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December 29, 2009
Submission to DCMS public libraries review
1. The Review must describe the various needs of the public for public libraries now. In doing so it might characterise different groups of people and stages of life: for example, the needs of parents with small children; the needs of children to discover reading outside their school curricula; the needs of older children and students to have a place for private study, the needs of people through their working life to develop their skills, to enjoy wide reading and to cope with their daily lives; the needs of elderly people to a have access to wide tastes of reading and so forth. These descriptions should not be based on conjecture, but constructed professionally on hard factual evidence. This work will define the ambition and the shared vision of the library service.
2. The Review must then define the role played in satisfying each of those needs by individual small community libraries, by medium and large sized town libraries and by comprehensive central libraries. It should also describe the developing ability of publishing media to satisfy some library needs by electronic means. It must then make clear which of the public requirements are not likely to be met by these media developments. For example, access to some kinds of information might be more comprehensive through the internet, but the internet will not provide a community story time, or the serendipitous free access to new authors or the one to one contact with library staff many people find valuable. This changing situation needs to be narrated so it is clear what libraries should do now in a way that the public will recognise as realistic.
3. Then, in accepting a national responsiblity for providing public libraries for those who wish to use them, the DCMS Review must define, in conjunction with those managers and professionals responsible, the roles and responsibilities of individual libraries; of councils who administer the library service in their areas and of any central body that exists to ensure the public receive the service to which they are entitled through their taxation (and in accordance with the 1964 public libraries act) This definition cannot allow for different fundamental nature of libraries in different parts of the country and for unnacceptable library services anywhere.
4. Having made clear these basics, The Review must set out a defined and urgent improvement programme which tasks, with their agreement, all those responsible to restore the essential assets and book and other collections and provide the access to them that people are entitled to expect. In this it must again define the work to be carried out by individual libraries and by councils and give clear instruction to a new national library body, or task force, as to how its responsibility to fufill this programme, in the most efficient manner, will be carried out. This programme must make special emphasis and provide the means for improved management and management training in the library service. It must also create a new visible set of measures so that the public and their representatives can see how library service improvements are made and how the service is used.
Thank you
Tim Coates
Posted by Perkins at 2:36 PM | Comments (1)
December 28, 2009
Figures about books
Neill Denny writes in today's Bookseller
"Ten years ago British book sales were worth around £1.25bn; this year they will equate to some £1.75bn. Around 240 million books will be sold in the UK this year (compared to 154 million in 2000), with 128,000 individual titles published. Export sales add perhaps another £1bn in revenue. Publishing is Britain's most succesful creative industry, aside from state-subsidised TV—the only one where we are genuine world leaders."
During that time, even though 75% of library visitors are looking for books, the library profession has constantly obsessed about the future of libraries "beyond books" and droves of ministers, local politicians and managers responsible have allowed their attention to the book industry to fade.. now, in some places, as little as 2% of the library budget is spent on books- in London that figure is less than 6%. The recent London Libraries consultants referred to books, not as interesting, but only as 'dusty' and 'old'.
Even a local councillor can hardly have missed that far from being elitist advancement, much of the growth in publishing came from an outstanding period of creative writing for children, in which this country's authors lead the world. (Harry Potter.......etc)
Where, logically as publishing flourished, it should have increased, the number of books available for lending in public libraries has in fact fallen from 92m to 76m and as a consequence the annual number of books issued has fallen from 486m to 307m - thus the usefulness of libraries has fallen so that the percentage of the UK population who use them has declined from 32% to just 20%. In Northern Ireland that figure is now 16% and in Cardiff it is 14%. In Wakefield, where Ed Balls, the minister for children has his constituency, and boasts how good the library service is, it is in fact so poor that only 13% of the population find any use for it even once a year- which is almost the lowest figure in the country.
Those who continue to hold expensive conferences and write reports about social networks and libraries in the digital age should turn their minds instead to the question of whether it is time to put books back in our public libraries.
By neglecting the value and importance of books in the past ten years, we have already come close to destroying the public library service- and for most of the population, especially, the younger half, it is now a service of little use or purpose. How could we have been, and continue to be, so stupid?
Posted by Perkins at 6:06 PM | Comments (4)
December 26, 2009
"Political Correctness"
For a television programme I have been asked to compile ridiculous examples of political correctness in the public library service.
An example would be the library service who closed several libraries claiming they needed the money to fund an outreach programme. Another would be the national prize given to a library service for holding rock concerts in their libraries.
