The Good Library Blog

The trouble with bad press is it's usually from the vocal minority. Whether you agree with Hampshire's policy or not, petitions are an unscientific representation of views. OK, for these purposes let's agree that everyone who signed the petition knew what they were signing. So only 12,000 people were against the library changes which means something less than 2 million Hampshire residents could not support the petition or were indifferent. I have to agree with Mr Ward that most signatories to petitions rarely read what they are signing and receive the briefest of biased requests such as 'please sign this petition to stop Hampshire's libraries being ruined'. Hampshire is a democracy. Mr Ward is only giving advise. Councillors are setting the agenda.

Gary, one of the worst problems in the long saga of Hampshire libraries has been the amateur and incompetent nature of market research conducted by the county council in the preparation and progress of their plans for their public libraries. Time and again they have used the wrong and biased techniques and claimed they had evidence when they had none. They had at their disposal the means to use professional and proper independent data gathering and analysis, but they did not at any time do this.

They have never been able to demonstrate that they had a clear understanding of why people do use and don't use libraries and the attitudes they hold which would show how they would react to changes. Such work, which is quite normal and good management and political practice, would have allowed them to anticipate the reaction that they have induced and it would have helped them form plans and explanations that would have met with the satisfaction of people in the county.

Mr Ward and Mr Ezra have, during all this time, displayed little professional understanding of the ways of undertaking and using research of this kind and their refusal to listen or attempt to understand what residents are saying is notorious and frequent and it is certainly a factor which merits headlines in the press.

If residents have raised a petition of 12,000 signatures the proper response is to acknowledge the concern; demonstrate credibly that you understand what is being said and respond senstively. As you say, Mr Ward is a paid official, and it is most certainly not his place, in public, to deny without reasonable explanation, the views of people who have gone to these extreme lengths to express a view. Not even a politician should do that- but they at least are accountable at the ballot.

Let no one blame the Hampshire press, in Winchester or Portsmouth or Southampton or Basingstoke for their persistent and accurate coverage of the nightmare that the Hampshire library service has become. They have done their work honourably and tenaciously. The people should be grateful- and so should the councillors.

Sorry I'm late replying to this, but you really must specify exactly what you mean by the market research errors made by Hampshire County Council. Wath research did they use and what was the bias. You can't just make statements like this without clear explanation