary and then work together with the supplier to streamline the requirements.

Use of staff
• All library authorities should review staff structures to ensure that all posts are contributing to the delivery of library targets, that as many staff are ‘customer facing’ as is possible and that any redeployment leads to tangible improvements in service, for example longer opening hours.

Management structures
• All library authorities should review management structures to ensure that the span of control is appropriate for the level of responsibility."

These, rather simply stated exercises, if completed properly, would save literally hundreds of millions of pounds across councils of the UK. Note particularly the recommendation that a council should use external scrutiny of their processes and structures. That means "Don't ask the library manager what they think they would like to do- you need an outsider to tell the council what is possible and diligence to make sure it is carried out. You mustn't leave it to the management- it is like asking them to move a large boulder upon which they are standing- they just can't do it. It is not possible"

And, for goodness sake, do not expect the Minister, the DCMS or the MLA to help this process-- their job is not this kind of thing, they are far too busy out there advocating, giving out contracts, forging partnerhips, appointing appointments and raising their profile in government and the press etc.

I confidently predict that the number of library closures that we are currently counting - The Lammy Closures"-- will have risen to 500 within three years. All councils are forecasting a more difficult regime than this year which will produce a 100 closures. Nothing has been done to the reverse the pattern, which getting worse. The only way we will create a climate to stop that happening is to address these recommendations- NOW, before the next budget round in September.

They are the "Lammy closures" because Mr Lammy hasn't had the courage to do his duty.

Posted by Perkins at 9:40 AM | Comments (1)

For Claire Choong

I have been sent a copy of "Update" which is the excellent journal of the professsional librarians published by SRYUP. In it there is a letter from Claire Choong from Canterbury in which she draws attention to this blog- many thanks for that Claire.

Claire is very kind about most of what I say, but she says she is wary that I am fuelling the funeral pyre of the library service. She is calling for her colleagues to act to make improvements.

I am very grateful, Claire- improvements are exactly what I am hoping for and I am anxious to help,as I have said here.

Posted by Perkins at 7:31 AM | Comments (2)

July 13, 2006

Closing the libraries of Barnet

The review of Barnet libraries appears to be a case of a council saying "We've done a very bad job- so nobody wants to use our libraries any more- so we'll shut them"

I live close to the newly smartened Hendon library- and it is a cheery cafe with a lot of well used internet desks. But no one could claim it is a good library. The book collections are awful, out of date, dog eared and incomplete. No wonder the people of Barnet don't use their libraries for borrowing books. The cart is following the horse.

If he had spent £250,000 on the stock in Hendon library out of the money he spent restoring it, then Mike Freer would see what a good libary could do for the community.

This is a bit of a test for the Conservative Party. Mark Field, the shadow minister has been saying the opposite of what Mike Freer is saying. It's time they sat down together and tried to make a sensible shared vision of the library service- for both their sakes, otherwise for certain Ken Livingstone will take over the libraries of London and have fair reason for doing so.

Making speeches at conferences will not solve this problem. We need to sit with a few spread sheets and some firm data.

Mike Freer quotes retailers - but this is one who is telling him that shops with no goods in sell nothing; and resiting is expensive and fruitless if you haven't got your basic "offer" right in the first place.

Posted by Perkins at 6:12 PM | Comments (1)

How to be a librarian

There is an article in the Careers section of the Times today about becoming a librarian by Carly Chynoweth of CILIP, the professional body of librarians.

Carly talks about having an interest in "information as a commodity" and enjoying helping people find things. I'm sure that's right, but she doesn't mention books anywhere in the entire article.

She is writing about all kinds of libraries, public, academic and professional, but we have a problem of recruiting enthusiasts into the public libraries and these aren't just about finding information- they are about enjoying books. The public library sector is the largest of all and it character needs to be described to would be recurits

Why does no one in the library profession ever talk about books? Why isn't "having read a lot and widely" an important reason for choosing this as a career? There are lots of other aspects that are important for giving good service, but this is an important one for a public librarian. Being a "community librarian" or part of the library in the community is one of the most important jobs in the library service at present. But they undervalued and lack influence.

