The Good Library Blog

Public Library Policy

There is a need for a new fresh policy for the public library service for these reasons:
a. The library service is for people and its only purpose is to respond to their needs (currently it does not do this adequately)
b. It is essentially about reading (currently it not sufficiently so)
c. Its operation must be simple (improvements are too slow because at present it is too complex)
d. Those most responsible for providing the service are those who work in the libraries (currently they do not have control over the means that would allow them to be).
e. Those accountable to the public are councillors (currently they do not ).
f. We all pay for it through taxation and the law requires its use to be free and accessible. (often it is not)
g. The current law providing library services is good (but not properly operated)

1) The public library service is an end in itself. Obviously it contributes to a civilised, cultured, educated, informed, involved and well-read society-- but only when it is a good library service. The first concern is to ensure that nowhere is it mediocre and dismal or expensive, but rather that it is useful and of high standard. Low standards of service are too widespread and those responsible need to make swift and radical changes.

2) Attempts to identify the “impact” of public libraries or their contribution to other national or community agendas confuse and distract the management; they are not helpful and should stop. Funding should match the cost of the service when it is operated in an efficient manner. Funds should not have to be justified on the grounds of the contribution the service makes or varied as to where it is more or less used. Public libraries are intrinsically good and the Government and local councils should have the faith to say so. These beliefs, however, go alongside the reality that all government funded services must be as efficient as possible and must always strive to improve productivity.

3) National funding, as part of the grant given to local councils should be for the “core” of the service which was well defined by the Culture Select Committee report of March 2005. They described a service of books and reading material of all kinds, a place of private study and for the pursuit of information through whatever media are available. They envisaged open free access, encouragement for children and respect and concern for the disabled and disadvantaged. If councils wish to use the facilities for other purposes in addition to the core operation that is for them to decide- but those other purposes should not distract from nor destroy the intrinsic purpose of the library- and sometimes they can.

4) The management arrangement provided for in the 1964 Act is satisfactory. Local councils are responsible for providing the service. The Minister of State is responsible for gathering information about performance of the service and superintending the efforts of councils and has the right to intervene when performance is not satisfactory. While the Act is well intended, it has not been well used. It is necessary, as the Select Committee also said, for the civil servants of the DCMS who support the minister to “raise their game” so that the Act is operated effectively and with some urgency. Intervention does not have to mean takeover, it can mean all kinds of help.

5) When a service is provided “free at the point of delivery” that arrangement removes from managers the pressures that are created by a need for cash flow. While this is a satisfactory and admirable social arrangement it is very dangerous for managers to be allowed to be remote from the effects of public response to what they do. It places enormous responsibility on senior managers to recreate that need for public approval. It is the absence of this contact with the public response and the failure to replace it with exacting management routines which lie at the root of much of the inefficient management of public libraries.

6) There are too many bodies which exert influence over the service but carry no responsibility for its performance, nor are accountable for its results. Only councils (or “library authorities”) and the Minister are responsible and any other structure and agencies must be limited to those which can assist them in the exercise of their endeavour.

7) On the other hand the public have almost no influence over the quality of the service either nationally or locally; councillors who these days are paid to have responsibility receive no training in that role and the counter staff who actually deal with the public and provide the service are rarely involved in decision making, seldom have control over the resources which they need and are treated as second class operators- which they are not. Over and over one hears them say that there are “too many chiefs and not enough Indians”. All these aspects are serious faults in the provision.

8) The Select Committee also called for an arrangement they described as “carrot and stick”. The carrot needs to be reward for managers who run library services of the highest standard; the stick needs to be applied through the mechanisms of CPA operated by the Audit Commission or through intervention by the Minister. Authority comes, as in most structures, from knowledge, experience, wisdom and leadership- not from the giving of instruction and obedience to commands. There is no reason in the structural arrangement envisaged by the Act why the Minister cannot lead the public library service if he or she has those qualities.

