If only Perkins could persuade councils and librarians and enthusiasts to listen she would tell a very simple tale

Firstly ebooks are actually quite a good thing. They are cheap- they are universally available and gradually slowly they begin to cover the wonderful depths of the kind of reading that people who like libraries, like to have access to. The arrival of ebooks is actually quite exciting.

For what it is worth Perkins is a rapacious reader and now she reads all the time on her phone, for goodness sake. She has discovered Richard Stark and Donald Westlake and is a happy cat and will be for a long time

The ebooks that are most popular are the books that people who like libraries want to read - thrillers, romances, childrens' books, novels and all that kind of stuff

And there is a way that every library in the country could offer every book in the world to every customer without limit and all at no cost

And Perkins knows what it is and it is beginning to be introduced in America. . Over here nobody wants to know .. so she is going to keep it a secret. ... that seems to be the safest way ... shhhhhhh

Perkins is deeply involved in the debate about ebooks in public libraries in the United States and from that perspective makes the following observations

Everyone is very pleased with the Sieghart review because it says what everyone in the library world would like to happen - publishers ought to let public libraries have ebooks to lend in the same way that they lend print books

But it doesn't begin to address the questions about why publishers just aren't going to let that come about. All the tests in the world carried out by The Reading Agency are not going to change the reality faced by the big publishing companies in New York - which is where the important decisions are being made.

Much depends upon the reputation of public libraries as purveyors of reading material -

If publishers really believed that public libraries could find a profitable route to people who will read ebooks -then they would be inclined to work with them.

But even in the US - where public library usage is far greater than it is here- publishers do not believe that - and they do not incline to include public libraries, at the moment, in their solutions to the marketing of ebooks. It is better for them to concentrate on routes via Android deliverers and operators with access to huge markets like Facebook and Samsung and Nokia - there is no need to indulge the over-complicated world of public libraries

So public libraries reputation for providing a service to readers is absolutely paramount in the debate about the delivery of ebooks They have to be better than other more efficient services

If they can't even see that their own reputation is primarily as a safe place for readers to come - then there is no point in involving public libraries in the solution... and that is what is happening at present .. no one owes them a living any longer.

Unless the public library service re-thinks itself - and very quickly - probably within the next two years - there will be no meaningful access to ebooks through the public library service. The access is tiny at present and there is no need for it grow.

Just as the library information service was left behind by Google, then the library book service will be left behind by the development of ebooks . And then nobody will believe there is a need for libraries

They will have made themselves redundant.

Perkins tried to make this point to IFLA last November - but the library community is too entrenched in its own self belief - rather like the Anglican or the Catholic churches of my youth- that it cannot see there is a whole world out there which sees things differently

It is sad - but - as they say- the writing is on the wall and it spells END OF THE NEED FOR LIBRARIES - in big letters

William Sieghart may be a lovely poet - but he is not a realist in this field - and it is time to stop dreaming and hoping like a poet

Does it matter? Not really at all , because my grandchildren will be able to read every book in the world on their phone at the press of link - as I do now - and it is perfectly wonderful - someone might let some of those books be subsidised and free - which is what libraries used to do - and that is fine

You don't have to be an anthropologist to understand that the first name conveys trust, experience, and the likelihood of finding what you want and being happy with it and the second name is unheard of (except for 64 likes on this blog)

It doesn't only apply to commerce. The British Army- for example- has a reputation for all kinds of things that one might not readily grant to the armies of some other countries. The Red Cross conveys integrity that has nothing to do with business

The public library service has a wonderful reputation. You could ask anyone in the country and they can tell you what a library does - and what they believe its qualities are.

I haven't seen any surveys, but I bet that the public library service reputation has held up in the last twenty years in a way that is not true for Parliament, the BBC, the Health service and many other institutions that used to be so respected

When one has a reputation of such high esteem there is no harm in using it to promote the values for which one has it.

The great wonder of public libraries in the UK is why they don't understand what people respect them for and why they don't promote those things - because they are very obvious and worthwhile

Perhaps that is the starting point - before we talk about changing them and adapting them and 'envisioning them' for the future. Just find out what people want public libraries to be good at now. Don't ask librarians - ask ordinary people who would use the service.

