Archive for April, 2012

The full transcript of the interview is below…

BBC Radio Four, Today Programme, 4th April 2012, 7.53am. 

T:  Well, it depends what it means by “just getting in voluntary staff”.  There is a huge spectrum, I believe.  One is where volunteers, which we have been doing for many years, we have about a hundred in my authority, come in to help do things that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.  Not to subsitute for opening hours or staff but to do extra things so, for example, we run a very successful summer reading scheme, part of a national scheme, and we have sixty teenage volunteers that work with children –
N: Sure but what’s wrong with substituting for the more typical council paid staff?
T:  I think it depends on the context in which you do it.  I think first of all it is down to each authority’s policies and the negotiation it has with the workforce … but I do believe, personally, that there needs to be an element of support for volunteers rather than volunteers just be asked to run a service without any support at all.
N: If it is a case, though, that a local council – and we’re hearing this from across the country – local councils don’t have the money.  A library will close and they go to the local community and say “we can keep it open if you do it” then surely that is part of the solution.
T: I think that can be part of the solution, yes, but I do believe that if the public were to continue to receive a good service, those volunteers then they will need help and support.  You know, library work is not brain surgery but it is a technical and professional job which we do need to be able to help people to find the books they want, the information they need, the people who come in and don’t know how to use a computer but need to send an email to someone … and I’m not saying that volunteers can’t do that.  They absolutely can, but they need the support of a network of skilled people to help them develop those skills.
N: Tony Durcan, thank you.

Ends 7.57am

“TLC (The Library Campaign, the national umbrella body for library user groups) confidently looks forward to the invitation to its own panel discussion with Liz Forgan. After all, no ‘people’ business trying to improve would completely ignore its customers (or indeed its frontline staff). ACE cannot afford to be out of touch with by far the most active and inventive advocates for libraries – library users.

And it would be unwise, at a time when drastic cuts are being forced on library managers against widespread public protest, to ask only those managers what a library service should be. For instance, the feedback TLC gets from local people in Lewisham gives a very different picture of its new ‘lively and flexible’ volunteer-run libraries.

Without some kind of consensus, the future will be chaotic. It should not be so difficult.For instance, the panel’s discussion on buildings begins with the familiar mantra that ‘it’s the service, not the building’ – and then every point made underlines the importance of the small local library. 

The real worry is the fact that this leisurely blue-skies discussion is taking place during the worst emergency ever to threaten the public library service – both at local level and in its role as a national network giving equal access to resources nationwide.ACE needs urgently to get to grips with this reality before it starts trying to ‘get thinking “not for tomorrow” but for 5 or 10 years’ time’.

We look forward to helping with this as much as we can – and as soon as possible.”

Laura Swaffield, the Library Campaign, in an open letter to Arts Council England regarding the panel discussion on the future of public libraries organised by ACE last week.

“There is increasing concern that Arts Council England should listen to the voices of librarians and library users in undertaking their “conversation”. Is the current exercise rather like the NHS ignoring patients when consulting about hospital services? While Liz Forgan has met with a panel of senior local government officers, ACE officials seem to be avoiding groups representing library users, local library campaigners and library assistants.” Desmond Clarke

News

“I think it is a great shame. It’s very sad what’s happened to the libraries in Brent. I read that Brent had closed more libraries than anywhere else in the country. Closing them is something that is actually avoidable as there are boroughs that have actually opened libraries recently.” Boris Johnson offers his support to Brent library campaigners – Brent & Kilburn Times.  “Boris Johnson has offered his support to Brent’s library campaigners – describing the decision to axe half of the borough’s reading rooms as “a real shame”.”  Brent campaigners say “With the kind of breathtaking chutzpah that is almost expected of our politicians, Boris has decided that he does indeed support our libraries. A year too late, and after they have closed. I guess there is an election coming.”