9) Actions are needed to address the problems described in the previous paragraphs and the Government needs to be sure that they are undertaken in a satisfactory way.

Actions

1) Vision: There needs to be a clear and straightforward statement that the public library service is for books, reading and information and provides a private place for reading and study. Libraries and the library service should be of the highest standard everywhere and accessible to all and there should be encouragement to use them.

2) The Government should express its care for the service as belonging to the public and accept its responsibility for its operation. It should acknowledge its duty to pass the service, the buildings and their collections of material to future generations.

3) Councils should publicly acknowledge that they share this same vision of the library service with the Government and state clearly that they do so. It is not for individual councils to re-define what is meant by the public library service, but rather to operate and provide the service to the public.

4) The measurement of performance and cost of the service should be made independent of Government and put in the hands of one or more Consumer Associations who are tasked on behalf of the public to gather and report information which their understanding of the public requires. This information should be available and communicated to the public and councils. This will also be the information that the Minister needs to fulfill his role. This would replace CIPFA, PLUS and LISU.

5) New independently provided training programmes (paid for by councils) using the performance and cost data supplied by these new agencies should be prepared for councillors who are responsible for libraries, directors of councils who are delegated responsibility by councillors, counter staff and library managers and council officers who operate the public library service. The whole training and management development regime for public libraries needs renewal. These programmes would replace the current charter operated by CILIP and others

6) Councils need to devolve library management to local libraries and find practical ways to build relationships with and involve the public in the community that surrounds each library. They should, in doing so, reduce the level of non library operations and seek to outsource back office work. (This implies implementation of the PKF study in place of the PWC supply chain studies)

7) The Audit commission should include these as the CPA measures for public libraries within its “Culture” programme:

a. Library authorities should spend at least £3 per person on books each year.
b. Library authorities should spend at least £3 per person on revenue or capital works to improve library premises
c. Libraries in small towns should be open not less than 40 hours per week, never closed for lunch, and open late at least one evening
d. Libraries in large towns and catchments should be open 60 hours per week and at least two late evenings per week
e. Any measures that would cause old stock to be reduced in quality or quantity should be removed from CPA- the rest of the indicators should made comprehensible to the public.
f. CPA should look for book issues and visitor numbers to be increasing in every single library
g. Permanent library buildings should be provided in population areas with X people or more.
h. Any proposed library closure should be notified to the Minister with proper quantified explanation shared with the public
i. Councils should have a clear method of regularly reporting the key figures of library cost and performance so they are readily understood and available. The presentation and meaning of terms should be consistent across the country.
These measures should replace all other CPA measures, Public Library Standards and Impact measures.

8) There needs to be special attention to the public library service in London; it must be raised in the esteem of the public and its whole operation and structure needs urgent renewal

9) At the other extreme there needs to be attention to those less populous areas in which funding is very limited and the needs for high quality service in small communities is very great.

10) Responsibility for implementation of these plans lies with the Minister of State for the Arts. Currently, provided by the 1964 Act, the Minister has a team of advisers to assist him in his public duty; this is known as The Advisory Council on Libraries (ACL). In order to acknowledge to the public the serious nature of the problems facing the service the nature and role of this body needs to change and its profile to be raised. It could be called the “Public Library Board for England”. The role, duties and composition of this board should be as follows

11) This new Library Board needs to have three roles: to advise the Minister on behalf of the public; to assist the minister in the superintendence of the service and to assist the minister to implement the actions of this new policy it would also have the capacity to provide help to individual councils to implement the detailed work of these policies. In order to perform these functions it needs both executive and non executive management capable of performing the roles. This new board would replace the national and regional public library functions of the MLA’s and the existing ACL;

12) Above all this new policy and these initiatives must recognise that in place of all the bodies of Government that are normally listed when “stakeholders of the public library” service are mentioned: the first and most important stakeholders are the public for whose benefit the service exists and who pay for it to be provided.