The Good Library Blog

HCC LIBRARY REVIEW Written Statement submitted by Rosemary Conway
representing Winchester City Residents Association

CONTENTS
What should be the main functions of Public Libraries? pp 2-3 (fig 1)
Overview of issues pp 3 -6
3 alternative solutions: Conventional Refurbishment (Alton),
Co-Located Complex (Southampton City) & Discovery Centre (Gosport).
The Library book loan service in the modern world pp 7-8 (figs 2 - 3 )
Literacy issues with knock-on effects on Libraries pp 9 -10
- The Library Services affected by malfunctions of Educational system (fig 4)
- Impact of Audio visual technology on Literacy & Library use (fig 5)
Introduction
We endorse the written (& oral) statements of Mrs Amanda Field & Desmond Clarke,
so rather than repeating what they have said, I have tried to use a different approach, using a ‘mindmap’ or flow chart layout to illustrate some topic areas I think vital to the Library issue.
We hope you will kindly look at these and refer to them when reading the text.

Winchester City Residents’ Association
WCRA has about 300 members, mostly in middle & senior age range; they are conservationist in their attitude & approach to historic Winchester, its architecture, rural setting and facilities.

‘Conservationist’, we hope, does not equal ‘backward looking’. Society is changing rapidly, giving rise to new needs and solutions. Change is largely shaped by market forces but also needs to be intelligently directed and controlled by strategies that will build on, rather than neglect & lose, the human cultural skills and achievements of the past.

WCRA’s involvement with Library issues:
In July 2005, our committee members visited Gosport Discovery Centre. The new features had been carved out of existing space & resources available to books, resulting in an attractively modernised environment but a shallow, superficial core bookservice. This clearly had possible implications for “Winchester Cultural Centre”.
On 4th August 2005, I had a 2-hour meeting with Richard Ward, to express WCRA’s concerns over bookstock quantity, quality and space issues. I met with a courteous reception and the issues were discussed in detail; WCRA also did a deputation to the Recreation & Heritage Policy Review committee in November 2005. Our concerns remain unallayed.
At our AGM in November 2005, the speakers were Tim Coates & Cllr Mrs Margaret Snaith, with Richard Ward present. An audience of c. 300 people including committee members of the City of Winchester Trust, and some library users from Gosport, made their views clear in a lively meeting.
The concluding motion ‘that Winchester’s new flagship library ought to retain the name “Winchester City Library”, instead of “Winchester Cultural Centre”, was approved unanimously…
We were unsurprised to hear in 2006 that a decision had been made to go with the name “Winchester Discovery Centre”. I am informed by Rachel Masker, a reporter, that she was told on inquiry that this was “after consultation with focus groups”. Our Association clearly, wasn’t one of these…

Library service: how it fits with rest of educational system & retail sector (fig 1)

Working in tandem with rest of Educational system:-

The Family: parental reading to children at home, conversation, vocab, concepts
Pre-school, infant, junior & senior schools. Reading & literacy skills including grammar, syntax.
Universities & colleges & their libraries
Adult learning evening centres & community centres
Museums & Art galleries, subsidised theatre & arts venues, etc.
Government info centres of various sorts (info, not education)
MAIN FUNCTIONS of the Library Service:-

information, learning & culture in form of written word made accessible to all, regardless of income.
free bookloan service - unique service/selling pt
inculcate skills & joys of Reading
support & maintain Literacy & the vital cognitive skills dependent on it, against competing plethora of audio-visual ‘fast-food’ entertainment technology.
Preserve & maintain the human cultural heritage over 3,000 years, to make all branches of learning available & passed on to succeeding generations,
Info to enable individuals and society to respond to change positively by evolving new skills & solutions.
2

