The Good Library Blog

Here in Hove the long-running library controversy played a part in various politicians being out on their ear - so often they live in a cocoon of "visions" and "strategies", even "holistic" ones, and are then surprised, even affronted, when people speak up.

In light of Cllr Martin's pronouncements on libraries, I should think that his party would regard him as a liability as leader.

Many of Tim's interventions - as reported in the local press - are increasingly misleading and present a highly distorted picture, allowing those opposed to any closures to foster an unrealistic picture of how improvements can be made.
You must know that continued pressure to endlessly reduce costs has, over decades, forced library authorities to minimise and centralise all of the most important "behind the scenes" tasks, leaving only skeleton teams to manage the endless ongoing tasks that make a library worth using.
To now imply that all this is just "non-frontline" staffing that can simply be somehow massively cut back again is reckless. You are now attacking the vulnerable surviving team who have managed to maintain this service for many years with so little resources. I hope they make their case clearly so the public can understand.
It is a sad move in this increasingly politically driven campaign.
I wish everyone success in their fight to save their local libraries - but don't destroy your service in the process.

Has Hillingdon's library service been destroyed by doing this?-- absolutely not; it goes from strength to strength. Has Westminster's service been destroyed by reducing 'non frontline' costs? Of course not. Mr River Man, if you show me a council, I shall explain how this works.. In Swindon there is ample scope for doing what I have been saying. It may, indeed, not be true everywhere, but it is true in most places. The back office teams I see are not 'skeletal' at all.

My observation is different to yours. Where, over the years, library services have been asked to cut costs, which is by no means the prevailing story of the past decade, but where they have been asked, they have cut book funds, opening hours and occasionally libraries. The management costs have not been cut in proportion at all.

There is nothing political about what I say. I am talking about better management of a public service, and, as somebody kindly said yesterday, I have been saying it for many years, and on every occasion we test it in a council, it turns out to be true.

It is about time the profession and senior library managers stopped trying to hide from this issue and learned to deal with it themselves. Otherwise the library service will fade away, because politicians justifiably say the service to the paying public is so poor that no one uses it.