• Decline and fall of the Library Empire – Information Today (USA).  “The past 30 years of library history is littered with projects and plans and sometimes just dreams of ways the library might play a more pivotal role in the digital revolution that continues to transform the information landscape around us. Some of those projects never really got off the ground.” … looks at library experience in web directories, library 2.0, virtual reference, intermediated searching [no, me neither – Ian.], public access computing, ebooks. All of these have either failed or are showing signs of failing.  Writer is very knowledgeable and, interestingly, is Vice President of private library company LSSI.
• Ed Miliband speech to launch Labour’s local election campaign – Labour.  “In Newcastle, Labour councillors have kept libraries open, so families can afford to find a book to read to their children.”
• Ed Miliband launches Labour’s local election campaign – Conservative Home.  Article (slightly mis) quotes Public Libraries News to question Labour’s record in Newcastle. 
• Privatized libraries: not so bad for everyone – Library Journal (USA).  “Difficult to tell if it’s been privatized or not. Think about that one for a moment. For the people using the library, it usually just doesn’t matter. Oh, occasionally some patron who romanticizes libraries will wax poetic about the public in public libraries, but for the most part people don’t care. Being open to the public is what makes the libraries public, not where the library staff get their direct paycheck from.” … “Librarians oppose outsourcing library services because it’s bad for librarians.”
• Public Lending Right “not given in volunteer run libraries” – BookSeller.  Public Lending Right registrar says volunteer-run libraries not covered by PLR agreement but it is a “grey area” and will need the government to look again at legislation.  “Nicola Solomon, general secretary of the Society of Authors, said: “If PLR isn’t being paid by a library then the library has to pay for that use of copyright in another way or it is infringing copyright. If we saw libraries that weren’t paying PLR, we’d want them to be paying something analogous as recompense to authors. We’d have to do think about how to do it and how to enforce it.”.

• Which law are we talking about? – Good Library Blog.  “If the argument is that the only effective and proper place for the scrutiny of the Minister is Parliament, and not the Courts, then somebody ought to alert the Culture Select Committee to their role in the 1964 Act- there ought to be proper regular reporting to Parliament and the Act does need to spell this out. What is happening at present is public deception – the people believe they have recourse to a law which is affirmed by Parliament, but in fact this law is not protecting them at all. This is not because the law is wrong, but because the courts and our legal system are, apparrently, refusing to uphold it.”
• Woman battling to “protect” St Andrews may save thousands after court win – Scotsman.  Landmark legal decision means, potentially, that library campaigners may be protected from paying high costs if judicial reviews are lost.

Changes

• Bedford – Computer access will be charged after first free half hour.  
• Isle of Man – E-gaming firm PokerStars will fund mobile and family library for three years.

Local News

• Bedford – Local libraries to charge for use of computers – Bedfordshire News. “As of Monday morning, computers in libraries throughout Bedford Borough will cost £1.20 for every half hour they are used with the exception of the first half hour which will remain free of charge. There will be a 60p charge per 30 minutes for concessionary users including the elderly, under 16s and people on various types of benefit. Service user Mr Durant, of Elstow Road, Bedford said: “I think this is unreasonable and it demonstrates that the council tax freeze for this year is not what it seems as people are either being asked to pay more for things or pay for services which were previously free to compensate.””

• Central Bedfordshire – Library closure fear dispelled – Comet.   “Efficiencies will instead be made through reducing back room costs and investing in self-service technology.”
• Croydon – Council spends £40,000 on library consultant – This is Croydon Today.   “The authority told the Advertiser it had employed the “highly specialised” worker since the end of January to ensure “quality control throughout the life-cycle of the project” of privatising its libraries.  Campaigner says “”If the council is incapable of running its own library services, how can it be in a position to decide who can accurately oversee the process?”. Council says post is temporary but advert said permanent.
• Gloucestershire – Cynical and highly misleading: Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries comment on Gloucestershire County Council’s “new” library strategy – FoGL.  ““This is a deeply disappointing strategy.  With a few exceptions, GCC has duplicated the same proposals for individual libraries as the original review which was declared unlawful.  We believe that GCC has been running down its library service for a number of years, and these further destructive cuts simply continue this trend.”
• Library consultation flawed and misleading: campaigners – This is Gloucestershire.   “Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries (FOGL) claims the Conservative executive has cherry-picked the results of a second consultation about increasing the use of volunteers.”
• Desperate plea from a Gloucestershire community to Council Leader Mark Hawthorne – FoGL.  Lechlade furious over being misrepresented in media reports. 
• Isle of Man –  E-gaming firm to fund Manx library service – BBC.  “Pokerstars, which has headquarters in Onchan, will fund the family and mobile service for the next three years.”
• Manx Education Foundation confirms library funding from PokerStars – Energy FM. “The non-profit Manx Education Foundation has confirmed it’s secured private sector funding from  PokerStars. The company would fund the libraries for the next three years. Staff and current service levels would be maintained.”
• Warwickshire – Baddesley Ensor Library to go live – Warwickshire News.   “The library closed on 23 March with the community group then taking over its management and opening a new service at the Village Hall which is to become the village hub.  Working with county and borough councils, as well as the community and voluntary sectors, the building is to be a community hub with a café, IT  suite, parish office, broadband throughout the building ,a  cinema and both adults’ and children’s library.”
• Mobile library services goes to Kingsbury – Warwickshire Council.   “Kingsbury Library closes at the end of the month and the mobile library service has announced that it will be stopping at two venues in the town every Wednesday.”