THREE ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS being proposed:-
Conventional Library Makeover: greatly increase bookfund & improve quality, quantity and range of books to supply needs of users, accompanied by modest IT provision & coffee machine, WC, etc. eg: Alton.
Co-Locating the Library with other facities such as Art gallery & Museums in a large central complex - eg, as Southampton City Library - gets cross fertilisation.
Discovery Centre Policies - which make over (or inadequately extend) an existing previous Library building, carving out space for other facilities at expense of space, resources and funds for books. (Gosport, Winchester).
WHY is the Library Service failing?
Underfunding of book fund over decades results in core book provision failing to meet expanded demands of modern needs. Bookstocks declining in quantity, quality and range, at the very time they needed to increase & improve.
Socio-consumer factors:
- competing plethora of audio visual ‘fast food’ entertainment technology seriously impacts literacy and competes for disposable time esp in younger generation
- rise in book prices matched by rise in average disposable income. Some people can afford to buy more of the books they want to read. Others (including literate low incomed) forced to buy, over the years, as quality of in-branch bookstocks declined.
RESULTS-
Library Service over decades has lost users to the Retail Book sector. Many become occasional rather than habitual users.
But the service is still deeply important and vital to many consumers. It is more relevant than ever, and needs focus on literate values to revitalise the service.
AND with Retail provision:-
Retail booktrade: (more books published every year than ever before).
Internet (vast explosion of information & reference, but not always reliable or high quality. Does not necessarily foster high order cognitive skills in same way as from book - may substitute for genuine learning & enables copy-pasting of notes & essays. Much is socio-informational, consumer-informational, recreational etc
HOW is the Library Service failing?-
Not fulfilling above functions to adequate standard
book issues declining over decades
visitor nos declining (until reversed to some extent by IT provision

The main function of the Public Library Service

The main functions of public libraries (fig 1) should be to:-
make knowledge, information, learning & culture in the form of the written word accessible to all, regardless of income.
provide a free bookloan service - unique service & selling point
inculcate skills & joys of Reading
support & maintain Literacy and its dependent vital cognitive skills - under threat in the long term, against a competing plethora of audio-visual entertainment technology.
cherish & maintain the human cultural heritage, Homo sapiens’ 3,000 years civilisation;
to make all branches of learning available & passed on to succeeding generations,
as part of a continual process of change & evolution (now more rapid than ever before).
enable individuals & society to respond to change positively by evolving new skills & solutions.
These functions obviously have to shape themselves round the prevailing needs & character of the local community which the Library serves. Some communities may be fairly homogenous, most probably will include a wide variety of ages and viewpoints.
This entails some conflict where makeovers such as that at Gosport take place. The Library service should have some norms and values, and aim, not only at satisfying existing tastes & needs of individuals in the community, but at increasing culture and learning.
The Library Service performs these functions in tandem with the rest of the Educational system (fig 1), through various initiatives.
In our view, key issues surrounding the failure of the Library service are these:-

Overview of the issues
Problems
The Library Service (including Hampshire) has been in gradual long term decline for about 40 years, in terms of book issues and visitor numbers. This is a long term national trend.
Broadly, there are 2 sets of factors responsible: (1) socio- consumer trends: ie, expansion of information & publishing, changes in reading & lifestyle patterns, etc; and
(2) defective national and local Library policies which have failed over time to respond to these trends and also failed to be sufficiently focussed and purposive about maintaining a culture of books, reading and literacy.

That this decline is NOT an inevitable trend of modern life; that the Service can be turned round to increase both visitor numbers and book issues has been demonstrated by initiatives in various parts of the country, and also at Alton Library in Hampshire.
And we forcefully affirm that a quality free book loan service is more relevant than ever in today’s world.
The book loan service has not just been seriously underfunded for the last 5 years.
It has been underfunded, starved & neglected for the previous 40 years, at the very time that more books than ever were being published every year and that it needed to respond by increasing its spend on books. This is a major reason why many users have exited from the Library Service to the book retail sector over the decades (figs 2 & 3).
Hampshire County Library policies of the last 5 years have greatly exacerbated this.
They have presided over a disastrous, even steeper decline in book issues - worse than the national average. However, the picture is not the same everywhere in Hampshire.
* At Alton, where the ‘Conventional refurbishment’ method was adopted, improving & increasing the bookstocks, there has been an increase in book issues as well as visitors.
* But where Discovery Centre Policies, the key plank of Mr Ezra’s strategy, have been adopted, as at Gosport, visitors have increased greatly but the core book service has become degraded even further and book issues have fallen even further.
* We are likely to see the same picture at Winchester Discovery Centre when it opens,
unless a very much more book stock focussed strategy is adopted for the future.
Discovery Centre advocates v traditional library campaigners.
HCC Library Service chiefs and politicians have tried to represent the decline in book issues as an inevitable trend, and to claim that the book issues performance indicator is decreasingly relevant to what they are attempting to achieve. Frequent references are made by politicians and Library chiefs in the press to “greater affluence” and “cheaper books” arguing that more people can afford to buy their books” ; “most people can afford to buy their fiction books now”. (Yinnon Ezra, oral statement19/6).