We would find- I think - that running the public library service is actually easier and more straightforward and simple than people have tried to make it - and that by simply playing to its wonderful strengths - its own reputation would carry it through.

It's too simple really... As the remarkable Councillor Henry Higgins said (confessing openly that he is not a book reader) in his own forthright manner - 'if it's a cake you put jam in it - if it's a library you put books in it'

Easy

This is because thirty years ago he had an idea- in the bath- of a promotion for the book industry of the Best of British young writers.

That promotion included a list of some authors who became the leading writers of the last parts of the twentieth century - and they haven't finished yet

It was a superb and simple idea because it conveyed to everybody what the qualities of the book industry can be. Ok we sell - and people read - a lot of gardening books and cookery books . But actually what all of us love is good writing.

So everybody from WH Smith to the local library wanted to participate and be seen to be proud to promote the list of authors

Desmond's idea was a magic one and it worked and how

We wouldn't do it now (although someone is about to try) because the book marketing council has sort of been replaced by bodies like the reading agency and the current Arts Council whose aspirations are different.. One feels that to them good writing would be put quietly aside in case it is perceived as elitist or middle class- notions which these days are heretical

But Desmond didn't finish his brilliance thirty years ago. He has a career which includes some of the most important jobs in publishing both here and in the US

And for ten years he has campaigned for the restoration of the public library service.

He deserves so much more respect for his library work than he gets - and that is why these current newspaper articles are so heartening

In truth Desmond could be chief executive of the public library service and we would all be better off. He understands the issues and could give more inspired leadership than any of the donkeys in central or national government. He is also an extremely capable and experienced manager and acheiver

More than all those things he is an extremely nice, intelligent, cultured and educated person even if you wouldn't want to meet him in the bath

And how exciting it would be to see the library service led by those who campaign for and use it - I'd go for that -actually it could solve all the problems

The excitement she felt about them was hot and infectious - 'people will have access - all over the world - we can overcome reading difficulties - we can make millions of books available to everyone- it can all be multi-lingual so migrants can access their own languages - new ways of telling stories - making reading affordable - authors will double their readership' . The list was joyful . It was one of those conversations from which you walk away singing with excitement.

And we talked - and have talked since - and have made good progress - about how to make all these things come true. It is a hugely positive story

I confess I opened the William Sieghart report about ebooks in English public libraries with some fear this week. It doesn't help any report to start with a poem by Ted Hughes - which is a signal for something horrid about the English publishing industry ... but so

But this is the extract that gloomed me ......

"The overriding sense gathered from hearing these facts and case histories, was of the challenges posed by digital developments, rather than of the opportunities offered, combined with these concerns are the current economic uncertainties that challenge the funding of the library system, and the financial viability of the writers on whom the industry depends, of booksellers and of the publishing industry".

And this is his conclusion from the evidence he received... and so the report is full of ideas about how to restrict things and how to create 'friction' where none exists. How awful it all is

Oh how miserable - no wonder the weather is so cold and ghastly.

Can nobody see how exciting the possibilities are? Can no one ever see things from the point of view of people who will gain from them?

And, incidentally, I was surprised to see Perkins' name in the list of people who gave evidence. It's not true! I didn't! I offered to several times, but no one answered my messages. So please don't think Perkins is miserable about ebooks - she loves them - but she likes lots of kinds of books - it's her thing.

And - as a librarian would say- I am currently reading 'dirty money' by Richard Stark, bought from Bilbary.com - on my iphone.

It seems that the answer to the nation's public library problems lie with one man who works part time for the Department of Culture and his name is Yinnon Ezra

Perkins knows old Yinnon from long running battles to keep books in libraries in Hampshire, when he lived there - so we have the cut of his jib, so to speak - and he has even been known to ask Perkins to speak at conferences, which were enjoyable and productive

He does know the patch - so where is he ?

