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February 22, 2010
A former Chief Librarian writes
Librarianship courses have always concentrated on teaching technical skills while barely lifting the lid of the general management toolbox. The course I attended simply got me onto the professional ladder where my real learning began.
The skills being taught today are often too theoretical and in many cases redundant, as good managers already in the workplace find better, cheaper, faster ways of getting things done. Syllabuses need to be brought up to date and made more responsive to changes in the workplace; existing professionals (not CILIP) should be hard-wired into this process.
The skills that are needed to run a large public service - customer care, change management, entrepreneurship, negotiation, strategic thinking - need to be there in latent form and developed through experience and mentoring by those with the experience. Employers and elected members also need to see those skills as desirable rather than a threat!
To get real benefit out of all this, we also need to hoik library services out of local authority control and into regional or sub-regional trusts able to deliver economies of scale and concentrate on delivering the best possible service for the lowest possible price without being used alternately as a political plaything and a budget patch.
On the subject of fawning, I know only a handful of professional libarians who have been able to sustain that approach. The majority of chief librarians have never held back from swift, direct and very frank exchanges with DCMS and MLA both individually and through SCL, a small voluntary body that should not be confused with the unloved, unfocussed and near-extinct CILIP.
Posted by Perkins at February 22, 2010 8:49 AM
Comments
Mr Apollo. So if we started a series of seminars for chief librarians, councillors and senior council officers specifically to focus on case studies of library authorities and how to manage them to improve the service, would you join us? I am thinking of just 2 or 3 councils represented at each seminar so we can get into some detail. Outside speakers, publishers, marketing people as well as those more directly involved would all be invited to contribute to the discussion.
Posted by: perkins at February 22, 2010 8:57 AM
It's got potential - but there have been any number of seminars and workshops aimed at this kind of audience and and pretty much the same people turn out dutifully every time. How would these new events be different and how would we persuade elected members who think they have all the answers to listen?
Posted by: Apollo at February 23, 2010 7:46 PM
"Hoiking" library services "out of local authority control and into regional or sub-regional trusts able to deliver economies of scale" will do nothing to resolve the problem but merely make management even more remote from the users than is already the case. The cause of the decline in library use is firmly rooted in the failing of senior management, cabinet members and central government, making our libraries even more remote via some form or regional management will exacerbate the problem. While it might be necessary for library authorities to co-operate in the provision of things such as providing a single catalogue, and the purchase of electronic information resources services this is quite feasible without centralising the whole structure. Even this limited centralisation needs to be treated with caution, as large book purchasing consortiums are prone to ignore the importance of local bookshops and small publishers, which form a part of the popular literary culture that sustains libraries.
Posted by: Martyn at February 24, 2010 4:13 PM