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May 17, 2008
Perkins puts her paw on it:
The fundamental problem of the MLA and its new action plan lies in the very first line which says
"This Action Plan reflects the outcome of extensive consultation and engagement with stakeholders".
Mr Clare has failed to understand, again, that the stakeholders of the public library service are the public. They pay. His document does not, as Framework for the Future never did, attempt to articulate what the public might need their libraries for and how they would like to see them improved. Instead, by stakeholders, he means cronies in other government quangoes and departments and the so-called 'professional' bodies.. normally referred to as 'the usual suspects' - Miss Bo Peep at the Knitting Agency, SYRUP, SCL and all the rest of them.
Because of this omission this Action Plan has become, yet again, a discussion between government departments and quangoes about the conventions of English Government, viz what one department ought politely to be able to say to another without upsetting them. It does nothing to correct the obvious and now enormous problems of an average public library.
So when the paper starts off with a list of what it calls 'What a good library looks like' instead of sentences that Mrs Jo Bloggs would understand like 'It's open, it's got what you need.. etc' the MLA action plan says
"The best libraries are well led, entrepreneurial, efficiently managed and proactive advocates of best practice.' ---- Excuse me?
If you had asked Mrs Bloggs what makes a good fish and chip shop I don't think she would have said "It's entrepeneurial, effficiently managed, etc.." she probably would have talked about the fish and the chips.
I have had to write to The Bookseller to point this out.
They could always have asked Perkins what she thought -- but they didn't do that either!
Posted by Perkins at May 17, 2008 9:54 AM
Comments
Alarm bells go off when anybody talks of an "Action Plan". It heralds verbosity. What is wrong with the simple "Plan"to betoken something happening?
Roy Clare is also aghast that local councillors try to keep libraries open. But they are reacting to readers' wishes. That is why they are there, a help when resident X is affronted at being told to go further - using precious time - in a quest for books.
Roy Clare also announces yet another survey to show that libraries are essential for self-improvement. This has been shown time and again. All that is needed are good stocks of books, informed staff and longer opening hours (as they had in the hard-pressed Thirties...).
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at May 19, 2008 10:19 AM
Are we to think that Roy Clare would have encouraged the councillors of Brighton and Hove to close Hove library in order to fund the development of Brighton?
Posted by: perkins at May 19, 2008 2:04 PM
I'm really disappointed by the MLA's "action" plan. Where are the firm targets with deadlines? It's just more positive-sounding waffle. I should own up here to being a librarian, and I had naively hoped that at last we might get something positive to take libraries forward. I realise that we are often painted as the enemy on this blog, but most of us work in libraries because we love them and are committed to their future, and realise that change is needed.
Posted by: Claudia at May 19, 2008 2:20 PM