• To provide unbiased access to info.  
• To promote community and civic engagement
• Role in promoting health.  
• Digital access.
• Contribute to get people back into work/volunteering/increase skills/learning.  This is “absolutely core”.

• No longer transactional [that is, not based on stamping out books – although this was not explained in the discussion] but moving to transformational [presumably, this means, improving people’s life chances].
• Generate prosperity.
• Force for social change. 
• Libraries can be a space for busineesea and entrepreneurs,  providing meeting space, patent clinics, inventor clinics.  
• In the larger cities, libraries can in the future supply 3D printing and fab-labs 
• Community spaces for all sorts of different things.
• Libraries will increasingly work with communities, where “anything can happen”.  Libraries will be very different “two miles down the road”. Volunteers can deliver more so “every neighbourhood is different” and evert library will be different.  We need to employ people who positively react to community and allow libraries to be places which  “people can recognise as their own space”.

• Teachers teach children to read but libraries allow them to practice the skill “and the only way you get better is to practice it”.  Without libraries, if one has a bad experience at school, then one doesn’t become a good reader.  The Summer Reading Challenge and library books allow a second chance to those who failed to pick up literacy skills in school.  This second chance continues with adults.  Libraries allow self-direction for their users, where the public can control the pace of learning.
• Another great reason for libraries doing these activities is that they, unlike every other cultural/council building, are part of the daily routine.  One can go in for reading, photocopying, coffee, rhymetime … no matter what age or background one is.  Other cultural institutions are more a “special event”.
• Libraries provide a shop window for others.  This can be seen in their role encouraging people back into learning.  Other venues may feel quite scary and remote.  Libraries are local. 

The four core purposes of libraries are Learning, Literacy, Community Spaces, Information. 

• Libraries are provided by local authorities so need to have a responsibility to make life better for people.  Howeverm within this,  “the sky’s the limit” as long as framed by core needs.  “The ambition is to create surprises.”
• There also needs to be an element of free at the point of provision.  This is very important, especially with the current inequality and recession.

• Don’t concentrate on the building, concentrate on the service.  Be able to respond to the needs of the community.  Some services don’t need buildings at all, for instance, online and ebooks.
• In Lewisham, small community libraries have become more lively and flexible enough to adapt to needs of local communities e.g. Eco Computers recycle IT. They donate computers to local residents, train residents and add broadband to people’s homes.  The council “could not sustain” these buildings and the local community [in fact, a local non-profit company].  Local communities are “exploding the concept” of what libraries should be and “making the building their building” [See New Cross People’s Library, and Blackheath] . 
• The civic space of libraries can be “infinitely flexible” but needs to be local.  doorway.
• In Staffordshire, they use libraries as “touchdown centres” (as in Derbyshire) where wifi means other workers (especially council) can use them.  This means financial savings as other council offices can be closed down. 
• “loads of new libraries” are being built in all sizes.  There “is an attachment to buildings” but a “new offer” for users inside them, presented in a different way.  However, they still do four core things. 

• Less and less libraries are built “on their own”. Co-location with other services [such as One Stop Shops, health, tourist information, police]. is the order of the day.  This makes buildings more efficient and gives a chance to  “re-engineer the service”.  With co-location, the library service is very different and usually better.
• All libraries exist within a network.  A very small library can access the expertise of any other library in the country.  This has improved with the new technology. 

