Archive for May, 2012

• Ebook lending and libraries – Society of Authors.  Letter to Ed Vaizey: “libraries are an essential resource and should receive sufficient funding to update, maintain and augment stock and ensure that an exciting and comprehensive range of books are available for reference and loan. We believe that books, whether physical or digital, must be at the core of any library. We believe that access to ebooks within the library and the ability to borrow them from the library will be increasingly important. However we remain strongly of the view that remote lending of ebooks is not at present an essential or primary role of an efficient library service and that plans to allow remote e-lending must be carefully thought through and managed”.  Problems inc. undermining book prices, piracy, lending limits, PLR must be implemented for e-books.”

“We also wish to remind you that section 43 of the Digital Economy Act 2010 extends PLR to audiobooks and ebooks “lent out” from library premises for a limited time and that these payments have never been implemented. This is patently unjust and we urge that this provision be brought into force and that extra funds be made available to cover PLR payments for such lending. We note also that there is an argument that PLR should not be paid where libraries are being run by volunteers. This would again be unfair and we should be grateful if you would confirm that PLR will continue to be paid, whoever runs the library.”

• Fight privatisation: save our libraries – Socialist.   “GLL threatened legal action against the strike. Strike action on 30 April and 1 May had to be postponed. But this is only temporary. A new notice will be issued and strike action will begin again. This is a campaign that Unite is determined to see through.” … “GLL have made clear that following the transfer, there will be a “harmonisation” process, in reality to bring library staff down to GLL levels. GLL negotiators have confirmed that new library staff will be employed on poorer pay and conditions.”
• Maternity leave, libraries and mobility scooter – Vanessa Feltz on BBC London Radio (1.29 to 1.33).  [I have not listened to this myself as the player constantly crashed on my machine.  However, I understand Vanessa was very supportive, with the subject being Upper Norwood Joint Library – Ian.]
• Murdoch and News Corporation scandal wasn’t about Conservative Party sleaze: but it is now – Telegraph.  “Here are the News International crowd: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, David Miliband, David Blunkett, John Reid, Tessa Jowell, Michael Gove, George Osborne, William Hague. David Cameron, John Whittingdale and Jeremy Hunt (as well as Mr Hunt’s brainless sidekick, Ed Vaizey) should also be added to this list.”

Changes

• Cheshire East – 2 (out of 3) mobiles to be closed (£95k p.a.), 50 stops “scrapped”, no stops within two miles of a library.
• Cornwall – New volunteer-run library in cafe in Roche. 
• Milton Keynes – Council advertising for volunteer shelvers at Milton Keynes Central Library.

Local News

• Buckinghamshire – Time or cash needed to save libraries – Buckinghamshire Advertiser.  “Gerrards Cross Library is next in line to become community led, but the people in charge of the change have said more volunteers are needed.” … “85,000 people used the library in 2010. In future, it is proposed that there will be only two permanent members of staff, funded by BCC, as well as the volunteers.” … “The library will cost the town £8,000 a year to run, which will be made up from donations. Gerrards Cross Community Library working party has already raised £23,000, £19,000 of which came from Tesco, as part of the £100,000 donated to the community after opening in 2010.” … “BCC has also given a £30,000 grant to be used over five years to keep the library open.”
• Cheshire East – Budget cuts hit “lifeline” mobile library service – This is Staffordshire.   2 out of 3 mobiles to close.  “Conservative councillor Brian Silvester, below, who represents the Willaston and Rope ward, near Crewe, said: “The mobile library is an important service and it needs to be retained with the maximum coverage possible.”Labour councillor Sam Corcoran, who represents Sandbach Heath and East, said: “Cutting the mobile libraries from three to one would save £95,000 a year. The Conservatives claim the cuts to services are necessary because of lack of money, but they can find £80,000 for a temporary chief executive for three months.”” … “Consultation on the cuts is taking place until Wednesday, May 23. Residents can respond at www.cheshireeast.gov.uk.”
• Cornwall – New chapter begins as library opens in cafe – This is Cornwall.   “On Friday the ribbon was cut on the new community library based inside the Rest and Play Café in Roche.” … “The community library is a collaboration between Cornwall Council and the café, which was opened inside a former church hall in December last year.” … “The café will also be holding Story Sack sessions on Monday, May 14, 21 and 28, which give youngsters the chance to use their favourite stories and get creative. Villagers will continue to receive visits from the fortnightly mobile library and will also be able to view and reserve books from the library catalogue and have them delivered to the café.”
• Croydon – Trouble in Greenwich with GLL – Save Croydon Libraries.   GLL is a contender for taking over services in Croydon.  The strike in Greenwich against it is noted. “The article claims that the council refused to accept a potential compromise whereby staff would be seconded over to GLL, rather than transferred, which would give staff staying as council employees a better safeguard against attacks on pay and conditions. Unite assert that this dispute has highlighted the limited protection offered by TUPE. The legislation only gives protection at the point of transfer. “
• Dorset – Portland: mobile replaces Underhill service – View Online.   “The island’s Underhill Library closed at the end of April and the mobile library service began visiting the area on Monday, April 30th. ” … “With the library service needing to reduce its annual budget by £800,000, county council members last year agreed to retain 25 libraries and offer up the remaining nine to be managed and maintained by local communities. Portland Underhill was the county council library which issued the lowest number of books and other items.  Talks with community representatives failed to spark any interest in taking over the running of the building from Dorset County Council. “
• Gloucestershire – Library challenge dismissed – Wilts and Glos Standard.   ““The committee did not accept the call-in and found no grounds to overturn the decision taken,” she said. “Therefore the decision stands and will be implemented.”