Carly also talks about the second degree qualifications for becoming a librarian. I'm not convinced that having degrees makes one a better public librarian, at all; nor am I convinced that the Masters degree courses are helping to solve the problems we have in the library service, and I think they should be. In fact they are making the situation worse by digging the profession into an even deeper trench than it was already in. The University Library courses need to be reviewed.

I am not alone in thinking this, Sir Gerald Kaufman's widely ignored Select Committee report last year said the same thing.

Posted by Perkins at 11:26 AM | Comments (4)

Investors in People

If one is concerned, as one might be, at the low standard of elementary management, of which examples raised here in the past few days alone are

- inability to staff libraries at the right time with the right numbers
- inability to allocate budget priorities to the things that users of libraries need like books and being open.
- spending £57,000 to build a a counter that should probably have cost less than £3,000
- failure to arrange for the windows to be washed and light fittings to be cleaned

then one might seek those mechanisms of national and local government which exist to provide straightforward management training for those who care for the public purse in our libraries.

One of those organisations for which we all pay and that has attracted my attention, as they obviously intend to do by the little plaques they place on walls, is "Investors in People". This is a large but low-flying quango which protects its budget fiercely and appear to account to no public body for what it does. It claims to help organisations improve their basic management skills.

It also plays the game that all clever quangoistas play of having a name which sounds very worthy to a panel of budget-cutters. If you can call yourself "child literacy enterprise learning futures" you will be having an ever growing fund to spend, even if you sit around knitting - or whatever you like to do. No one serious ever checks whether you actually achieve anything.

Readers of this blog will have seen that the "boards" of such bodies are not at all interested whether the managers of the quango have done what they are all paid for, but whether they have "advocated their case in government- and raised their profile" so that the next round of money will be secure. That is pleasantly demonstrated by the minutes of the board of the MLA.

I first came across them when I was working in a council in which the library department appeared to have no management experience, or skill, or any access to training, just at the moment that the inspectors from "Investors in People" were awarding them a plaque of accreditation and a certificate and having their photo taken. I was surprised because I thought there was an awful lot more to talk about before awarding certificates- for example there seemed to me to be an unfulfilled need to explain to local councillors, how all the money was spent in words they could understand.

So last year I approached the senior officers of IIP with a copy of the Select Committee report on public libraries which clearly expresses concern about the standard of management in the service and asked them if I could help them look at the approach they were using to public libraries and why they had accredited so many services when everybody else was finding management problems.

After two jolly friendly meetings, they stopped answering the emails, with a story about how important the subject was, but they were just moving offices, or something along those lines. Like all good quangoes they have learned to avoid dealing with the public: they just don't answer them.

Posted by Perkins at 8:59 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2006

Carnegie Library

Today on travels to unknown libraries I came across a Carnegie Library I had not seen before. The fabric of the building was in excellent repair. All the beautiful original stained glass windows marked "Newspaper Room" and "Magazine Room" were in perfect condition. The counter was original, but as if it were new. Lovely little garden at the back and fine plants in the front.

Let's say it was the Carnegie Library on the bay at Bloggington. I don't want to talk about the stock I saw: I know that the stock in Mrs Sideloader's library is fascinating without limit.

Who knows of Carnegie libraries? (Herne Hill and Hove of course!!)

Posted by Perkins at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

Expensive gossip

I was told, by way of gossip, that in one library which has just been refitted, the whole of the book shelves cost £50,000 and the counter cost £57,000.

That shows the value of having an experienced project manager- and not working with a designer who is being paid a percentage of the cost of the project. I suspect from this, that the whole project cost twice as much as it should have done.

I hope it wasn't one of those "Jesus loves You" projects organised by Miss Bo Peep OBE, MI5,etc, but I have an awful feeling it was.

Old grey booksellers do know a thing or two.