• In Staffordshire, money was reallocated money to a local arts grants scheme (up to £800) to put on local based arts.  This was linked very closely to libraries so if you want an illustrator or dance, then the library can be a venue.  This has generated enormous interest and library staff have been encouraging it. 
• It will be a learning experience for libraries and “ticks all the boxes”.  We have to stop thinking about what particular services do, allowing locals to do it independently when it suits them.
• ACE can look at things with wider lens.  Liz Forgan saw a core of libraries with “weird things happening around the edge”. 
• “There are far more libraries than any other cultural institution.”.  Synergies with other types. 
• Communities are getting older and libraries reduce social isolation.  They offer something people can trust.  For example, one panel member mentioned Tai Chi at one of their libraries.  A lot of those people who went to that would not dream to go into the sports centre next door.

• We’re no longer recruiting librarians, just people working in libraries.  We recruit youth workers, events managers, experts in partnership relations and in commercial opportunities.  These are core skills for running a library now, not “librarian” as such.  We’re looking to “broker relationship”
• The key is to look at the person in front of you and engage the person, not just the straight answer to the question.  Pro-active and holistic, personalise the service. We’re going to allow people to do what they want.  “How can I help” is the key question. Core customer service skills. 
• Staff need to broker relationships [sounds good, unclear as to what it means, no explanation was given].
•  some traditional skills “no longer relevant”.  There are very few people needed in acquisitions, very few needed as cataloguers – new technologies do this.  “Once is fine” for classifying a book.
• We need to realise the challenges new technologies bring and recruit staff accordingly.
• Interact with community groups.  “partnership brokering” [Again, no explanation of buzzword give – I think this means talking to groups and trying to link them in the best way to other groups, resources.]
• For those who aim to work in our sector, we need a new core body of knowledge needed than what was being taught a few years ago.  Having said that, some of those skills taught then have simply changed names – the “reference enquiry” of twenty years ago is simply the same as “excellent customer service” of today.  

“We will see in the next ten years a move towards a positive relationship with volunteers”

• You don’t need librarians to do that.  You hire in an expert to pass skills on.
• The SCL had a debate on volunteers and decided that they “add a rich variety”.  Movement towards devolving services [that is, getting volunteers to replace paid staff] not involve [that is, having volunteers to complement paid staff].  “We still need librarian at the heart of it” [No explanation of what this means, considering librarians will not be trained as librarians any more.  Also, no idea of how many are needed.  Twenty? One? This is the same viewpoint shared by Ed Vaizey].
• Volunteering and fundraising is not the full answer. 
• Birmingham Central Library will have 160 paid staff with volunteers acting as guides, IT buddies and in conservation.  None will displace paid staff activities but we need to manage them properly. “If we can do that we add value to ourselves”.  They become our advocates.
• [There seemed to be the most underlying, though very polite, disagreement between the panel members here, between those who wanted to replace staff with volunteers and those who wanted to use them to add to a paid service.]. 

• No, it’s an opportunity.  The introduction of public access computers fifteen years ago was seen as a threat but “if we hadn’t have done it, libraries would be dead by now”.  Ebooks are now the same as computers then.  We can’t pretend it’s not going to happen.  We can see what is happening as there is not much reference publishing left e.g. Britannica.  – We provide resources to those who cannot afford it.
• Mobile technology is another big challenge for libraries.  It is now less about boxes on desks, more about wifi and mobiles.  How can we use it to make libraries better?  “The future is mobile”.  Whole subcontinents are moving directly to mobile.
• 3D printing will revolutionise our lives esp. Big City libraries.
• Arts Council can push forward opportunities e.g. set aside half of bookfund to ebooks through ACE negotiating with publishers [This would have no effect.  Pretty much all the big publishers refuse to supply e-books to libraries.  A Public Lending Right for e-books in libraries would be a pre-requisite for it, which Labour has signed up to but the Coalition has not]. Bulk buying may revolutionise services.  E-reader costs £80, if we bought millions, it would be cheaper.  Library spending power is incredible but we need to harness it.  Britannica only stopped when public libraries stopped paper copies [this seems to sit uneasily with previous point about Britannica no longer printing the encyclopaedia due to the inexorable march of progress.].  No individuals were buying them.
• There are perhaps five years aheard where large parts of the populaiton need to get online savvy.  They will come to the library.  We need to be cautious thinking everyone has an Ipad.  e,g, Race Online.  No point in superfast broadband if communities can’t use it.