The Good Library Blog

Hmmm -- shades of Paul Daniels ;-)

I thought their professional body was that one beginning with C which I can`t remember.. not CIA

As I'm sure you all know really, the organisation is CILIP - and it is still alive and busy. As for "hoaxing" students - I dont remember the organisation having any remit to dragoon people onto courses. Any money which changes hands is surely between student and institution, so if you think the qualifications people are ending up with are not valid, then presumably you should be starting a crusade to reform academia?

Julia

I'm very pleased to hear from you. I have attempted to enter discussions with course teachers/ managers but with no success. I am mindful of the Culture Select Committee recommendation last year that the profession needed to raise its standards of management- the recommendation was quite specific and, in my view, one of the most important in their report.

My approaches are resisted along these lines:

-Q. Does the course provide students with the general management skills that the public require of their public library service ? Does it address the problems raised by The Culture Select Committee last year, or the Audit Commission in 2002?

-A. The course is "accredited" by CILIP. That is what students request.

-Q. But do CILIP insist that the course responds properly to recommendations of that kind?

-A That is not for us to say. But you can look in CILIP's specification.

I look in CILIP's specification and all it says about "management" is- "management is a transferable skill" - which does not impress me at all.

Q. Would you say that the course addresses the public need for its new managers to address the problems cited by for example The Audit Commission and the Culture Select Committee?

A It's not for us to say-- but you can look at CILIP's response to both those reports.

I look at CILIP's response to both those reports which were written innocently on behalf of the public good and the public purse. In broad terms CILIP finds both those reports to be "flawed". I see no sign that CILIP has addressed the problems raised.

Students are told by CILIP that they need to take courses accredited by CILIP in order to get professional jobs in the public library service, yet CILIP appears to believe it knows better than the public what that service should be. So I say, CILIP perpetrates a hoax: not just on those students, but also on the general public who are, of course, not aware of this charade. In my view their right to give "accreditation" should be removed instantly.

What CILIP should do is write a paper which demonstrates clearly to the public that they have both understood the problems raised by the Select Committee report and how they have, within course specifications, addressed in an effective manner, all the items. So far as I am aware they have not done that. Please tell me if I am wrong.

I have been asked to talk on the Masters course at City next Monday- perhaps you could come?- and anyone else whom the college will allow? I am going to discuss the budget round this year and how management of public library services could approach it.

At least City have responded to my call (via a student who contacted me). Professors at other Universities don't respond- but I would be delighted to engage with them, if they did.

I think management training for the public library service is the single most important issue it faces and I don't see it being approached in a way that reflects the public need. We could (if the incumbent management would ever allow it) solve all the current budget and marketing problems- but unless management training is improved, the service will only, in my view, slide back into the mire in which it currently lies.

I hope we can keep this discussion going

Tim

PS in case you think otherwise my attempts to discuss these matters, or any other matter, with CILIP themselves have always been ignored. They return neither emails nor phone messages. I did try many times, but no longer do.

One issue is that the library schools have to produce graduates who can work in lots of different types of organisation, not just public libraries. So, important as I think public libraries are, I would find it hard to agree that "management training for the public library service is the single most important issue it faces" or that CILIP is "hoaxing students into taking courses on public libraries". There is no such thing as a course on public libraries, though thre are modules or optional elements within courses where students can look at public libraries if they wish to.
If you want to talk to library schools though, they have an umbrella organisation, BAILER, with a web site at http://www.bailer.ac.uk/,
The trend in public libraries is to cut professional posts. My local, quite large, branch library has no professional librarians on its staff. I'm not sure how this fits with your view that CILIP is a cartel forcing people to go on wasteful courses; surely, if CILIP had the power, influence and attitude you attribute to it, we would have insisted on professional librarians being employed even in the tiniest branch?

Tom

If you are saying, as you seem to be, that there is no specific training for the management of the public library service, then I can only express horror. There must be. How can we operate a £1.2bn pa national public service, which depends on professional management and not train people how to do that? Now wonder the public library service is a total shambles. I am really surprised.

The matter of whether we need the current "professional posts" is completely separate: if they aren't trained to do the job, then we don't need them. But most of the public would assume that the person they talk to in a library is a properly trained person able to give them the information about anything including books, for which they may ask. So your point about there being "no professional librarians" in your local libary, for me is just a play on words-- are the people working there not professional? tim

Thanks Tim, I think it rather depends what you mean by management. When I look at what you describe, it seems more like accountancy, and the excessive influence of accountants is what brought our public libraries to this pass.
I also think we understand different things by profession; you seem to mean management, and the cult of mangerialism seems to me to be holding back libraries and librarians. I think that there is a theoretical basis for librarianship, articulated since at least the days of Demetrius of Phaleron. If you were to ask me to define it, I would say it is the organisation of recorded knowledge to enrich human life, in every aspect. And it seems to me axiomatic that every citizen should be entitled to call on a practitioner of that profession in their home town. Anything less is as bad a deprivation as the lack of clean pure water, or light, or heat, or shelter.

That's true- it depends what you mean by management. I suppose I mean that when you pay a lot of money for something, the management are responsible for making sure you get it.

Like if you pay the plumber to mend the tap, the tap gets mended. No? Or don't library managers think that applies to them?

I think we would think it a poor medical school that only produced radiologists, and no other sort of doctor. So I think the library schools are justified in trying to offer more than a purely vocational course. On the management issue, I'll comment on the latest post you've made, rather than here.