The Minister says it's down to councils. Chief librarians also say it's councils who decide. But councillors will say they depend upon the officers of their councils to manage the service. The good people who actually work in libraries certainly don't feel in charge of them. The Arts Council are now being paid to do something - but goodness knows what; the DCMS are paid in gold bars - but no one knows who does anything or what they do. The book industry could do a lot - but they don't

There is no one who says 'My aim is to increase the amount that libraries are used by X%' or 'My aim is to increase the number of people reading by Y%' - or even 'my aim is to reduce the cost by Z% but still maintain the service' or 'my aim is to show that libraries benefit so many people- and here is the proof'

So there is no one, anywhere, who can account to the public (who pay the money) for how the money is spent ... no one can assure us that the next generation will inherit a decent service.

Five years ago the Culture Select Committee said the 'service is in distresss' - like a cruise ship floundering at sea. But although all the figures are worse, the Minister tells us that now there is no crisis.

If you adopt a 'my door is always closed and my eyes are always shut' policy in the office- then you probably would never know if there was a crisis. He talks like a 1950's trade unionist always explaining why it is not his job to do anything. We don't need a barrister in the job - we need someone with electric prods who knows how to use them.

The real problem - everywhere- is that no one is in charge of our library service. There is no one who goes to bed worrying about whether it will be improved tomorrow - and whether people like what is being done. No one anywhere

And as Florence Nightingale said in the Crimean War "If all the generals only regard the award of medals as what they are there to achieve, if no one knows what we are here to do- for certain we have a disaster"

Today is National Libraries Day - may I here offer my congratulations to all those who have striven to make people aware of what is happening to our public library service. You have done a wonderful job. ... and people are aware. You needed to tell local councillors to watch out for what they do - and you have. And it has been cold, bleak, infuriating and diffcult. But you have told them.

This is because of a project in which I am involved called www.bilbary.com

While there was much talk about the effect of restrictions on budgets and how library services are coping with them, the item that seems to much higher on the agenda of anxiety is the way the most senior publishers are declining to supply ebooks to public libraries.

In the United States last year nearly a quarter of books that were read were on ereaders and libraries, of course, want to provide the service they offer in all kinds of reading, to ebooks as well as printed books. If publishers won't allow them to do this, then they are very limited in an important part of their function .

In some camps there was a lot of complaint, and in others there were attempts to find ways to solve the problems.

Both publishers and librarians see 'reading' as an essential part of what they do, and so, to anyone outside the industry, it must seem odd that they cannot find sufficient common purpose to want to work together. Yet the gulf between their methods and principles is so huge that people even talk of 'civil war'

In the UK the divide between publishers and librarians is also a very serious concern. I believe that if all the many attempts to address library problems of the last decade had involved publishers in a meaningful constructive way, then many problems would not exist.

I also believe that all those attempts should also have involved the local councillors who have actual responsibility for the service. .. in a way that they never did.

The library world (professional and administrative) had a terrible habit of closing itself into a room and moaning how nobody understands how important they are, instead of involving people who have just as much concern and interest in libraries as they do in sensible planning and development of strategies.

In America there are ways that the matters can be resolved by bringing key people together and identifying common interests. Libraries will change- so the question is not avoiding constructive discussion, but working out what is right - for readers and the public- in the short and long terms.

One doesn't see much constructive discussion going on over here at present at is libraries and readers who suffer because of that.

The question should not really be 'will the minister intervene?' but rather - 'how can we urgently begin to renew and reconstruct the public library service ?'.. and it is a matter for councillors and publishers to resolve, as it is for civil servants and professional librarians.

I only really discovered reading for myself when I left school early and went to work as an apprentice in a northern city. To be honest I was lonely and too young to have been sent to work in what was a tough environment. I hid in the evenings, because I was unable to be social.

I went to the library and brought home piles of hardback books, most of which I had no idea at all what they would be. That started a life long compulsion. Even though I then took two degrees in scientific subjects and initially worked in telecomnmunications, my solace and my comfort were then and are now reading. I am also obsessive about music. i don't know why these two pleasures came to matter so much, but they have

I went to bookselling because, curiously, at that time, it presented the opporunity to do both two things I enjoy - reading and being analytical.

My interest in libraries came the same way- I have always believed they could be so much better - if they are thought about properly and operated correctly

But they aren't- and after a decade of trying to say how easily they could be improved, I have more or less given up. I understand why they aren't improved, but the reasons are now untacklable. I don't think anything can save them. The problems aren't really about money - they are actually much easier than an absence of funding. They are, as Philip Pullman recently said, about stupidity.

The real failure I believe, and have said many times, is to understand what libraries are for. And if those responsible for them don't have a clear and correct view of that ,there is no chance of rescue or redemption.

