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November 27, 2006
Newcastle upon Tyne
In his speech to the Love Libraries conference last week Tony Durcan of Newcastle, in his final slide, called for expenditure on books to be raised to 15% of funding.
The question that needs to be answered is "by whom?". Local government officers like Tony Durcan insist that they must not be interfered with by central government and the DCMS insists that they cannot do so.
In the case of Newcastle City Council, the decision on how to spend the money that they allocate for public libraries is totally in the hands of the city council. Presumably they seek they guidance of Mr Durcan who is the senior officer responsible. Nobody else decides.
But I am looking at the CIPFA data for Newcastle upon Tyne and I pose the questions to anyone: what precentage of gross expenditure on libraries do Newcastle spend on books? and how are they going to raise it to 15% if they insist on doing it on their own? These seem to me to be the central questions facing the whole library service.
Newcastle is, I believe, in the process of building a new central library: so how much of the funding is being spent on new book stock?
Mr Durcan is quoted as saying we should raise the expenditure to 15% to show we are serious about books and reading. So how serious is he?
Somebody told me that Tony Durcan is to be next president of the Society of Chief Librarians. He will have a chance to show what he can do.
Posted by Tim Coates at November 27, 2006 10:02 AM
Comments
I posed these questions in hope that Tony Durcan has had a moment on the road to Damascus. In the figures for last year Newcastle spent less than 5% of its total Gross Library revenue expenditure on "books and pamphlets" and the decline in book lending in the past 5 years in that city has been nearly 30%. In order for this authority to "show it is serious" about books, by buying more, there has to be a dramatic change in approach.
I am sure we will all endure a million press articles about the architecture of the new building, but the library service is not about architecture. It is about providing things to read.
Posted by: Tim at November 27, 2006 10:25 AM
Ask not what the book fund can do for buying books... Ask how many new council one-stop shop libraries/jobcentre/planning enquiry desk/visitor information office/strictly come dancng/tea room/creche facilities the book fund can build, always on the understanding that the plundering will be strictly temporary and will be restored to an appropriate level as soon as possible and that the new 'appropriate' level will have due regard to the relative absence of book shelves in the new discovery centre/idea store/encounter forum/culture palace. Just like Hampshire really. Or Tower Hamlets. To paraphrase Kingsley Amis - New means worse. And less fit for purpose.
Posted by: Elgar Atkins at November 28, 2006 12:38 PM