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August 28, 2006
Local library boards
In America, as I understand it, most public libraries have some kind of "local library board" which is a group of people from the community.
I think this is a good idea for England, too, because one of the problems of which libraries stand accused is of having "lost touch with the people they serve" (that is a quotation from market research). The local library board can serve many functions - people often mention fund raising and organising author visits- but, for me, its first and foremost function is to make sure that whatever the library does it serves all of its local community as a good public library.
However, I wasn't surprised yesterday to see a piece of research which said that wherever in England attempts have been made to set up good working library boards they have failed. There are none. There are some "friends of libraries" but they are not the same thing; generally "friends of libraries" defend libraries from closure or mutilation, but they are unable to make themselves part of the strategic decision making body of the library; they are excluded from that.
The reasons it doesn't surprise me are
- the embrace of local views is contrary to the practice of local government
- local government officers are encouraged to be defensive and secretive and a board would not allow them to behave in that way.
- members of the public libraries branch of CILIP are taught that they should not have to deal with the public and others will do that part of the job for them.
- for some reason civil servants and government officers change when they go to work and instead of behaving like normal people, behave as if the public were the enemy that had besieged their citadel.
- If you want proof of that you can see that of the many hundreds of government officers who visit this blog site every day there is a mere and brave handful who have the courage to engage in the conversation. The rest assume they will be defended from the criticisms made by the authority of the organisation for whom they work.
We need open local government and well informed local library boards (for each library) would be a help in achieving that.
Posted by Tim Coates at August 28, 2006 12:49 PM
Comments
Perhaps "library governors", à la school governors?
Posted by: Ned at August 28, 2006 3:03 PM
Ah yes - Transparency. Whatever happened to that ?
Posted by: SUSAN HILL at August 28, 2006 4:50 PM
Tim,
Why has it been allowed to develop into a "them and us" situation? It really is beyond the pale.
Whatever happened to good old common sense?
Time for government officers at Joe or Josephine Public level to "grasp the nettle" and speak out?
Though by "speaking out"...contructive dismissal is usually enforced.
Posted by: Margo Harker at August 28, 2006 9:43 PM