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October 22, 2011
Plan B : a national plan to save the public library service
It is awful to watch the dismantling of the public library service across the country. Plan A seems to be to allow this to happen while all those who are responsible for it argue fruitlessly about what they are doing and why.
So here, on this blog, and not for the first time, we offer a 'Plan B' - which is intended to not only save the public library service but also to make it prosper and grow.
Mind - be wary - my views have never been accepted by Government; they are not accepted by local councils; and they are positively disliked by the 'library profession'- so do not imagine that I believe they will be taken up. The only people who generally do approve of what I say are the people who do use and would use libraries - so, until what they think matters, we cannot expect this to be the way forward . Neverthless here, briefly, is what I now suggest should be done
1. The heart of the public libraries lies in its buildings, the 'materials' - books and other information, the facilities, computers and other devices, areas for private and repsected study, and above all the staff- their energy, experience and understanding. Therefore we need a simple statement that these are the ingredients that we need in every single library in the country- with long opening houra, clean well kept, well managed well designed premises and the funding such operations require. Each individual library should have the ability and freedom to order its own stock and manage its own resources to meet the needs of the local community
2. There is a huge swathe of public library activity that costs far more than is needed, because it is operated separately and differently in each council - and there is no advantage at all in it being done in this way. There needs to be a new national public library support body that exists to provide each individual library the access to all it needs and to provide those services which are much better operated nationally. The national services should be the catalogue, the access to electronic reference and ebooks, the supply contracts with publishers and a general resource of information. There should be just one national library management system with absolutely nil permitted local variations of process or supply. This body will facilitate, by contract, any movement of stock that is really needed- leaving no local distribution to be done by local councils at all
3. In each council there is a need for only a very small management team that ensures that each individual library operates a high standard of local management, in response to what the local people and the council wants and ensures that each library does have access to all it needs to provide the best possible service. I anticipate no more than 1- 4 people even in the largest coundil should work in such non-library based teams. It is by reduction in the cost of the existing council library management teams, that the necessary savings to save the service can be found
4. The idea of a library 'profession' should extend to embrace all those who work in local libraries - and there needs to be a new trainng to provide those skills 'on the job' . The qualification for 'professionalism' should not be academic, but practical - with the proviso that the service needs to employ people who are well educated, well informed and generous to the people they serve
Because this new service will cut out vast amounts of waste which is currently incurred by the replication of out dated management structures all over the country - and variations in procedure bordering on the lunatic, it will operate at two thirds of the cost of the existing service and be far better.
Unless someone else has a plan (other than pleading with the Government to stop in its aim to cut the deficit, to which they don't appear to be listening) - then this is actually the only plan there is.. ... oh, apart from the one that says libraries should be run by volunteers.
Posted by Perkins at October 22, 2011 6:44 PM
Comments
Hi Tim. Interesting suggestions, and I don't necessarily disagree with some of what you suggest. However, can you clarify a couple of things because I am not really sure I can see how certain points are practical.
In terms of individual libraries purchasing stock rather than it being pushed to head office, I've often thought this would be a good idea but it would increase the costs quite substantially. Take my own local authority, Kent. Kent has around 100 libraries spread across the county. There are a mixture of sizes from very large libraries, to very, very small ones. Both the very large libraries and the very small would almost certainly require the recruitment of a member of staff specifically dedicated to looking after the purchase of stock. Large libraries because, well, they are large and it would be very time consuming to manage. The small ones because they are staffed by a solitary staff member - obviously there will be an impact on the users walking through the door if they are too busy looking up stock to purchase. In my county this means recruiting another couple of dozen members of staff to replace the half a dozen currently working at head office dealing with purchasing (although the majority of this is supplier selection so a bulk of it is done without impacting on the staffing in any way). By purchasing individually (across 100 libraries remember), each library would actually end up paying MORE for less. By purchasing for the whole county there are substantial discounts to be gained that would be lost if there were 100 separate accounts (as always, buying in bulk is substantially cheaper than buying individually). Can you explain how this system would save money rather than waste it?
Secondly, I note your call for a SINGLE library management system. I'm wondering how this would be practical? Which company is going to supply this software? What is the likely response from competitors? How can we be sure that the procurement of one system would meet the needs of every single authority? Would those providing library management systems even entertain such a notion when some are desperate to take over entire consortia? Surely it would be far better to ensure that there is *compatibility* across the country rather than imposing ONE system and creating a monopoly? I certainly think that every library across the country should use a system that is compatible, but I don't think a single management system is the answer. Besides, the issue of data protection is also a concern. Do we really want everyone's reading habits and personal information on a single database? There's not really a good track record in that regard!
I look forward to your response.
Posted by: Ian at October 23, 2011 10:29 AM
Ian
thanks - it's easy to answer those two questions.
On the matter of procurement, individual small community libraries, at present, if they are lucky, receive about £20k of stock per annum. (£80m national purchasing divided by 4,000 libraries) - that represents 2,000 books per annum or 40 items per week. If you think of every local shop in your town (butcher, baker, candlestick maker, newsagent - all of them), that is a tiny fraction of what the proprietor of any local business has to handle. In my experience (and this is an area in which I do have some) - buying at that level should not take more than an hour per week. The industry provides masses of guidance on what to buy - and that combined with local experience and knowledge, should make it not only easy but fun. It just isn't a problem.
On the matter of a national library management system, I would say this- at present in England, the LMS systems cost about £30-£50m per annum in terms of annual contracts to suppliers- not counting the local systems staff in each council and the extras like RFID contracts.
It cannot, in my view, (and I also have experience in this field!) cost more than £3- £5m to operate a web based, perfectly secure, standard and simple library operating system that can be used in any library in the country. There is too much local variation and specification - that is where we waste the money. We simply have to do it. Tough luck on the LMS suppliers- they have been ripping off the library service and its public for years pandering to local needs of individual councils. Customers don't need or want variation of systems - they want proper local libraries.
We need leadership, too, of the kind that says, "stop messing about and do it" - otherwise there will be no libraries left.
Incidentally it is possible to operate one national system, without having a monopoly of supply. For example, John Lewis, Tesco, Sainsbury etc , whose systems requirements are far more demandfig than the library service (they have vastly more volume and they have to worry about huge amounts of cash) all have one abasolutely standard national system - but they have many suppliers who supply parts of it - both by function and region. By that mechanism they can keep control of the cost.
Posted by: perkins at October 23, 2011 10:49 AM
Actually, just checking to see whether the spamming problem has been resolved. Also generally and definitely agree with point 4. The library "profession" has buried itself under piles of big words and other crap while largely forgetting about practicalities and allowing socially inept dead wood to sit safe in posts and clog up the service - and if you think I'm being overly tough, please note that this is what I've just experienced! A return to practicality is definitely needed, and it's long overdue.
Posted by: James Christie at October 28, 2011 2:51 AM