These statements are so carelessly worded and sheerly glib as to be inaccurate, untruthful and misleading - and to arouse anger in Library campaigners, who see them as an attempt to plaster over the failure of Library policies. Books are not “cheaper”: their average price has risen steeply over decades. And many people - including readers - are most certainly not affluent. Mr Ezra appears to have little concept of what life is like for a high volume reader on an income of £7,000 per annum, paying £1,887 in council tax, and attempting to keep up a home and a roof over their heads, for their own books, which they have been forced to buy as those books disappeared from the Libraries. But relatively, average disposable income has risen; and this, combined with some tendency of many to read less, means that more people are happy to buy a larger proportion of the books they do read.

Library campaigners are not claiming simplistically that decline in book issues is caused only by neglect of the book fund; they know these socio-consumer trends exist; but the key factor is that the Library Service has failed disastrously to respond to them appropriately.
Figs 2 gives an overview. Fig 3 lists some reason why the book loan service is vital.
IT provision is an important component of the modern library; nationally and locally, the decline in visitor numbers has been partially halted by the People’s Network programme
but the reasons why it cannot substitute for a book culture should be clear to any educated person. (fig 5).
The huge explosion of audio-visual entertainment technology (fig 5) must be by far the greatest single factor in the decline of reading as a proportion of leisure time. It will also be a large contributive factor to the long term decline in Library book issues & visitor numbers.
* The Library Service responded some years ago by giving this pabulum - already freely available from every corner of the High Street and part of the problem - an increasing place in the libraries too, under the initial justification that this might lure people into the libraries and induce them to also take out books.
That hope proved delusory (as anyone with common sense could have predicted). The horizon progressively shifted: videos & DVDS are assumed to be a legitimate part of library provision in its own right.

The negative impact of burgeoning audio-visual technology - not merely entertainment but functional, such as automated text processing software, etc, for the long term on literacy skills is very serious; any responsible central (and local) Government desperately needs a clear long term ‘futuristic’ co-ordinated strategy to help manage this process and to preserve for society the alternative of literate culture and values.

No such strategy is in place; while many praiseworthy initiatives exist to increase reading in tandem with the Library Service and the educational system, doing the hard work at the coalface, this is a piecemeal approach. Councillors need to think much more deeply and carefully over these issues and to hear some expert witnesses.
The Library Service seems to have lost its direction as regards Literacy, in spite of these piecemeal initiatives. It has also suffered as a result of patchy achievement of the educational system in the last 40 years, which also affects the educational background of librarians who chose and procure bookstocks.
a) The quantity, quality and range of Library bookstocks has declined over the last 40 years and failed disastrously either to conserve the old or to keep pace with expanded modern needs of the new modern fiction and non-fiction book world. (figs 2 & 3). Both failures force readers to the retail book sector whether they can afford it or not, and whether they want to or not.
b) ‘Conserving the old’ is probably actually the more important failure of the Library Service since the high street bookshop, except in notable centres such as large London Waterstones, is poor about this as well. The high street bookshop tends to concentrate its shelf stock on recently issued books and can fill this need as the Library has failed to supply it.
But one unique function of Libraries is also to keep an adequate stock of the vast and growing list of humanity’s valuable out of print or past books and make them accessible to new readers.

The Internet is the resource for information & procurement of books of the future.
The Library service has also achieved some success in its computerised ordering interloan system, to which Library users have access via a PIN. But Library Interloan is not free (see fig 2 for charges) and therefore not a substitute for adequate in-branch stocks.

c). Our civilisation is based ultimately on Graeco-Roman sources, feeding through to a total of 3,000 years of complex achievement and the magnificent literary achievements of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century European & English classics, whose presence in the libraries has declined badly over 40 years. They have a clarity of sentence structure and beauty and complexity of vocabulary which is not found in much of modern literature which tends towards reduced attention span ‘Kellogs cornflake packet English’ which sacrifices nuance.
The failure of the Education system to pass on this literary heritage to a new generation, increasingly marginalising the Classics, is one which will permanently impoverish humanity, and it has resulted in a corresponding failure in the Library system to do the same. (I’m one of the many who, over this period have been driven to the Retail book sector, albeit on a low income, to buy the books many of which I had first encountered a library: buying them as they disappeared from the libraries).

