The Good Library Blog

Either withdraw arbitrary performance targets, or actually reward library services for struggling to achieve them at the same time as trying to keep the core provisions afloat. (As an alternative to the current system of setting hoops to be leapt through, and then forgetting about it until the next annual policy meeting.)

Completely disconnect library funding and policy from the hands of party politicians in local government; either allow the services operational autonomy from their councils, or create a transparent national cross-party body to examine and act upon the challenges facing library service provision, by way of consultation with the public (especially the non-library using public) and (gasp!) front-line library employees, not just library management teams and representatives of the profession who've not shelved a book or worked on a public counter in the last two decades.

Dear Mr Armchair, as always I agree with so much that you say. Can you translate this into sentences your mother would understand and- be brave- anticipate what you believe those consultations you mention would ask you to do?

In other words, pretend you are Prime Minister and say what you'd like to achieve. tim

Oh, the irony - asking a nominal anarchist to pretend he's Prime Minister! :)

"OK ... recognising the need for a decent sustainable library service that, while embracing new information retrieval methods and resources, does not shy away from doing what libraries have always done, namely allowing the public free access to the printed word, fictional and factual, I suggest the following -

1)That control of library policy and budgeting be *removed from the hands of politicians in local government*. This will prevent libraries being shuffled around as pawns on the boards of political power and being sacrificed for the sake of career advantage or re-election prospects.

2)That control of library policy and budgeting be given over to either:

a)the *non-partisan* employees of local authorities whose job is to provide their residents with *the services they need and want*, in consultation with those same residents, or;

b)a national cross-party body with no political affiliations that operates, debates and researches 'in the open', allowing all procedures to be observed and commented upon by the public.

3)That we *remove all national performance targets from library services*, or at least reward those that struggle to achieve them against crippling financial odds.

It is my belief (backed up with a certain degree of experiential and anecdotal evidence) that asking non-users and 'lapsed users' of libraries what they want from the service is the only way to discover where the real problems lie. Surveying people who you find inside a library as customers is going to give you skewed results - which explains the high satisfaction figures returned by the PLUS survey as contrasted to the decline in footfall and borrowing.

I also believe that these non-users will report that they don't use libraries because *libraries don't provide what they want*: a decent selection of books (and audio-visual materials), both old and new, in good condition and ready and waiting on the shelves; helpful knowledgeable staff who can help them find the information they need; a friendly and comfortable environment in which to browse or consume the materials on offer.

Once these wants and needs have been assessed, the data should be examined, not only by library managers (and highly paid think-tanks of 'information professionals' who've not set foot in a library in two decades), but also by front-line library staff, council accountants and budget controllers, and (most importantly) *the citizens of the region in question*, with a view to deciding priorities based on available resources. Shrinking budgets can be combated by flexible working practices, the trimming of unnecessary bureaucracy (by allowing the staff who actually deliver the service at the front line to have an equal hand in changing policy as it affects the work they do), and a rationalisation of staffing levels (less desk jobs, more counter jobs), and the adoption of modern computerised systems to eliminate the wasteful excesses of paperwork that the most minor of procedures currently require.

The end result could be:
libraries where returned books are back on the shelves within 24 hours of being brought back;
libraries where newly released books are on the shelves within a week of their launch, in decent quantities;
libraries that are open at the times most suitable to their core users, as far as is realistically possible;
libraries where money isn't poured away on ridiculous expenses because of policies that haven't been re-examined in decades ((see below));
libraries that aren't increasingly given over to yoga classes and internet terminals;
libraries where staff are cheerful, unstressed, knowledgeable and ready to assist with enquiries of all kinds;
*libraries that focus on, and deliver the magic of, BOOKS, first and foremost.*"

There you go; my state of the nation address! The bits *in stars* are the bits where I thump the podium ...

((Do you know that we have to PAY COMPANIES TO TAKE AWAY OLD BOOKS FOR PULPING? Even disregarding the fact the pulping company must be making some money off the business after the receive the books (otherwise they'd just burn them on the sly), this is UTTER madness. I asked why we can't just give the books that don't get bought at booksales away to charities, either here or overseas - apparently that's not allowed because it could be seen as an inappropriate disposal of public money! But obviously paying someone to take them away and make more money off them in the private sector is a perfectly reasonable thing to do with books that no-one wants to pay 25p to own!))