Posted by Perkins at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)

ACL and SCL

Following my comment yesterday about the Society for Closing Libraries (SCL), Mrs Sideloader, to whom the mysteries of the City are perilously exciting, was heard on the beach asking Mr Grimsdyke to explain the difference between the SCL and the ACL

"They are completely different" he rebuffed her advance, for it would have been an insensitive man who could not see the nature of her opening line. "The Association for Closing Libraries (ACL) is a group that meets the Minister, Mr Woolly Jumper and advises him which libraries to close. The Society for Closing Libraries (SCL) meets itself and decides which libraries to close. There is no connection between the two. Both groups have exactly the same members, for the sake of their own convenience, and to allow them to enjoy two sets of expenses. The same people are all, of course, on the board of SYRUP, the professional body, which allows them further constant international travel."

"But who would wish to go further than Bloggington beach?", she smiled at him as they sipped their strawberry milkshakes and enjoyed Mrs Picker's Winkles in the sunset.

"Quite"

Posted by Perkins at 7:32 AM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2006

The Society for Closing Libraries (SCL)

Mr Garry Baldy the amiable, handsome, affable and cheerful the founder of the Society for Closing Libraries (SCL) was briefly in Bloggington today. In a brief interview with Miss Sweet Sixteen of the Bloggington Bugle he emphasised briefly that "Nothing is my fault. It's all been done by someone else and all is fine" and resumed his world tour of biscuit factories.

Unfortunately, because of the brevity of his visit, he omitted to visit Mrs Picker's new winkle stall on the prom.

Posted by Perkins at 10:24 PM | Comments (1)

Board minutes of the MLA

The following is an extract from the minutes of the most recent board meeting of the MLA. Please don't ask me to explain what any of it means, but mere mortals might observe that during the time of which these minutes speak, over 100 libraries have been threatened with closure and there have been lots of other problems including the minister's failure to tell parliament when he was asked, that 25m books (ie one quarter) have disappeared from libraries. Note the extensive use of facts and figures in the discussion:

Library issues - The future for libraries - setting course

Mark Wood welcomed John Dolan to the meeting. He reminded members of John Dolan's impressive record in the public library service and his personal contribution to securing the investment in the People's Network. The benefits to MLA's profile in the sector and with Government were demonstrated by changing attitudes within and beyond DCMS and a positive media presence.

John Dolan thanked members for the opportunity presented by his new role to make a real difference to how libraries in England served users and communities and secured a new and valued role in the 21st Century. He made a presentation to the meeting setting out his induction to MLA's national and regional agendas and the development of first ideas for a coherent and effective library policy. He had spent his first two and a half months meeting key partners, stakeholders and other influential bodies and individuals. He had visited all but one Regional Agency and the visit to the ninth was scheduled. He had met with the SCL Executive and its regional library managers, the Core Cities Librarians group, colleagues in the British Library, SCONUL and CILIP. He had attempted to develop a sense of the wider landscape through contacts with Local Futures, Demos, LGA, The Reading Agency, the Youth Libraries Forum, UKOLN, London 2012 LOCOG and the NHS Patients' Choice initiative.

He was establishing his identity as a source of views and expertise through contacts with correspondents and letters so far in The Bookseller, The Guardian and The Times. He had spoken at the Inspire conference and highlighted MLA's recent success with Reference Online securing online access for library users to major academic journals previously denied to many of them.

He had attended and addressed a breakfast meeting convened by David Lammy when he had sought to make the case for the 21st Century Library around
• a clear vision, role and purpose - servicing individual, community and market needs for information, reading, learning and entertainment
• the capacity to address national needs while retaining local trust ownership - delivering local community based solutions to national issues and engaging with individuals and communities in a way that added real value
• investing in leadership skills at every level in the library service
• positive marketing of library service successes and the capacity to replicate and exploit these.

