The Good Library Blog

Tim, do get your mitts on a copy of Managing Information if you can. I defy you to find a better example of how NOT to design and lay out magazine content. I also challenge you to track down an issue which doesn't feature a completely irrelevant photograph of a train or a red telephone box....

Tim

Do you intend to go to this? I see that it is intended for Chief Librarians and strategic managers (which probably means that no-one there will have recent first hand experience to address any of these issues).

Out of curiosity what is your opinion of the Love Libraries campaign?

Miriam

Miriam,

Thanks. No I'm not invited to this. I don't think I would support it- and doubtless the tickets will be expensive and paid on council expenses. It falls into the category of senior officers having a nice day out to meet their friends and go shopping.

I think Love Libraries was good for funding the refit of 3 libraries. Those libraries all look much better than they did (I've seen Richmond and Coldharbour, and a description of Newquay).

It also was important because for the first time since I can remember, there was proper emphasis on books in the work that was done. It was really good to hear the Minister stressing the importance of books and reading and the need for book collections to be improved. When I first heard it, I thought that if a Minister will not only say that, but show to councils how important he believed it to be, then that was a major step forward. I also hoped he would be realistic and acknowledge that the collections of books have truly become poor and there is a real need to address this seriously as an issue. I hoped he would show some leadership and make sure that the Love Libraries projects were done properly and not just be a piece of spin- a ministerial window display with no substance. i wrote to someone in Government at the time, that if this project is done properly it could be the beginnning of the solution.

But the more I saw what happened, the more disappointed I became. The stock problems in the councils of those three libraries weren't addressed at all. Nobody was prepared to look thoroughly into why those libraries had got into the state they were in and tackle the fundamental problems of each council.

The hard graft and discussion that is needed to put a council on the right track was just not attempted. So what was a huge opportunity was, for me, dissipated within a few days of its launch. It quickly became clear that no one had really thought about what work was needed and all that was happening was a rather pleading message for the public to be nice about a service -- when the truth of the matter is they have every right to be very cross about it.

It was very disappointing, and I tried to alert my publisher friends who were paying for it, to get control of what was happening, but they I'm afraid were blinded by proximity and access to the minister. They didn't want to get involved in the tough internal struggle for the survival of the library service, and they didn't.

Also it became clear in the discussions that those people to whom the Minister turns for advice- any of these groups who were partners in the project- actually don't really understand that much of the problem of the library service lies within the way it is managed. They truly believe that if only there were more funding- from councils, the treasury, partnerships with others, the lottery or wherever else, that money will solve the problem. So the Minister has really no idea what the problem is that needs to ba tackled. I don't exonerate him because if this, because he should have "taken a second opinion"- but that is the reason why the problems never get solved.

The Reading Agency kept telling me that they couldn't be expected to get deeply into and solve problems. But, I thought, what is the point of a famous partnership between DCMS, MLA, SCL, The Reading Agency, 3 councils and a load of important publishers, which is about the total number of influential groups in the sector, if you don't acknowledge and try to solve the problems? No one else can solve them if this of agencies collection doesn't try. The Reading Agency posed as leaders working hand in hand with The Minister- but neither of them showed that they knew what it took to lead

This isn't hard and doesn't require a conference. The fees for attneding the conference should be diverted to the book budget. Answers are embarrassingly simple: 1-4 - Yes but only if there are adequate numbers of books on the shelves that the local public want to borrow and refer to; 5 - Yes but only if they offer the kind of discounts on books that they give Waterstones and Tesco - publishers need to put their money where their mouth is and invest less in happy clappy celebrity events in libraries.