I can't see anything more that can be done, The library service in England will collapse, slowly and painfully. Some people will be able to have ready access to an abundance of literature that they do not know about, as I did; and many people won't.

We won't be a happier or better society- we won't. And I hate to leave behind a problem unsolved - especially when I have found the solution - and yet failed to persuade people to listen to it.

There are other things to do now.

That will be Cherie Blair, Samantha Cameron, Denis Thatcher - and the rest.

Never mind them but concentrate instead on the effectiveness of our civil and public service.

Followers of the campaign to rescue public libraries from the menacing hands of all those administrate and run them might observe the level of competence and standard of behaviour of civil servants in Whitehall and public officers in local councils across the country. Almost without exception, over a decade and more, almost every act that has been observed has been self serving, incompetent, idiotic, Kafkaesque in its malicious treatment of the public, and shameful.

Yet somehow, in the minds of the press and our hopeful British optimism, the civil service is a body above criticism and suspicion. They, it is felt, should be allowed to operate anonymously and independent of perspicacious scrutiny.

We blame passing politicians without properly examining the role and influence of career public officials.

Perkins does not agree. An old cat, she may be, but Gus O'Donnell and his cronies are of her generation. They went to the same expensive and privileged Universities that she went to . Upon them depended the administration of our country for the last twenty years. .... and they have been terrible. They have made themselves rich, honouredand aloof and removed themselves from the worth and duty of true public service - and they have presided over the decline and collapse of the prestige of our nation. The national and international mistakes have been appalling. The ability of one generation to pass to the next a climate of cultured respected governance and care has been placed at risk.

The civil service of our country needs total overhaul with urgency - and Gus O'Donnell with his attendance of incompetent permanent secretaries should be damned publicly for the role they have played.

Who pays for the LGA ? What is it for? To whom does it account? Who sees its documents ?

It is a nonsensical idea to have a national body to lobby to central government on behalf of local councillors and officers... and for the public to pay for such lobbying. MP's are local and ought to be able to have a sensible view about the issues of local governnment without this invented- huge and expensive body

What always emerges from what they say is that 'localism means leaving the local council free to do whatever it wants' - but the truth, as library campaigners everywhere have learned, is that nothing is more hidden and evasive than the activity of a local council. They need much more central governnment scrutiny - not less.

Close the LGA and save the money

Before another library is threatened, Mr Pickles, close down the LGA and find a better use for the funds is takes.

It is astonishing how libraries have become news. Ten years ago the national papers would never have written about them and even The Bookseller- whose subscriptions come more from libraries than anywhere else only ever had two articles a year - on the publication of figures from CIPFA and LISU.

This morning 3 national papers have stories about libraries and 5 out of the 12 top industry stories in The Bookseller are about libraries.

There can hardly be a clearer and more obvious manifestation of the incompetence of Government than its handling of the simple straightforward matter of public libraries. Yet if one were to endeavour to trip over a daisy in the garden one could hardly be more spectacularly idiotic and useless than Jeremy Hunt and Ed Vaizey.

It is unbelievable and comic and goes on and on. One does have to believe that it could indeed bring the downfall of the Government and The Prime Minister. .... and Perkins will have been, again, the first to spot the possibility. She is often right (ask the Admiral!!)

Librarians - the profession- have ben saying that for years

But it ISN'T TRUE.

Publishers will not make ebooks freely available - why should they? At present 80% of publishers both here and in the US are refusing to supply the public library service through the various models that are currently available

Why should they give away content so that two thirds of reading can be free and authors of the works are not paid ? If polticians don't think free public libraries are a good idea - why should publishers and authors forego their livelihood ?

We know that people want bread to eat, but that doesn't mean we expect bakers to give two thirds of what they make away, for nothing.

There is a deal to do somewhere-- and common sense to be found - but no one at present is even looking for it

If Ministers have their heads buried someone somewhere has to start talking .. because reading is the at the root of our civilisation - and libraries are the potting sheds of integrity.

She is to be the library cat of a famous and presitgious library in California. This is very exciting etc and more details will be released at some point in the future.

"Libraries in England" are not dependable for a career - "even for the most experienced library cat" - she said in a statement

Perkins has previously been the library cat of the Carnegie library on the dockside at Bloggington on Sea. She came to prominence seven years ago when a newspaper (now sadly defunct) observed that the public library service in England was so badly run that even a cat could do better - and Perkins proved that to be true

She played a significant role in the downfall of BATT - a cricketing expression, of the Ministry of Libraries and Archives (MLA), the Society for Closing Libraries (SCL), the Department of Common Sense (DCMS) and of SYRUP .

Afficionadoes of this blog will know that she used to sleep in the space vacated by missing titles in the 12 volume set of 'Naval Maneouvres (sic) in Bloggington Bay in the reign of Queen Anne' and has already been made an honorary citizen cat of the United States of America.

