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January 31, 2007
Delay: the Department of Libraries and Archives
Readers of this blog will recall many many discussions about how important it is to get one library membership card for London (and then how it should be one library card for England, the world etc)
The London Agency and the MLA decided to conduct a feasability study- which has taken a year to do. I imagined (stupidly) this study would then say- this is how to do it, this is what it will cost and it will take a year to carry out
Oh No! Here is the press release --- it confirms after a year that this would indeed be a good idea. There's still no sign of anybody doing anything. Dream on.
And here is the report itself produced by (would you believe it?) Price waterhouse Cooper!!
The trouble with this "shall we move Stonehenge" approach to life is that these people effectively block the route for anybody more enterprising to get on an do things quickly (which I wanted to do!)
One expression I find odious in all these documents is the misuse of the word "Stakeholder" - in this document one of the main groups of "stakeholders" is said to be the 33 chief librarians of the London Boroughs. The effect of this is that it is this group who have a tremendous influence over how the project will progress and what will be regarded as its main objects.. What about the public? Why are they never listed as the main "stakeholder" - why is their urgent need not taken into account at all.
If the public had been regarded as the prime "stakeholder" then it would have been obvious to all that "completing this work by the Olympics" was a daft and hopeless target (as several commenters have already said)
Posted by Tim Coates at January 31, 2007 5:24 PM
Comments
No you didn`t read it carefully enough. David Lame Our Man in the Ministry, says he hopes it could be ready by the time we have the Olympics, to which, of course a single library card is incredibly relevant, and someone from the MLA says they 'hope' they will be able to implement it quickly.
2012 seems pretty damn quick to me.
Posted by: SUSAN HILL at January 31, 2007 6:13 PM
Er... why does David Lammy think it is important to do this in time for the Olympics? What have the Olympics got to do with it? Is it simply forbidden for any DCMS official to utter a sentence that does not include the damned word? If he actually means it, then I guess the project will be completed approximately three days before the Games start... in 2012. Ugh.
Posted by: Jonathan at January 31, 2007 6:41 PM
"I imagined (stupidly) this study would then say- this is how to do it, this is what it will cost and it will take a year to carry out
Oh No! Here is the press release --- it confirms after a year that this would indeed be a good idea. There's still no sign of anybody doing anything. Dream on."
Sounds remarkably similar to a study into whether or not there was a desire or need for reshuffling staff timetables - which, nine months after asking everyone to fill in a survey describing how they might like their hours to change, finally concluded that staff were indeed interested in changing their working patterns and that perhaps this could be looked into, should time and staff resources allow. Ouroboros, anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros
Posted by: Armchair Anarchist at February 1, 2007 11:51 PM