So far as we can tell he must be on one of those long holidays that people in the DCMS have that seem to run from October to September, all year round - give or take a few expenses-paid conferences

There are piles of letters from Bolton, Gloucestershire and Lewisham to answer - and they weren't fan mail

Come on Yinnon, your country needs you

This is not helped by the large publishers who, quite reasonably, don't want to allow free access to their valuable ebooks in the same way that they have always done with print books.. so most of the ebooks that people want to read aren't available through public libraries anyway.

In the US the demand for ebooks through libraries has also been small - for the same reasons - but US libraries are much more determined to find ways to help their 'patrons' as they call them, get the services they want from libraries.. At present the kinds of books that people read in ebook form are very akin to the kinds of books people read from libraries - so there is a need. Moreover the use of ebooks in the US is now much larger per head than it is here - recent figures say that 25% of fiction is being read in ebook form - and here it is a lot less than 10%

In general the US public library service thrives. Use grows every year; budget cuts are handled with far more common sense and practical solutions tend to be found; there is a much better understanding of what libraries are for (and what budgets are for) - and less confusion about their social role. Pro rata use of libraries in the US is nearly twice, per head of population, that in the UK and generally the libraries are better.. Of course there are exceptions in both countries - but I am quoting from national figures, not local ones.

So the determination to resolve the questions that surround ebooks are much more inventive and purposeful than they are here

There is an understanding that while in theory the library service is publicly managed - there are huge commercial interests in it -as there are here- and particularly the suppliers of systems, books, data and other services in the libraries have enormous financial operations in play - and for their own self interest they want the libraries to thrive.

So there will be solutions to the ebook question, forced out of the market positions of these players and also the powerful activities of some librarians who demand that libraries shall not be destroyed

It is a fascinating process to watch. And when the solutions emerge they are likely to be universal and international (because most publishing and most library systems are international) .. and they apply just as well here in the UK as they will anywhere else

Perkins is enjoying playing a small role as it all happens

In that way the 'amount invested' , according to CIPFA, in the public library service in England in the past five years has been
2007/8 £941m
2008/9 £992m
2009/10 £1,053m
2010/11 £992m
2011/12 £960m

Which seems to amount to a nick - rather than a cut. And it does seem a bit hard to argue that devastating cuts from central Government have forced councils to slash their library budgets - they haven't

On the other hand if libraries are being closed and book funds being cut, it does seem more sensible to ask whether councils are giving proper priority to front line services in their normal management of public libraries. One wonders whether they are managing their overhead costs properly That is where , it seems to me, the figures suggest the problem lies

At the town hall door

Perhaps that is what Ed Vaizey meant to say - or should have said

For the purposes of most consumer books and public libraries the information it contains is perfectly adequate to do the job. For academic and professional libraries there is a need for more detailed analysis

Books are classified in 'BIC standard categories' which have been created with the cooperation of librarians

Nowadays it is communicated in Onix files which are used by all the distribution systems in the international book industry

There is no need for any public library to revise these databases or create catalogue material of their own - let alone for 200 authorities in the UK to create their own bibliographic data - nor is there any need for them to reclassify material.

If all public libraries would accept standard classifications and use onix feeds; and if all public libraries would use identical 'processing' of books - rather than operating 200 different processing 'specifications' then there would actually be need for library suppliers or bibliographers.

Pulbishers' own distribution systems could create library ready books, if the process for changing a print book into a 'library ready' book were the same for every authority

We would save the vast cost of many warehouses and distribution networks and all the systems that operate within them

We would also save all the bibliographic costs and most of the processing costs that still go on library service back offices

In fact it would only be one further small leap to realise that most of the horrendous cost of 'inter-library loans' could be eliminated if libraries simply bought a new copy of any book that was ordered - in 95% of the cases that would work perfectly well and much more cheaply than what happens now

Part of what has destroyed the public library service is the barrier that lies between publishers and libraries - and the cost that is incurred in the the immensity of those walls that lie between them .. and these are because the operating systems of librariies and those of the rest of the book industry are so different

Librarians have been taught to believe that they can specify processes and systems to suit themselves without ever realising the immense cost of what they ask for . One only has to visit the processing line at Askews to watch how every single book has to be processed differently to the one before it and differently to the one after it - to realise how totally ludicrous the supply chain for public libraries is,

"It is the price that the English Government find particularly attractive", he said. "I think they need some roubles into the Treasury Bank. So we offer hundred million. No problem. "

"We have known for a long time that English Government has no great interest in book literature - they not ashamed to say that"

"However in Russia we like it often" he added

"Of course all library workpersons who are not already Russian citizens will become so. But I tell you many are already in."

