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September 17, 2006
A voice from Llareggub
Llareggub is the village in Under Milk Wood; it is a backwards place. We've had copmmentary from Powys but It's time we had more views from Wales; here is clarity itself, from Verity Panglais- thank you, it is very good to hear from you.
"The MLA report on library buildings in England makes grim reading, and I am sure that situation in the rest of the UK is no better: but you’re quite right – there is money in library budgets which could be used for improvements.
A glance at Appendix 1 of your Libri report Who’s in charge ? gives a clue about where too much library funding goes. In Hampshire, apparently at least10% of the staff appear to have managerial or administrative functions only.
Anyone with any experience of public libraries knows that such top-heavy management structures are the rule, rather than the exception.
We know such hierarchies are expensive, but are they efficient? Given that UK library managers have presided over a catastrophic decline in book funds (the source of their core service) to a mere 8.8% of total budget and a dramatic fall in use levels, they are certainly not effective.
But there are libraries in the UK where things are done very differently. Cardiff has a population of more than 330,000, with 20 libraries, and it has had no post of ‘Chief Librarian’ since 2001. The service is run by a team of 5 senior librarians, led by a Library Development Manager.
All, except the Development Manager, have other responsibilities as well - stock, children’s services, etc - and their total salaries are less than £145k a year, from a library budget of nearly £5 million.
Since 2001, Cardiff’s stock budget has risen, although from a very low base, by nearly 300% (to more than 20% of total budget) and there has been a successful building programme, in which more than 25% of the city’s libraries have been completely refurbished or replaced. The service has one of the highest satisfaction rates in the UK for requests for specific titles.
Against the national trend, issues and use levels are rising, slowly but steadily.
There are doubtless many aspects of the service that could be improved – there is a desperate need for more frontline posts, and longer opening hours, with more promotion of the service to non-users, for instance – but it’s very doubtful whether the presence of a ‘Chief’ would make any difference at all to achieving these.
But until the local councillors responsible for running libraries have to account for the costs of their management hierarchies, these funds will remain under-used."
Posted by Tim Coates at September 17, 2006 4:26 PM
Comments
This is mostly heartening stuff, but surely saying you don't have a Chief, you have a Library Development Manager is just semantics? Someone has to run the service - as long as they do it well, what does the title matter?
Posted by: Duchess of Malfi at September 18, 2006 4:36 PM