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March 4, 2007
Another committee!!
In my list the other day of the national committees, bodies, boards and quangoes all working feverishly to solve the problems of the public library service, I omitted the newly formed (last week) "Action Team to improve the supply chain" which I am told is to be chaired by Sir James Bond.
I know that no one in the offices of all those orgnaisations has either the time or inclination to read and understand what I say, but if they did I would tell them that they have confused the idea of what a library is for, with the practical problems that a council and a library service faces with the management of the service. If one is for ever discussing what it is one is trying to do, it is very difficult for the people doing the job to actually do anything... Please stop debating the purpose of a library and get on with putting them right
Particularly would those people who keep saying that "libraries are part of learning" kindly shut up. This has been interpreted to mean that libraries should teach people and are offering all kinds of courses. They simply cannot afford to do this and run libraries out of the same budget. If a council thinks there is a need for Further Education or Adult Education then they have a budget and they have expertise to do that. If they believe that the public library is the right building and has the right facilities for such courses, then absolutely fine, but it is for them (and their students to decide). Librarians are not teachers and we cannot afford this confusion any longer. In a council library service which is struggling to find £200,000 to get through the budget round, to hear that the book fund is to be cut again but that the "reader development team" or the "digital learning team" is to have its funding increased, is plain wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Nor are librarians social workers and to see huge amounts of the library fund being spent on outreach and inclusion projects, for which a council social services is both funded and trained, is hearbreaking.
Now that Philip Pettifor is not here, this voice of what we both thought was common sense, feels very alone. Sundance without Butch Cassidy.
Posted by Tim Coates at March 4, 2007 10:22 AM
Comments
The flip side of the suggestion that "libraries are part of learning" is the equally dangerous assumption that they are just a part of the entertainment and lesiure industry - which is one of the key reasons that so many libraries have abdicated responsibility for ensuring easy access to older, out-of-print, and antiquarian books, and books which are deemed "academic".
For blog readers who haven't read it before, here is a crystal clear explanation of the current problem by Philip:
www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAD36.htm
Posted by: Martyn at March 4, 2007 3:31 PM