"Libraries will stay open- exchange visits will be arranged - books will be coming and also Russian computer machines and cats for library"

"It is obvious cultural beneficial . International." - He finished

I am in correspondence with colleagues in the United States about why libraries seem to be in mortal dispute with publishers about ebooks there

The answer - to me - is clear . While to every member of the public it would be obvious that they would cooperate and promote the work of authors and their titles - the reality is that they behave as if they came from different planets in opposition to each other

The symptom of their mutual lunacy is that they operate different cataloguing systems- which means that they have to intermediaries who interpret for them - and those intermediaries survive because of the differences and have no desire to resolve them

And - in the end- that is why publishers won't supply libraries with ebooks

It is the same in the UK

And it will destroy the public library service in both countries in the next decade

If those matters were regarded as serious enough for public money to be spent to address them then in each case there is probably a much better way that directs money to where it is really needed and expertise to where it can be successful .

In Dan Jarvis' recent paper for the Labour party he quoted that – "23 per cent of households still do not have internet access. Libraries helped get 1 million people online last year.". Yet 1 millon people represents about 2.5% percent of households. It is almost a reason for not using libraries to make the internet avaiable to people; there must be better ways than that and - if we are serious about digital access- there certainly are.

We even hear the argument that public libraries make a contriubution to health care. And whenever I hear that I wish that my own doctors' surgery had the money to stay open a bit longer - because they know much more about health care than a library does. For illness it is better to go to a doctor than to a librarian, honestly.

What we don't value enough is the role that libraries can play -both efficiently and effectively. That is for people who can read and can access data digitally.. for these people it gives them access to the whole of world thought and literature. For a child who has discovered authors beyond those they are told about in school, a library is a direct line to civilisation... and from childhood onwards that abundance is what makes the intelligent world so wonderful.

I believe we have been making the wrong case for libraries for years - and now, because we are so confused about what libraries are for - we are going to make a blunder out of the possibilities of the new digital and ebook technologies - because they really can make a universe of writing available, but only if we know that is what we want and we use it all properly .

There used to be an annual analysis of public library data by LISU - the library unit of Loughborough University. That was stopped by the MLA, and that was a shame because they looked at national trends.

When I first became involved in public libraries in 1997, it was the LISU analysis showing the fall in the percentage of the budget on books, alongside the fall in the use of books, that was so obvious and convincing a statement of the problem. The main use of the library service , then and now, is for books for reading - for pleasure, for study, for information - for culture. If the supply of books is strangled then the libraries lose their general attraction and their usefulness

Whatever other valuable social purpose they might have, if people choose not to use them, because the book stock is poor, the service will be in trouble. Use is bound to fall- and if use falls, those people who monitor expenditure on public services are bound to see opportunity to cut costs.

In 1997 the percentage of the library service expenditure spent on books was 11.7%.

Since then there have, in my view, been three important changes that affect the quality of public libraries.

1. The introduction of the 'people's network' which eventually gave each library a number of internet terminals, increased use by a small amount - and briefly halted the decline of use. At its peak about 20% of library use was for computers. .. where the use of libraries for books and reading has remained around 70-75% of visits. That 20% has now declined significantly. The claim that libraries make a significant numerical impact on the digital divide is simply not true. Nor do they have a significant numerical impact on literacy. They are good and useful - but their main purpose remains for people who already read books -or newspapers. Of course their use at different stages of ones life is different - and that is the best way to analyse whether they do their job properly. If they 'do' books and newspapers well they will thrive; if they neglect them, libraries are no longer fulfilling their role. The computers were an interesting addition for some people, but not the universal answer they have so often been held up to be