Onwards and Upwards -- to Lemon County California, Bilbary Town Library.

(Perkins has a nephew and a niece called Bob and Kitty. Bob is difficult)

With some difficulty over the next few months we assembled all the information about how the service operated and all the places that money was spent. We talked to front line staff, office staff, the public and also senior officers from all parts of the council.

We drew up a private plan and the councillor gave directions as to what he wanted to be done.

We had learned that - contrary to almost all of the advice received from elsewhere- what really mattered to the public are the stock of reading material; the design of the buildings to make them attractive, interesting, convivial and useful; the opening hours and the ability of the staff to be helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. It was clear that if those were done properly an awful lot of people would use the service, more than were using the rather desolate library buildkings that existed at the time

By and large these were not the things that most of the money in the service was spent on at all. Most of it went on an outdated management strcuture, both in the library service and in the council itself, an extraordinary distribution set up and a host of other activities of marginal interest or relevance to the public.

The councillor - and increasingly his officers- were unflinching in their pursuit of giving the public what they want - and so, library by library- starting with the smallest community libraries,- they have managed a programme of transformation that has both saved money and made the libraries far more useful, used and popular.

It is a model. There are, of course, other places around the country where good things have been done, but none that I have seen have concentrated so hard on those basics of the service that the public really want - as opposed to concentrating on political theories about what libraries ought to do. None has so totally restructured to provide proper management and leadership

With success has come growing approval and support within the council itself. The councillors have realised that a good library service is actually a vote winner- it has become one of the most talked about achievements of Hillingdon council Last year The Bookseller awarded a new prize for the best public library service to the London Borough of Hillingdon The project has been well publicised and applauded as it deserves to be. The councillors and officers have done a wonderful job- especially if you know how difficult it is to do things well in local councils

Early into the regime of budget cuts, Hillingdon announced that far from cut its library service, it would contine to pursue the improvement programme

Yet here finally is a note of bitterness.- I know that if what was done in Hillingdon were done elsewhere there would never have been a question of closing a library service anywhere. There is no problem of cost - and when libraries are good, they are widely used and represent fabulous value for money.

Yet all those who have authority over libraries have, for 5 long years, ignored this project, simply because it did not fit the agenda - agendas - that they wished to pursue. It hasn't had a PFI for large amounts of money; it hasn't been about trusts or outsourcing; it hasn't been about healthcare; it hasn't been about co-location; it hasn't been about having volunteers replace paid staff-- it has just been about plain honest simple good management, by a council, of a public service.

In the whole of 5 years not one officer or politician has called and said 'What did you do in Hillingdon that has worked so well ?' - not the DCMS, not the MLA, not Arts Council England; not CILIP; not the SCL; not the LGA; not the Mayor of London; no Minister, no MP - no councillor- none-of them, although the project has been well and frequently reported in the newspapers. I have never received that request from one person. Only members of the public campaigning to save libraries have called and I have been happy to give freely of my time to explain what was done and why it works so well as it does.

I imagine that the councillor in Hillingdon feels the same - he, too should have been feted and used as a resource by other councils and central bodies - but he has not. It is bizarre and makes one angry

Yet here, totally ignored- is the answer to the entire public library service- at no cost to anyone.

Amazing That, I guess, is what Philip Pullman meant when he said we are dealing with people who are just completely stupid. And if he did, he was right.

My deduction has been for a long time that the enormously expensive structures of local councils and our state are not about improving publkic service, they are about maintaining and exhalting the structures themselves.. and that is corruption of a kind that is most insidious and dangerous.

These will reveal not only what changes actually took place last year but also what the published budgets for this year were like, after all the public arguments had taken place.

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.

The extent of the problem facing public libraries is underlined in an article in The Bookseller last week

Stephen Edwards, who is a very experienced acquistions librarian is quoted expressing anxiety about the number of publishers actually willing to supply ebooks to the public library service. He is right, and despite what one commenter on the article says, around 80% of publishers both in the United States and here are refusing to. They are making the observation that if people want to read their books, they should pay for them.

We know that children need bread and clothes - but we don't give them for nothing- why should we give them free books? Or, if they are so valuable - why should the people who produce them go hungry? Shouldn't they be paid for out of general taxation.

Librarians- especially the professional ones who run the library service, as opposed to the library assistants, one meets in a public library, a well paid- so why should an author not be remunerated fo 70% of the use of their books. Most authors earn very little.

The publishing industry, though reluctant to say so publicly, is losing patience with the idea of public libraries - and soon there will be no books

Then we will see how stupid the idea that 'libraries are about much more than books' has been - because without books, a public library has no point or purpose. People won't visit, and it only makes sense to close them down

Of course I wish all this wasn't happening. i believe, passionately and despairingly, in the importance of access to libraries- but the crisis is real -so very real- and we need to start finding some substantial and sustainable solutions

In 2004 I said that the public library service would be finished in 20 years and was pilloried by CILIP, and the then Government for saying it. But I was right then and it's time we all did some serious talking. We are almost down to the last decade - and in government terms, that isn't long.