Decline of literacy is surely a complex issue with many factors:- family breakdown, growth of non-verbal technologies, progressive knock -on dysfunction of the various parts of the educational system. Those in charge of and making decisions about library policies need some sort of mindmap (figs 4 & 5 make rough stab).
This topic area is very relevant to the Libraries discussion if Libraries are now expected to change their nature & functions radically to attract people whose literacy is marginal, thereby neglecting the needs of those to whom literacy is a central part of their life and needs, (many of whom may be poor, on a low-fixed income) or senior citizens with book needs whose scope and nature are have been totally inadequately assessed by Mr Yinnon Ezra’s policies.
People at all levels of literacy are taxpayers: but our tax money should provide a balanced range of services for all, without compromising quality of each. Turning Libraries into umbrella venues to provide services already provided in adult learning, recreation, arts venues, museums and galleries within a limited sized building only debases the core product.
And more importantly, that Library Service is thereby failing the central core of people who both professionally and academically, support the need of society and civilisation for interest and learning in all aspects, who have high standards - people like Amanda Field. They too are taxpayers and they are not receiving the service which a Library was designed to supply.
Solutions
There seem to be four broad options open (fig 1)

Conventional makeover (eg Alton). Improving & increasing bookstocks and refurbishing to give moderate IT presence, coffee machine, WCs, etc.
Co-location of Library Building in a larger complex (Southampton City Library).
This is a very different thing from a Discovery Centre, because it allows adequate space for books.
Discovery Centre (Gosport & Winchester). Carving out space for other facilities in an existing Library building of limited size (Gosport) or failing to adequately extend it (Winchester). Results in depleted facilities for books, where they compete with IT and other use, and an overlap with other urban facilities such as adult education centres & recreation centres. Local studies sections are usually extruded, to the dissatisfaction of their users, who want the same kind of environment as the Library. It may result in provision of shallow and mediocre art & museum resources and in winding up the specialised provision which previously supplied them -such as the Tower Arts, Hyde Resources Centre, etc.
It also results in conflict between different age groups which cannot easily be reconciled.
But if the justification for creating Discovery Centres is to induce learning and promote literacy to a wider audience, their success needs to be measured in terms of how far this is effective. Visitor numbers alone are misleading, because the resource may have siphoned off users from previously existing venues, rather than creating new ones.
New build to make much larger super libraries, or a selection of smaller specialised libraries such as youth libraries, attached to colleges, etc. France has biblioteques and popular libraries.
The final pages show flow charts. I apologise for the length involved but these are complex issues. We think they really demand a much longer period of time and thought for evaluation. But that should not be used as an excuse for continuing to implement the same defective policies as a fait accompli.

The Core Book-Loan Service in the Modern World, - factors behind exit of readers from Libraries to the Retail Book Sector (fig 2)

Modern Trends Implication for Library Policies
Low income readers often buy their own books because it is more economic than paying 50p or £1.50p everytime they want to borrow the book.

SO
For the last 40 years, people have increasingly been unable to find the books they want to read in their Library branch.
So they have EXITED TO THE RETAIL BOOK SECTOR.
This includes not just the “more affluent”, but low income high-volume readers, who are forced to.
Libraries FAIL to achieve their duty to make learning & culture available to people irrespective of their income
FAIL to match the attractions of the Retail Book sector: shelves & tables of sharp bright new books, especially paperbacks. Libraries realistically cannot hope to mimic the attraction of the Retail sector without vastly greater expenditure on books.
FAIL to keep pace with the expanded needs of the modern book reading world.
This forces people to the Retail sector whether they like it or not.
These growing needs are managed by a combination of in-branch (free) & centralised inter library loans:

In-branch book loan is free. A large & varied in branch stock should be kept as many people take books from browsing. Hants policies have reduced it greatly.
Inter-branch loans inside the County (costs 50p)
Inter-county loans inside the UK (costs £1.50p)
International loan service (costs £7.50)
The National Library Service’s task becomes an increasing challenge. They need to conserve the old, and keep vast & increasing numbers of important out of print books. They cannot possibly buy and keep all new books. But to meet this total challenge, the Book budget needed to massively increase. Instead of which, it has been neglected for 45 years.

