The Good Library Blog

What happened to your post of two days ago, entitled For a Long Time? Still have it in the RSS feed, but it seems to have gone from the site

Eric. Thanks. I decided not to leave it posted.

I have it as well. I am glad you chose to rephrase it as it was another disappointing attack on librarians.

It would be very easy to rubbish this latest initiative, dismissing it as just another facile waste of time regurgitated by the People's Front of Judea (and don't worry, I probably will) but it might be more to the point to mention that all they may be doing, with a great deal of unnecessary fuss and bother, is finding their way towards obvious managerial facts of life.
Firstly, the number of management levels between the most senior and most junior member of staff should be no more than four. This is (or was) sometimes the case in better private sector organisations, but less so in the public sector. The late, unlamented Strathclyde Region had about 40...
Guys, this is a waste!
Perkins is probably arguing for one (nationwide?) management operation instead of 150. Again, surely an attempt to decrease duplication instead of increasing it would reduce waste and free up resources?
With the savings open libraries, as Arkwright might say, all hours, fill them with interested, knowledgeable staff and stock them with a good representative selection of all formats (books, magazines, internet and so on).
Incidentally, give the next jerk who starts going on about "defining the role of the librarian in the current era" a good kicking - librarians store and retrieve information. There's your definition, now stop messing about and get on with it.
No idea is perfect. This one would put a lot of managers out of work and maybe affect hauliers. It's also important not to forget that any organisation does need its backroom boys as well as its frontline staff, but it would be nice if we all started to realise that the benefit of freely distributing knowledge can generate lucrative and unexpected dividends. You just can't easily define these dividends on a balance sheet. Out of a library may come the next self-educated Nelson Mandela or Jimmy Reid. You do not know where or when such a person may appear, nor can you ever know, but he or she may not appear at all if the library is not there to provide support in the first place.
It has taken me less than half-an-hour to write this blog. Could the Library Futures Programme acquaint itself with the managerial facts of life and get on with the job relatively quickly for once?
Well, I'm being balanced, but I'm not hopeful. However, if someone from the Programme is illicitly reading this blog, please note I am available to give jerks kickings!
Verbally, of course...

Eric, I have it from the RSS feed. It looks uncontroversial to me, but if you let me know your e-mail I'll send it to you.

Thank you James. As usual you have the best perceptions here.

What I am trying to concentrate on in this entry is the idea that each individual local library, however small or large it might be, will be much better if it is free to build and offer its own collection for its own community. This is line one in the Charter we wrote and I was pleased to think I helped persuade Justin Tomlinson to lay stress upon this and the consequent important role of the individual local library manager and his or her colleagues.

I would call that manager 'the librarian' - although current practice has a rather odd definition of library managers as people who just hold the keys of the building. That is the big change for which I am calling.

Then it follows, for me at least, that the librarian in that situation needs to be able to access a support network which provides information about publications, a catalogue, a building maintenance programme, etc, etc-- all those things that are needed to support his or her independence.

This support base needs to be efficient and of the highest quality. It could, for me, be provided by competitive suppliers- it doesn't need to be state run

The libraries themseves should be infividually independent, but they could remain the responsibility of local councils, who provide the funding for them and account to local people for how well they are operated.

As for public librarians-- my respect for them will rise when I hear even one of them say "more books, longer hours, better buildings - these are the absolute priorities" - they just never do.... read the CILIP manifesto- it is gonk. However, since I respect the various pleas for us all to work together at present, I am saying this low down in the comments column, rather than high up on a headline. (I don't know if these comments go on RSS feeds when they are posted-- do they?)

You,ve heard me say on several occasions "more books, longer hours, better buildings - these are the absolute priorities" and you've heard my criticisms of CILIP. Librarians are starting to voice their concerns but we as a profession are not very militant. As for building a collection to cater for the local community this does happen to a certain degree already through the provision of community language collections, community profiling and outreach.

Full of 'flu and close to death (this would be just the time to suicide bomb Ridgemount Street and go out in a blaze of glory...) but dragging myself valiantly to the keyboard to try and make the crucial point that independent thought is the holy grail. Namely, librarians indeed thinking for themselves and acting like managers. Good managers, that is. As my late father once said, a good manager is worth his weight in gold, and there are a hell of a lot of bad managers.
The public sector is extremely prone to mindless subservience and lumpen inertia combined, in the worst cases, with a childish avoidance of responsibility and an utterly negative attitude. Reread my earlier comment from June 21st 2010 re South Lanarkshire Council and Roberton Subscription Library for an explicit real-life example of this. Good librarian/managers backed up by efficient suppliers would get the service in shape by throwing out the bad and keeping the good. This is such a staggeringly obvious and simple solution it seems ridiculous even to have to state it, but I do have to because the 'profession' is so rigid with dead wood and woolly jargon no one except me and a few other brave souls (remember I am an ex-Chartered librarian) will do so. I submit that the majority prefer instead to hide behind more and more useless consultations while feathering their own nests.
They're celebrating the Battle of Britain this week, and it does make me sick that within living memory people fought to their death for freedom and the right to free speech only to see "the land fit for heroes" end up being 'run' by a bunch of small-minded lackeys much better suited to life in a pre-perestroika Communist country.
Quite seriously, what have we come to when I can state with virtual certainty that, like Perkins, I am sure virtually no public librarian will come forward and ask for "more books, longer hours and better buildings?"
Incidentally, Mr Wylie, I do note your point, but we need a thousand like you and a lot more militancy, and we need them now. It's not as if our so-called library 'leaders' are in as much danger as Battle of Britain fighter pilots, and I strongly feel the right to free speech is one that needs to be exercised - vigorously - or it will be lost.

The Durning Library in Kennington, London SE11 is under threat. There's a meeting tonight at the Oval theatre.
I think the details are on the Kennington Association blog page.