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July 26, 2008
We need a new initiative for public libraries
If anyone would like to join me to create a new initiative this autumn to restore the public library service in their local council or area-- whether they be councillors, library or council staff or members of the public, in England, Scotland, Wales or the USA then I should be delighted to help people pool resources and make genuine improvement.
Sign up here or contact me by email. Please pass the word around
We shall call it Perkins' Plan.
Posted by Perkins at 2:28 PM | Comments (8)
July 22, 2008
The British Library
From Roger Pearse
I live outside London, and I really don't see a lot of value from the British Library. Why shouldn't it suffer cutbacks? It's an institution that makes nothing much available online, and charges like a wounded bull for any of its services. Isn't it just a bloated bureaucracy? It's telling, surely, that its reaction to threatened cuts is not to cut staff but services to the public -- the reaction of every self-serving bureaucracy.
Can someone explain to me why we, the general public, need to fund this organisation? With figures that show the benefit to us all?
Posted by Perkins at 4:55 PM | Comments (3)
Andrew Motion on libraries
Thank you to 'Paige Turner' in Wales who spotted this article by Andrew Motion in the Independent on Sunday
Who is it that has tried to define the argument about libraries into 'books or computers?' -- how stupid can you be? What a waste of time that argument is.
And why start off by saying that public libraries need more money? Who from? Who is going to pay more for a service that -overall at least - is rich and wasteful. How many times do we have to go over this ground before the officials who have obviously advised Andrew Motion learn to get the story right?
Posted by Perkins at 4:50 PM | Comments (2)
July 20, 2008
Ministers, shadow ministers and civil servants
Over the decade during which this blog has followed and described the decline in use of the UK public library service we have avoided extrapolating from the very particular issues of libraries into wider comment about civil administration of the country. I have analysed the detailed performance both in figures and in documents so that when I write about libraries I try to be as informed as I can be - and am happy to stand by anything that I say, because it is based on fact.
However there are important observations about the wider landscape that can be made with justification. The first is the extraordinarily poor performance of ministers and shadow ministers in the conduct of their duties. We have watched over 10 years a whole succession of ill- trained, unwise, arrogant people who have been given the exhalted role of Minister, or Secretary of State. Within the government there has not been one who commanded any respect or who had any understanding of the leadership which is expected of them.
The second is the low standard of management operated by high grade civil servants, officials of quangoes and senior local government officers. Among the hundreds that one has watched in operation a mere handful earn any kind of respect for ability and sagacity.The national press who watch these matters do not focus sufficiently upon the power exercised by these people and the poverty of their work. There should be much more naming and shaming of senior state employees than there is. Until there is an improvement the country will remain an economic mess, dependent on technical windfalls, as unpredictable and elusive as the lottery.
We need a Government who will place fundamental reform of public sector structures and management at the top of their agenda
And by the way one person of ministerial standing who has impressed during this time is Mark Field, MP for Westminster, who was dropped from the Conservative front bench team after some very good work. That was a shame and a mistake that should, in my view, be corrected. He was analytical, correct and courageous. We need him back and more like him. Another good and effective MP is Michael Fallon. He, also. undertook his duties with impressive ability.
Posted by Perkins at 3:06 PM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2008
Yet again the MLA screws up
Here is the piece from the Bookseller explaining that the MLA has withdrawn the advice it gave only a few months ago.
Will somebody explain to the chief exec of the MLA (Roy Clare- paid 120k per annum) - that management is about having a clear idea of your core operation and sticking to it.
Undertaking this project-- which is not something they, or anyone else could sensibly and effectively do-- was expensive and stupid and does nothing to improve their reputation with councils. If they even read their own statements of the purpose of 'The New MLA' they would have run a mile from this work --and we would all have been spared the cost.
Stop wasting taxpayers' money. Start managing properly -- or resign, Roy.
Posted by Perkins at 2:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2008
Ed Vaizey
Here is Ed Vaizey's chat with Talis
One wants to be so pleased to hear a senior politician talk about libraries.... but as was said below on the piece about the MLA, it's not a question of which department of government is involved, what matters is who the people are, what their experience is and what they achieve.
A politician should learn not to be taken in by what he or she is shown- just because Mr Vaizey has seen apparently smart libraries in places like Brighton is not an indicator of anything. The way to check a library is to look for particular items of information or book stock. A simple check of ten titles will reveal the truth.