BOOKS are NOT ‘CHEAPER’

On the contrary, the cost of books has rocketed in the last 40 years, probably well above RPI
Only a tiny proportion of books (ie popular best sellers & loss leaders) of total books published, receive competitive discounts. Cost effective via Amazon, etc.
Therefore, the needs & tastes of prospective book borrowers becomes ever wider (both old & new books)

Culture & literature
Branches of knowledge
Fiction (Literature & popular)
Non fiction
More books are published every year than ever before. Sum of human knowledge & activities constantly increasing

HOWEVER
Reading (tho’ having to compete with other activities) is still very much alive
Over the last 40 years the Book Retail trade has expanded greatly
BUT

Average disposable incomes have increased.
The average % of disposable spare time devoted to reading has reduced
These 2 factors results in more people being able/willing to buy a larger % of the books they do read, rather than borrow them.

Why the Core Book Loan Service is More Relevant than ever (fig 3)
A free Bookloan service is the unique & principal function of a Library and should be its chief selling point for a host of reasons.

Obviously, many wonderful & life changing books are only encountered by many people on the Library shelf by browsing, by people at all lifestages and of all shades of culture - books they would almost certainly never have read if they had had to pay for them.

The cost of books has risen steeply - far from being ‘cheaper’, their cost is prohibitive for those on low/fixed incomes. The cost of a large hardback has increased from about £7 in the 1970s to typically £13 or as much as £21 now. To anyone on an income of £12-£7K, this is very formidable. Paperbacks average about £7.99. Again, this is a trifle to the affluent but a formidable sum to the many with small disposable income.
Cheaper deals are mostly restricted to special offers and best sellers. This in no way represents the cultural needs of many low income readers.

The Low Incomed: Many sectors of society are low incomed, or have a very tight disposable income. But they may have wide & varied book needs. Groups falling into this category include:-
a) low paid workers on wages of c. £6 per hour
b) working families with a limited budget, supporting a mortgage
c) middle aged people at the end of their earning cycle
d) Retired over 60s. There is serious under-provision of pensions in our society: it has been estimated that a very high proportion have to survive on tiny incomes, relying on the dwindling state pension plus their slender savings. Many also have to pay a high proportion of their income in Council Tax . Reading is a form of activity particularly suitable to retired people for obvious reasons. They have more leisure. And reading is a particularly suitable occupation for the elderly: it is sedentary, it is safe, and it ought to be affordable. The UK also has an aging demographic profile.
It is extremely offensive and condescending to assume that low income people are going to be marginally literate or without cultural tastes. The reverse can be true.
The journalist, Matthew Paris recently commented that a high volume of his correspondence received was from the ‘genteel poor’, and he commended the intelligence and sensitivity that they frequently displayed.
These groups have been particularly penalised by the decline in quality of the Hampshire Library Service’ bookloan service over the last 40 years.

Low income ‘repeat readers’ paradoxically find it cheaper to buy a book rather than pay 50p every time they wish to read it. The ‘good and great’ have disappeared from the branch Library shelves over the past 40 years, and it is clear we can’t rely on any title being there in future. Such readers have been driven to the Retail Sector as these books disappeared from the Libraries.

There are a huge and varying range of circumstances where people want to borrow rather than buy their books. Those of us with cultural or academic tastes may buy the solid books, classic fiction or textbooks, for a repeat read, but want short term entertainment, our best selling novels from the library. Those of us with more popular tastes might be disinclined to spend our money on classic fiction but take a first tentative taste from the library. Either way, getting a book out of the library is a simply great way (often a necessity for low income people) to decide whether it's worth spending the money on as a permanent acquisition.

With the trend to smaller homes in Hampshire, due to housing pressure, most new homes have very little room for books. And many low incomed people may live in rented accommodation with little room for books or ability to transfer them about.

Decline of Literacy & the Educational System (fig 4)
The Library Service shares its functions with the other parts of the Educational system, with which it works in tandem (fig 1): ie, the family, the pre-school, infant, junior and secondary Schools, and Universities & their libraries.