He suggested as the drivers that could help realise this vision

-the creation of the MLA Partnership with its clear vision and purpose, new ways of working and sharing intelligence and a coherent and effective voice;
-the Framework and wider investment in effective strategic marketing;
-an advocacy programme centred on the celebration of library successes;
-consumer pressure for a library services accessible whenever and by whomsoever it was needed;
-the Big Lottery Fund Community Libraries programme and the Library Makeover initiative; -
and the retargeted CPA and standards framework for public libraries.

Libraries offered a demonstrably effective route for cost-effective delivery of national and local policy objectives. The challenge was to deliver the improvements in performance which effective political and institutional engagement nationally and locally had the promise to deliver. The critical strands to this improvement programme were access, community engagement, effective marketing, appropriate and well managed resources and workforce development. He offered three models for the 21st Century Library - the Community Place, a safe and inviting centre for people to go and meet; the knowledge bank, where students, business and general users could be confident that they would find answers to their questions; and the virtual space, in which all these activities could take place without constraints of time or physical space.

Mark Wood asked John Dolan for his views on whether MLA needed to take more robust and explicit positions on current library issues. John Dolan responded that MLA did need to make clear its aspirations for the service and these needed to be visionary and ambitious. He counselled, however, against the temptation to target criticism at specific public library services. There was plenty of good news on libraries but this was habitually shared only within the service and not effectively communicated through the national media. Much more pro-activity was needed to make sure that media coverage and public and political awareness was of the whole picture and not dominated by cuts to services and changes in spending priorities and stockholdings which were often in any case sensible components of rationalisation programmes aimed at delivering more relevant services through more accessible and attractive institutions.

Alan Watkin and Bob McKee agreed the need to celebrate library successes. They also urged the re-ranking of priorities for action with workforce development at the fore as a new approach to this was taken in partnership with the SSC. There was also need better to exploit available research and evidence and look beyond the UK for models of good service. The issues and the models proposed to address these were ones which read across directly to the other two domains. This view was echoed by Helen Forde and Virginia Tandy.

Sir Geoffrey Holland suggested that the whole of the library domain should be considered. Higher Education already offered examples of 21st Century services and there was a variety of private libraries. The forthcoming Department for Education and Skills White Paper addressing support for learning beyond compulsory education offered a major opportunity for library services to make their case. He agreed the need to develop and present a positive and coherent story to the media and through LGA.

In response to Nick Kingsley's question of how MLA should respond to library services which under-performed John Dolan suggested that there was a need for constructive dialogue based on an understanding of the service's particular local constraints and the development of support with DCMS and ODPM. Ministers did recognise the value of libraries and their support for the service needed to be consolidated and developed.

Virginia Tandy questioned whether a single domain approach remained appropriate in a local government political environment where there were no longer single service champions.

Sue Wilkinson reported the joint work that was taking place with ACE, English Heritage and Sport England to develop a joint offer to ODPM.

Sarah Carthew suggested that the MLA Partnership also offered increased capacity to present coherent messages for the whole sector to local and national government.

Bob McKee agreed that messages built around the totality of the sector could not fail to be impressive. Evidence needed to be presented demonstrating the scale of its economic impact building on the studies in London and the North West. The entitlement model was a useful one to develop. Members discussed workforce development priorities. Acknowledged was the difficulty in achieving culture change among some groups within the workforce and the urgent need to present career opportunities in a way that highlighted their breadth and 21st Century relevance. The benefit to MLA of its representation to the sector and government of an individual with John Dolan's expertise and standing was acknowledged.

Chris Batt reminded members that this was the first of three appointments aimed at increasing the Council's profile and standing across all the domains.

Posted by Perkins at 8:56 PM | Comments (1)

Seminar in London

Alternatively one could do a seminar of a similar kind for four London boroughs. That also would be interesting.

Or anywhere in the country really.

As Susan says- the offer is there for anyone to take up.

Posted by Perkins at 8:43 PM | Comments (0)

Seminar

Susan Hill has responded to my suggestion of a seminar with

"When you say ' a seminar ' - where and for how many and lasting how long ?"