(Bythe way, I apologise to commenters on the site - we are the victims of a huge attack of spam and Iam struggling to distinguish the idiotic from the sensible, in order to post genuine comments)

About 230m books are sold each year (from books shops, Amazon, mail order etc) . About half of these are read - the rest are gifts of one kind or another and aren't generally read through. (These figures are widely recognised in the book trade- they are supported by statistics and surveys)

310m books are issued from public libraries - nearly all of which are read. (these figures come the national CIPFA survey data)

So, without over complicating the analysis it is pretty safe to say that betwen 60 and 70% of the books that are being read, today, come from a library.

Most reading is done either by retired people or people who are out of work- and by chlidren. Those figures are clear in almost every library management system and in the DCMS 'taking part' survey. It is not hard to believe they are true.

Relatively little reading is done by people in their working years when both work and family commitments make it difficult to find the time. That isn't surprising either

These things have been true all my working life- (it is my field of work) and I see no reason why they should change - except that the number of people retired and reading will and has been increasing.

So it is genuinely dangerous to trust the judgment of officials who assume their own lifestyle is a mirror of what is happening in the population. The reality is that they are going through that phase of their lives when they read least. It doesn't mean that the general population is reading less

This all isn't just true here- it is true in the the United States and other countries. Figures elsewhere say more or less the same thing.

It is the reason why it is so important that public libraries stay open - we will need them!

It also raises the issue of whether we properly compensate publishers and authors- because an awful lot of their work is given away for free- and that isn't fair. But that is a separate matter.

There has been a mighty campaign to stop this -- and the campaign has been totally victorious. In comparison to what might have been, almost no libraries have closed.

Councilllors have lost their seats, there have been humiliating climb downs. Revelations have been made about outragreous imcompetence and greed of local officials. Highly paid executives have been publicly sacked. The MLA, which as the body paid to advocate for public libraries has been closed in the most humilating fashion, with its leader going into voluntary exile long before it even shut its doors. The minister responsible has become a national symbol of timorous ineptitude.

This has been a peoples' revolution and a great victory.

There are national heroes (Alan Gibbons, Shirley Burnham, Desmond Clarke, Ian Anstice, Lauren Smith- and many others) and heroes of local campaigns (The Richardsons and LLL, Jo and the The Gloucerstershires, The Somersets, The Dorsets, The Brents, The IoW's - and many many others ).. The authors - Philip Pullman, Kate Mosse, Alan Bennett-- and so many more.

And there are the quivering dribbling overpaid deluded state officials - from Parliament (both houses and all parties) the DCMS, the MLA, the DCLG, and now the Arts Council -- for whom, all of whom, the expense of a large bag of rotten tomatoes would just be another terrible waste. They deserve to be locked in a dungeon and have unkind words printed about them every day until their mothers notice. Ed Vaizey, Steve Bullock, John Whittingdale, Roy Clare, Jonathan Stephens - and all the rest. Away with you all and whimper somewhere else.

Our team has won.

If there is to be a replay-- be warned - we will win again.

The agenda was about ebooks and ebooks for public library users and about the state of the public library service in the UK. Stories of closures and replacement of trained staff with volunteers had reached the ears of the librarians there and they expressed the shock that they feel on hearing what is happening here.

After 11 September 2001 among all the other anxieties were many about the economy of New York itself and the ability of those who fund libraries to continue to do so at the same level.

Those responsible for the service met and discussed how they could best address the situation- anticipating that their budgets would be reduced and not knowing for how long that would happen

They decided that the way to conduct their operation was to place one clear and absolute priority for how such money as they had was spent: they decided to increase the book fund in community libraries, particularly the funds for buying books for children.

It wasn't an innocent decision- it was quite calculating. They knew that more books for children would increase both the use of the libraries and the political sympathy for them.

They were absolutely right. By operating that policy, use of the public libraries, and 'circulation' - which is their word for book lending- have risen constantly. There have rarely been cuts and few closures. Even now, when the recesssion in New York is visible in the number of closed shops and business premises, the public libraries are clearly valued

It's the books, stupid, as a an American President, who is also a university contemporary of Perkins, would have said.

In England we have done the opposite- we have allowed book purchasing and book collections to fall. Our libraries have become poorer-, their use has fallen, they have become a target for budget cuts, and we are fighing a desperate battle not to lose them althogether. We just did it wrong .

But it's never too late to change.

Incidentally library use and 'circulation' in libraries across America has risen right through the decade. That's because no one there has ever suggested that books are too dusty and that society has moved on. .. like we do here all the time.