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September 28, 2008
Warwickshire County Library Service
A librarian writes:
"Things are afoot in the Warwickshire Library and Information Service. A raft of unpopular charges have recently been introduced including charging children a £1 a throw for story times! Amazing! Whatever happened to social inclusion and encouraging the young to visit our libraries. After all, they are our future customers.
This is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The Transformation Panel, an anonymous, autonomous committee of faceless management have deemed that we’re not offering the people of Warwickshire the right kind of library service. Indeed, it seems that we “need to change to meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century”. How the Transformation Panel would know this is fairly perplexing as many of them haven’t set foot in a library since the late 80’s.
Unfortunately, it seems that to meet these “challenges and opportunities” there must be a cull of staffing. There are strong rumours of mass redundancy and staff having to apply for their own jobs, which is not a nice feeling for those that are potentially affected. Unsurprisingly during the last phase of transformation senior managers were conveniently “slotted in” to their roles, something which is certainly not going to happen to the rest of us.
Apparently “internal restructuring is necessary, as a first step, if we are to maximise opportunities and provide the services more people want, where and how they want them”. I’ve been a little daft then; obviously the people of Warwickshire want a dumbed-down, stripped-to-the-bone service that is top heavy with management.
That’s lucky as that’s what they’re going to get."
Posted by Perkins at September 28, 2008 1:14 PM