Submissions would be most welcome
Very happy Christmas and New Year to all visitors to this blog. From the comments made here and on other campaigners' websites and in the press, I think we have saved over 200 libraries from closure in the past two or three years. Councillors now think twice, and twice again, before proposing closures. Many managers of quangoes, national ministries and councils have lost their jobs because of the comments made. What we need to do now is to restore the book collections to the quality that is needed.
Posted by Perkins at 10:20 AM | Comments (2)
December 19, 2009
The London Libraries Change Programme
The publicly available information about the London Libraries Change Programme tells us only that options are being considered for a new way of managing the service. It doesn't say what those options are or what the implications of any of them might be. Nor does it, therefore, say how any of them would bring improvement.
There has been a story that the council library authorities will be amalgamated into 5 London areas, but no answers offered why that would provide better service- or how those 5 would be publicly accountable.
The LLCP has gone on even longer than the DCMS libraries review and now moves into its third year. It has a confused agenda being uncertain whether it is about actually changing things to address a public need, or simply about rearranging the management deck chairs. The studies have cost over £300,000 and revealed nothing of which anyone wasn't aware: there is a lot of wasted money and the service in most places is poor. There has been little improvement in the past ten years and every performance figure continues to go down. Expenditure on books for libraries in the capital is now less than 6% of the public library budget.
The biggest problem though is that it is impeding improvement work that should be being done in individual boroughs. Because it is now unclear whether councils will continue to operate their own libraries and who will be responsible for them, work to improve opening hours, supply chains, cooperative working, book collections, buildings, management training, has largely stopped. Every council has the ideal excuse for doing nothing "We are waiting to see the outcome of the LLCP" . Such procrastination is normal in Local Government where any excuse will do for doing nothing.
I suspect that those on the programme board would say that, somehow, the muddle is not their fault- but they are the programme board, after all--
For the avoidance of doubt they are (according to their own website)
Andrew Holden, MLA London
David Brownlee, London Councils
Rosemary Doyle, Islington
Diana Edmonds, Haringey
Lucy Ivimy, Hammersmith and Fulham
Sue Mackenzie, Brent
Geraldine Reardon, Waltham Forest
Flick Rea, Camden
David Ruse, Westminster
Caroline Stranger, 'Capital Ambition'
You can throw in Roy Clare who is the chief exec of MLA.
What will happen next?
Posted by Perkins at 4:48 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2009
From New South Wales
I received this from Richard Watson-- to whom many thanks
"Dear Tim,
You - and you readers - might be interested in some work I've just done with Oliver Freeman and about 100+ others looking at public libraries in NSW (Australia). Essentially some scenarios for the future of public libraries. Full report on the following link (public domain so feel free to pass it around).
Best regards,
Richard Watson."
Posted by Perkins at 6:32 PM | Comments (0)
December 6, 2009
Where are The Audit Commission and the Culture Select Committee?
Rachel Cooke writes again perceptively and in a well informed manner in The Observer today.
She tells the, by now, clear and well understood story of the absolute and prolonged failure of the DCMS and all its functions, to perform the role it has been given in the public library service.
But the DCMS, MLA and local councils are not the only bodies to whom the public look (in ever increasing despair) for the care, protection and improvement of our libraries. We have mechanisms which are supposed to operate to make sure these people do their duty. It should not fall to journalists and campaigners alone to ring alarm bells and constantly stamp their feet.
The Culture Select Committee, whose statutory role is to oversee the activities of the DCMS and its quangoes has not stirred for 5 years. At that time it analysed and reported very well, but as has been observed so often, reports are not enough to make people act. Pressure has to be applied more effectively. I think they have failed in their duty by such a long silence and call upon them to take up the matter. I have written (quite often) to the Chair John Whittingdale, MP, but like Lord Palmerston, he does not reply to letters; and I suggest that others do the same.
At the time of that last Select Committee report much hope was held out for what the Audit Commission would do. They, too had written two good reports describing the shortcomings of the service ("Due for Renewal" and "Building Better Libraries"). But they, too, have failed sadly to turn that groundwork into effective and real improvement. Their mechanisms have been too soft and too complicated. Their focus is too vague and unspecific; they have allowed too much poor management to persist. They have not done their job. It is time that this was said publicly and loudly.
Posted by Perkins at 11:10 AM | Comments (2)