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September 25, 2008
Roy Clare rows in
In a letter in The Times tomorrow morning, Roy Clare demonstrates that he has still not read the recommendations of the House of Commons Culture Select Committee (Gerald Kauffman's report) of March 2005. Either that or he has decided he can ignore them ( in the same way that Chris Batt and Mark Wood did)-- even though the DCMS promised they would implement them
The Committee insisted that, while a council can decide to do more or less whatever it wants with its own library buildings, the core of the service, viz its fundamental service of books and reading, has to be improved a great deal, from the state in which it was observed to be then. The agency nominated to do that is the MLA-- and the DCMs was told to raise its game to make sure that they did.
They haven't done that at all-- and it is Roy Clare's job to make sure that they do.
It is, however, true, that, as we explained here yesterday, there are definitely two separate parties in this argument and Roy is clearly in one of the camps. He is not alone in failing to adopt the views of Gerald Kaufman's committee. Somebody has to try to find a way to reconcile these two distinct views and find a way forward.
Posted by Perkins at September 25, 2008 8:11 PM
Comments
The letter shows that readers have to contend with a (Roy) Clare and Present Danger in their quest for libraries to have increased book stocks and longer opening hours rather than the postal orders and (grim phrase) "one-stop council services" which so excite him.
Surveys repeatedly show that readers, naturally, want more books.
Here in Brighton and Hove, the Scrutiny committee has stated that the forthcoming three-year Library Plan should be amended so that there is a clause which makes plain that book stocks should be increased (that and longer opening hours are a howling gap in the draft version...).
Readers elsewhere in the country could seek their Councils' Scrutiny section does likewise.
The memoirs of William Woodruff (who has just died) show what libraries did for him in a much-deprived Lancashire upbringing.
Posted by: Christopher Hawtree at September 26, 2008 10:57 AM