« Good sense | Main | Removing problems »
March 30, 2007
Shared Vision
There is no doubt that my diagnosis of the collapse of the role played by the DCMS and MLA in public libraries is correct. An article in the Bookseller this morning (which I have copied below) confirms that whatever plan there was no longer exists. We can go over the long history of the DCMS and public libraries, but that is now past and what is important is an attempt to fill the vacuum.
The White Paper on local government and communities will not address the issue in the detail that is needed. The White Paper will be, as everyone says, about the fundamental relationship between central and local govt and the people they are supposed to serve. That is a meaty subject and worth discussion-- it has a long interesting history going back to the nineteeenth century-- but, within it public libraries are a tiny part of what has to be reviewed. If the topics are dealt with properly, as they need to be, it will be a long time before we get to the stage that someone says that public libraries need more books and by then the service will have lost all meaning and relevance for many more people
It is hard to imagine anyone being guided by what appears on this blog -- but it would be good if we could help in some way to keep things moving along.
Some months ago I offered a "shared vision" . This, or something like it, should in my view, be signed up to by councils and the government. That would give commitment to the public, but it would also give councils the discretion to interpret it in a way for which they can account to their own local people. It would also define the role that Government plays in helping councils to achieve the vision that they both share. It is a mechanism for making the progress we so desperately now need.
I offer this proposal to everybody involved and in memory of my good friend Philip, I shall call it the "Pettifor vision" -- - if you feel able to agree with it, please feel free to say so.
National library standards scrapped
30.03.07 Katherine Rushton
The Public Library Service Standards (PLSS) are to be scrapped and may be replaced by a single performance indicator that groups libraries together with other cultural or educational services. The 10 standards, which are currently the main measure of how libraries perform, were introduced in 2000 by the then culture secretary Chris Smith, with the aim of driving significant improvement in the public library sector.
However, they are now to be downgraded to a “discretionary” guide for councils following recommendations in last October's local government white paper, "Strong and Prosperous Communities", that more power over local services should pass from central to local government. The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council said it would today (Friday) send a consultation document to chief librarians to discuss how the PLSS could be replaced.
Senior policy advisor Andrew Stevens said he "could only be vague at this stage" but suggested that libraries were likely to fall under the umbrella of a performance indicator--used to grade the overall performance of a council. A spokesman from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said local authorities would still be obliged to provide a "comprehensive and efficient" library service under the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act, and that the move was "more about changing the relationship between central and local government".
But critics are worried that the loss of enforced standards will make libraries an easy target for cuts in council spending. Desmond Clarke, former chairman of libraries charity Libri, which wound up last month, said: "The moment that the question mark appears [against the PLSS] then people aren’t going to worry about complying with them." Library campaigner and former Waterstone's m.d. Tim Coates added: "If the standards aren’t there, there's no government lever at all to bring improvement or more books to public libraries."
* The London Borough of Wandsworth has announced plans to close two of its 12 libraries, and open a new one "bang in the centre of Wandsworth" in early 2009. Spokesman Steve Mayner said: "We expect the total number of book issues at the new library to be higher than at the two that are going to close."
Library Katherine Rushton
Posted by Tim Coates at March 30, 2007 1:06 PM