Sorry not to be more impressed, I'm sure Ed Vaizey is a good MP and will be a fine Minister, but his experience, as he says, is all in the Westminster circus and in this interview, that shows. It is however cheering that he talks positively about the work in Hillingdon. If ever he wanted I would tell him what it is all about. However, I'm sure he thinks he knows that already.
He tells us that a new government will be consistent in the leadership it gives -- but he doesn't say which direction that will be in-- it's no good sticking to the wrong path. And he tells us that the library advisers he talked to all want to be told that libraries are doing a good job. Ha ha:- of course they do, but that's not the stuff of good public sector management.
Posted by Perkins at 3:11 PM | Comments (2)
July 12, 2008
The MLA
This blog has consistently criticised the MLA for the following reasons
- Their role is to provide English national leadership in the fields of Museums, Libraries and Archives. Of these the largest, by a long way, is the area of public libraries. Public libraries attract more state funding, employ more staff, have more visitors and public dealings than Museums and Archives combined, by a long long way.
- Since its start in 2000 the MLA has never attempted to understand what the public needs from its public libraries. It has never even tried to make an educated assumption about what these needs might be in language that the public would recognise. Nor has it at any time attempted to analyse in any detail at all whether libraries at present satisfy the requirements the public have. It has never analysed the data which is available nor sought to find data could provide the basic information needed to do this work
- It's use of data has been defensive and selective as has its response to criticism by the public, officials and the press.
- Instead it has, on the other hand, made an endless stream of statements and launched 'initiatives' about what it believes that libraries ought to do. These have been presented in the context of a variety of other Government programmes. For example: libraries have a part to play in the pursuit of social inclusion, improved learning, helping employment, in all these cases the statements have been made without any serious and meaningful analysis about how a public library could genuinely, as a library, assist in tackling the same problems the Government was approaching. Instead its claims of the role of libraries have been naive, trivial and therefore unproductive. The ideas and schemes of the MLA have been devoted to turning libraries into places which are not libraries- community centres, rental stores and even venues for rock concerts. A library is a library- it already plays many of the roles that help improve society-- but only when it is a good library. It is the collection of literature and other material and the availability of them in congenial practical surroundgins that makes a library able to play a social role. That is that simple and obvious historic deduction that has never been grasped by the current generation of library managers. For thousands of years all regimes throughout the world have understood that, only for a current clutch of professional experts to miss the point. The latest claim of the role of public libraries as a participant in the cultural aura of the Olympics is the most laughable of all these intellectually lazy endeavours.
- Public libraries in England are operated by local councils as part of local government. The leadership that is needed is of help to councillors, who by the nature of local politics, frequently change roles and change places. They need help. But the MLA has never attempted to provide this help in a humble and purposeful way. It has never recruited the kinds of support and experience that those councillors will need. It has never attempted to understand the practical issues which face a councillor in the conduct of his or her responsibilities. In all these years, rarely have councillors been part of the MLA's community in the detailed and supportive manner which is essential.
- It has failed to realise that the body of librarians - CILIP- has a different core interest to that of the public. CILIP is a body concerned about the wellbeing and status of its members. The public wants well stocked, open, attractive public libraries. These two objects are not the same and cause a conflict of spending priorities, which councils have to resolve. The consequence of such analysis would have made clear that the MLA's role needed to be dissasociated from and showing leadership to, CILIP as well. Too often MLA has appeared to be the same thing as both CILIP and the Society of Chief Librarians when frequently their role should have been to stand well apart from them
- MLA has wasted public money on a list of failed initiatives and projects in a manner which is shameful if not criminal
We are now a year into what was to have been a new regime. Roy Clare took up his post before our current Prime Minister took up his. There is no sign whatsoever that the new Chief Executive nor the new board have any grasp of the problems nor the expertise, energy or powers of analysis that the public library service so desparately needs
The public library service is not generally in need of funds or of public affection- they already abound. Its continuing and abject failure to be useful, which is to be seen on almost any visit to any public library, and its hastening demise, are as result of the failure of those who operate it. Plain and simple.
The MLA is in effect a 'sponsored' and directed department of the Government's Ministry called the Department of Culture Media and Sport. In 2005 the Culture Select Committee on Public Libraries called among many other recommendations for the DCMS 'to raise its game over public libraries.'
When the Culture Select Committee reconvenes as surely it will, it will, one hopes, be gravely disappointed to find what little attention was paid to all those recommendations it made-- not least the hope that the DCMS and MLA would be more effective, They have not been and this blog is certainly not convinced that they ever will be.