I suggest it should be a gathering of 4 councils, at a hotel or suitable venue so that we can start sharply at 8.30 in the morning and go on until 4.30 in the afternoon. Each council can bring say 4 or 5 staff including finance and senior officers and the councillor responsible for libraries. They will have been asked to prepare specific presentations about the the organisation of their library service and use of resources. There will be a tight agenda throughout the day which will end with some commitment to future action from each council.

I would bring 3 or 4 speakers/ session chairs and there may be another 10 lookers on/ members of the public etc. Say 35-40 people altogether, of whom say 8 will have stayed the night before.

So if the councils were Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset, the venue was somewhere that most could get to and return from in the day. Each council should contribute £1,500 for the day in a good quality venue. That should cover it.

Posted by Perkins at 5:35 PM | Comments (1)

Another professional librarian speaks out

In the past few weeks I have been receiving letters from senior professional librarians expressing their agreement with my views about the state of the library service and, by and large, with my proposals for improvement. I have included extracts from some on this blog.

So far people have asked to remain anonymous, quite understandably, as they fear for their jobs and their income (as I should have done a long time ago). However, of course, it will help others to express the same view when these comments are made openly and the discussion becomes a practical pursuit.

Last night I was sent a copy of an article on its way to the trade newspapers in which a senior librarian has expressed views very similar to mine and also bravely proposed that it is time for the profession to address some of the real problems faced by the library service rather than submit to the cheery propaganda of those in denial. This article carries the name of the librarian and I am very grateful to him and have promised to do all I can to respond to his call.

I would be very happy to participate in a seminar of senior librarians, if someone will pay, and if the group are prepared to commit to change. In my view we need to do this within days or weeks, not months,- as I explained in my entry yesterday about budgeting properly for 2007/8.

Posted by Perkins at 9:31 AM | Comments (1)

Another Record Day on the site

The heatwave in Bloggington on Sea goes on- and here on the town website we had another record number of hits. Aside from the day that the BBC gave the town a plug on its news broadcast, yesterday was our busiest day. More strawberry milkshakes with ice cream were sold than ever before.

Posted by Perkins at 8:17 AM | Comments (2)

July 10, 2006

Tricks of the trade

If you want to make a reasonably accurate assesment of the quality of stock in a library or in a bookshop, here is the trick...

Before you leave home in the morning make a list of ten books. This is the essential part. You can't leave it until you get to the library

I checked out some libraries and some book stores today and this was the list I used. Your list will be completely different- but I bet we get the same scores.

"Woman in Black" by Susan Hill
"Catch 22" Joseph Heller
"At the bay" in any collection of short stories by Katherine Mansfield
"Sunset Song" Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Italian Recipes of Jamie Oliver
A history of Henry Vlll (not his wives)
A book about the Rolling Stones
A choice of at least 3 guide books to Sicily
Italian for beginners on tape or CD
"The Man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sacks

In the town to which I went, Waterstone's scored 8; Borders scored 9; the independent scored 8; WHSmith scored 6 and the public library scored 5. That's actually very good for a library, in my experience. I would have jailed the Waterstone's manager for the two books they were missing.

Posted by Perkins at 4:49 PM | Comments (5)

July 9, 2006

Act Now

This is not another call to go out on the streets but rather an explanation to local councils and heads of library services as to what they must do to stop the decline of their book collections.

Start working on the budget for 2007/8 Now. In the past you have added 5% to the staff budget first and then cut the book fund to meet the council's overall budget requirement. Instead of that add 50% to the book fund first and then see what you have to do to the staff budget in order to meet the overall figure. That will force you to think about how to reduce your non- front line costs.

If you leave this (difficult) work to September, you will already be too late.

I don't say these things because I am trying to bring the library service down: I say them because I truly believe that unless we take this medicine now and for the following two years the public library service, as a place in which you can find a useful collection of books, is finished. After that time there will be no more profession and no more funds. The slope is that slippery. S