2. In about 2003 there was a significant shift in the supply chain costs, when Bertrams, the library supplier, increased the discounts it offered to libraries. This meant that for a brief while even if the book budget fell, libraries were able to get more books for their money. For a few years this reduced the impact of falling book funds. But that dividend is now finished, we are back in the cycle of falling budgets leading to falling stocks leading to falling use of libraries . The percentage of library budgets spent in 2011/12 on books is now 6.3% in the UK . In London that is 4.2% . It is simply ludicrous to believe that libraries can have any qualities other than being a community shelter, at that level of expenditure on books. And yet we have seen about 30 reports from Government and all parties, and none ever points out the most obvious fact of all - libraries need more books

3. The most devastating impact on public libraries is not the cuts imposed by Central Government, or lack of budget in any sense. It is the ridiculous rise in the costs of council central overheads which are charged to the library service. In 2011/ 12 we were expecting to see the first major year of Government cuts since the main purpose of Government became to cut the the annual operating deficit of all government departments. Councils were asked to find 28% cuts over three years, to be front loaded- so we anticipated that we would see cuts in library budgets of the order of 14% . In fact the staff budget has been cut by 9%, Internet costs have been cut by 11% and the book fund has been cut by the same amount, 11% as well And yet at the same time the council overheads actually rose by a larger amount than they have risen in any year in the past decade. The amount charged to libraries rose from 13.6% percent of the cost of the library service to 14.7% : the council overhead is now £160m (and this does not include overhead within each library service, which will be of the same order, but is not shown by CIPFA)

Everybody said that when making cuts, councils should protect the front line and look for savings in administration. The exact opposite has happened -- and it is wrong and unfair to those people who need them, to close libraries while this fundamental problem remains untackled.

Any of the three najor parties could tackle this matter, whether they are in power in Whitehall or not - it is about proper council administration - and if they wish to fly party flags in council elections they should work with their own councils to solve it

As for the LGA, the DCMS, the Arts Council , the SCL, or CILIP - all one can say is that they are all, in respect of public libraries, currently, utterly useless- and any money public or private, spent on them, could sensibly be saved

I am holding off describing any detail of the conversations until the organisers of the conference have had the chance to organise their own views about what was said

But I don't think any of them will object if I say that it was the most detailed, useful and constructive discussion on the subject that I have been to - and that it was really well organised, prepared and chaired

And I will slip in that I think that public libraries are the sleeping giant of the ebook firmament - the possibilities for what they can do are enormous - but they need to be alert and work hard to achieve them . The situation is not easy

There can be little doubt that local campaign groups around the country have done a wonderful job warning councils of the danger of closing libraries.

These same groups have done a very effective job of embarrassing the current minister for libraries and making him look like a complete oaf

Among the campaigners there are a number of absolute heroes - I don't want to name them again, simply because of the danger of missing some important names. Some of these people are authors, some are retired people, some are library professionals - and as has often been said they come from all walks and ways and notably every political colour there is.

They have worked very hard - mostly not just without thanks - but very often with abuse from local and national politicians who shame themselves

But this blog has often questioned the role in these campaigns being played by the professional bodies of librarians, notably CILIP and the Society of Chief Librarians

The reason for making this distinction amongst the campaigners is that both CILIP and the SCL are actually in a position to improve the service.. There is an awful lot that they could do to address problems, show leadership and make changes. So I think it is wrong to find them cheerleading the campaign and organising 'Days to show the value of libraries' - that is something that other people can do. CILIP and the SCL should instead be showing that they understand the problems and doing something about them

It is no good endlessly blaming politicians for not pouring money into the library service, when everyone knows and admits that the service leaks money and is not well run.

I know that senior librarians hate being criticised by outsiders like this blog, and that they become resolutely defensive when such criticisms are made - but when one goes down the list of what the library service ought to do to improve, there are so many things that CILIP and the SCL could lead and put right, instead of posturing, as I think they do, as if there is nothing that they could do

They have responsibilities that go with their title as Chartered Professionals or Chief Librarians - and they should act accordingly