There is a need for a national body for public libraries-- but what matters is who operates it, what experience they have and what they do. At the present time the MLA does not have the right people to look after public libraries, nor does the DCMS. They don't have the right agenda and they don't have the experience to do the job.
It is time we stopped messing about - for the sake of the public
Posted by Perkins at 10:02 AM | Comments (1)
July 11, 2008
Synchronised Suicide
From James:
I (rather happily) admit to being a grumpy old man about this one (The Public libraries role in the Olympic Games), but how many times do we have to hear the same old tired phraseology and lumpen cliche trotted out by these boring old farts? It's neither wonderful, exciting nor refreshed and what does an ever increasing impact for the public actually mean? How about reasonable opening hours, enough staff, adequate funding and a good stock of books? This is not something which has to "impact for" the public (should actually be "impact on")! It's just hard common sense, but of course this is the MLA and they can't have that. Is the MLA in fact trying to bomb the public into submission? Personally, I'd like to take a leaf out of Dr Strangelove and drop Burnham and Clare through a B-52's bomb-bay doors. Falling to their deaths astride a nuclear missile might at least inspire them to produce some original vocabulary or even create a new Olympic event - synchronised suicide instead of synchronised swimming, perhaps? More seriously, could not Andrew Motion use his undoubted capability with words, get with the program (US spelling) like an angry young man and say something pithy and politically-incorrect about the problems with the public library service?
This blog now claims the career destruction of Chris Batt, David Lammie and Mark Wood within the 12 months since Philip Pettifors memorial service. Philip would be --indeed is, I hope,-- so proud of us. Not a day goes by when I do not think of his fine tenor voice in the choir of angels)
Posted by Perkins at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
July 10, 2008
Publishing News
This blog has frequently and gratefully praised and quoted The Bookseller for its reporting of the grim situation facing public libraries.
However it must be said and emphasised that the first and most consistent bookish journal that has supported the campaign to improve public libraries has been Publishing News. In particular Ralph Baxter first wrote the story which opened the Pandora's box on the lunacies which pervade the public expenditure on and disappointment with our public libraries exactly ten years ago.
Ralph (and sometimes my former colleague Roger Tagholm) has always written about and understood the issues with perception and enjoyable wisdom. I here record my abundant gratitude to them both and to their newspaper. Here is Ralph's latest piece.
Posted by Perkins at 8:32 PM | Comments (2)
July 7, 2008
Obsessed with the Olympics
This is how the Bookseller reported the appointment of a new chairman of the MLA. The largest part (by funding and by staff numbers) of the MLA's responsibility is for public libraries. I have never understood the obsession with a relationship between public libraries and The Olympic Games in London in 2012. By 2013, they will be in the past - and, sadly, one feels that most of the needed attention and improvement to the public library service will not have taken place.
"Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has been appointed as the new chair of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). Motion takes up the role, which was previously held by Mark Wood, this week. He will hold the position for four years.
Culture secretary Andy Burnham said Motion "has some wonderful and exciting ideas about how he can take the MLA forward, continuing their pursuit of excellence and, in particular, promoting the culture sector to Olympic spectators and visitors in 2012."
Motion said, "It is an exciting time to be entering the heart of the cultural arena, with the enormous boost in popularity that museums and galleries have seen over the past few years, and the Olympics just around the corner. I am confident the MLA can build on this and achieve even greater things in the future."
Roy Clare, MLA chief executive, added: "Andrew arrives at a very appropriate and exciting time as a newly reshaped MLA equips itself to focus on the integration, improvement, and innovation of museums, libraries and archives. A refreshed team is beginning to fit into place and will join me in looking forward to the opportunity of working with Andrew and the noard as we aim for our sector to make an ever increasing impact for the public." "
Posted by Perkins at 12:03 PM | Comments (3)
July 2, 2008
Dear Perkins
Dear Miss Perkins Cat
I have been a loyal blog fan for the past 2 years and I was wondering if you could help me. I am undergoing my Masters Dissertation and I have chosen to focus on the London Library and its uniqueness in the 21st century. I am looking for any members who would be happy to be interviewed. So far I have got about 7 people but my tutor thinks that between 20-30 would be a better number.
If you could put this request on your blog that would be amazing - if people send you their email address in a comment, please would you pass it on to me so I can contact them?
Many Thanks (in advance)
Katie Collis
2nd Year, LIS MSc,
City University London
Yes Katie-- of course. Perkins (Miss)
Posted by Perkins at 4:33 PM | Comments (3)