Each part of the system is malfunctioning to some extent and failing to do its proper job. Resources need to be put in place to address problems at the right stage. Instead, the problems are being passing on to the next part of the system, preventing each in turn from doing its own proper job and ‘dumbing down’ the role of each in turn, including the Libraries.

Universities
Forced to lower academic standards in many disciplines and do remedial work in literacy & numeracy skills
Government’s programme of getting 50% of young people to University is resulting in lower standards
The Public Libraries
Attempting to popularise image but neglecting core book provision
More people leave the libraries in a vicious circle.
Core role and function of Libraries under attack.
The Remedy: decline in Reading is an issue needing to be addressed by putting resources in at each appropriate stage.

Junior & senior schools
Move away from teaching of grammar, punctuation & spelling in 1960s/70s, failure to support proper standards of writing & articulate speech
Move away from streaming for subjects makes focussed instruction more difficult
Examinations and coursework geared towards pre-structured learning with little emphasis on essays, personal reading and writing skills
Many emerge from this process semi-literate. Others go on to University still deficient in these skills
Competing entertainment technology

No longer necessary to get through difficult initial stages of reading to get a fantasy experience: short term alternatives of videos, computer games, TV. Some children never get to know the pleasures of reading.
Reading is vital to build sentence structure, vocabulary, ability to think and handle concepts.
Remedy
Outreach programmes & parental skill programmes
Social policies: subsidise those with serous parental skill deficits to refrain from starting a family until their skills are improved
Infant school
Children may arrive there with behavoural problems already and lacking elementary language skills
Move away from phonetic reading teaching methods in 1960s/70s a serious barrier to Literacy; exacerbates behavioural problems
The Family
Reading to small children in the home is vital first stage. Many families are disfunctional & lack verbal skills
Rational conversation to build concepts, language & vocab
Limiting TV & home computer use
Children of well educated parents one year ahead of deprived ones at age 3

Impact of audio-visual and text handling digital technologies on literacy skills (fig 5)

Improved technology does not necessarily deliver a more cognitively developed human being. Homo sapiens is a tool making species and all tools are essentially a means of amplifying but also substituting for human endeavour.

Potential problems began when Homo sapiens began to invented technology to substitute not just for physical but mental activity and its own creative powers. Obviously, computer technology extends our corporate social results by enormous bounds, but it has a downside.

….itself tended to disable human powers of memory.
These powers are naturally vast. Preliterate human beings could identify 3,000 plant species, or 3,000 herd animals. They could commit to memory long oral sagas (Homer’s Iliad, Odyssey, etc), genealogies and legal codes.

Some examples:

Even the Invention of Writing - clearly an enormous cognitive advance….

Text reading on Internet may be less effective than ability to absorb long texts in a book.
Internet enables massive plagiarism in education, shortcuts which bypass real learning. Students can copy/paste text for notes, essays, instead of learning by compiling them for themselves. Essay writing confidential service for students.
Much Internet use is socio-informational, consumer-informational (shopping, holidays), etc, about products, goods services, or taxes & benefits. We must make a distinction between information & learning
Sub-literate mobile phone speak degrades and undermines written skills.
Internet discussion forums and blogs a great communication advance but frequently show abysmal written skills
Text processing technology
Spellcheckers, automatic letterwriting software and audio dictation software: has serious implications for human literacy

massively competes with reading for disposable leisure time, particularly of teenagers and sub-literate families.
Has removed the need for reading for entertainment in many; the actual ability to construct whole scenes and envisage them in the brain from written symbols, by imagination, may actually wither away. In other words, the habitual reader easily constructs a video in their heads.
Written texts have enormous complexity and subtlety which films and videos normally cannot begin to cover. All this heritage may be lost
Culture of Book becoming marginalised: TVs in hospital waiting rooms, instead of allowing people peace to read their books
Internet
Enormous explosion of information greatly increases access & informational horizons

Home computers

Computer games (hundreds)
Computer recreational use (chat rooms, etc)
Mobile phones with subliterate messagespeak
Burgeoning plethora of ‘fast food’ audio-visual entertainment technology

TV (hundreds of channels)
Video & DVD hire shops
Downloadable films from Internet by Ipod, etc
Popular music culture
Audio voices on machines such as photograph booths
Have led to a widespread & substantial decline in numeracy - emphasis on learning multiplication tables and mental arithmetic is necessary to internalise numerical concepts.