• Milton Keynes – Volunteering with MK libraries – Milton Keynes Council.   “We are initially looking for volunteers to shelve returned library stock at Milton Keynes Central Library. Here’s how you can get involved: “You will shelve library stock and assist in the tidying of our stock. You should have an interest in library work and ideally be able to give a commitment of at least two hours each week. The duties of a Volunteer Library Shelver will involve standing, pushing trolleys and reaching up to high shelves and therefore a good standard of fitness, mobility and stamina is required.You are required to have good skills in English and numeracy.Applicants will be asked to undertake a shelving test.”
• Staffordshire – Call for thousands to be spent extending library – Express & Star.   “Local politicians are keen to see Great Wyrley Library at Quinton Court Shopping Centre expanded into an empty adjacent unit. South Staffordshire MP Gavin Williamson and county councillors Kath Perry and Mike Lawrence have called for major improvements to be made at the library, in Wardles Lane. Mr Williamson believes a cash injection would be a great boost for the library and wider community.”. Community cafe, in particular, needed.
• Surrey – Judge quashes Surrey Council library move – BookSeller.  “Surrey County Council’s decision to remove paid staff from 10 of its libraries has been quashed. Mr Justice Wilkie made a Court Order yesterday (2nd May) to quash the decision, which would have meant the libraries would have to be kept open by volunteers. The order brings to a close an application for judicial review brought by Surrey residents Lucy Williams and Nicholas Dorrington, alleging that the council had failed to discharge its public sector equality duties under the Equality Act 2010.”

I was very pleased, and slightly awed, to receive an email today which said:

News

• Are co-operative councils the future of local politics? – Guardian (Professional).   “Whether empowering public sector workers, charities, service users or voluntary groups, such as those now running Lewisham’s libraries, the co-operative model has the potential to improve service focus, generate customer satisfaction, create a sustainable delivery model and even produce efficiency savings. That no two councils are following an identical path is a sign of strength, evidence that the drivers are bottom up and not top down.”

Hyperlinked libraries –  Michael Stevens – “What trends and technologies are impacting public library service? What does the evolution of library physical and virtual space look like? This presentation explores the hyperlinked library model through a lens of participatory service, transparency and emerging technologies.”

• Library adventures in Latvia – Wikiman.   “The Latvian libraries system is pretty amazing; they’ve done some great things in the past 5 years. I learned a lot – it was great to talk to people who’d surmounted some of the problems we have in the UK and the US, and have different issues. It was eye-opening: normally when I talk to librarians we all seem to be going through exactly the same stuff! But this was a little different … They have 874 public libraries. For a population of around 2 million! I think that works out at around 7 times as many libraries per member of the population than we have in the UK.”
• Library of utopia – Technology Review.   “Google’s ambitious book-scanning program is foundering in the courts. Now a Harvard-led group is launching its own sweeping effort to put our literary heritage online. Will the Ivy League succeed where Silicon Valley failed?”
• Room of one’s own: why the Women’s Library should not be made history – Guardian.   “It is ironic that at the very moment when there is an embryonic renaissance of feminism, the archives of the women’s liberation movement are at risk of losing their final destination, if London Metropolitan University unloads its responsibility for the Women’s Library. It is a damned shame that the current custodian sees it not as a national treasure, but as a burden; not as a resource to be enriched, but as an administrative problem.” … “less than 1% of 19th century journals are digitised” 
• Cutback threat to London’s Women’s Library – BookSeller.    “A petition calling on education secretary Michael Gove to prevent severe cutbacks to the Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University has attracted over 7,500 signatures.” … “Campaigners have called the library “one of the most magnificent specialist libraries in the world” and “a national asset” attracting visits from women not just all over Britain, but internationally. “Whatever the university’s problems—which we hope will be resolved—under no circumstances should the Women’s Library suffer in any way,” say the petitioners.”

Changes

• Hertfordshire – Cassettes for Blind People service may be closed, with its funding transferring to the RNIB.  

Local News

• Buckinghamshire – How long are we going to let volunteers run the show for us? – Bucks Free Press.  ““Not everyone in Flackwell Heath is delighted by the new Flackwell Heath community library. No amount of flag waving or spin alters the fact that BCC closed our professionally-run library at the end of March, and the prospects that it will ever again reopen as a proper library service are remote indeed. However hard they try, volunteers (mostly retired people) doing perhaps half a day per fortnight are never going to achieve the competence and continuity provided by trained, professional staff. Standards and service will inevitably suffer greatly as a result.”” … “The volunteers exist because Bucks is an affluent county with plenty of pensioners who can afford to help society. But we all know about the state of the economy and the fact that Wycombe in particular has been facing up to a dire jobs crisis.” … “sometimes, I think Governments and councils appreciate them – and take them for granted – a bit too much. And one day soon, this is all going to come back to haunt us.”
• Long Crendon library gets ready for community launch – Bucks County Council.  “The library’s facilities include new chairs, new mobile shelving and a disabled toilet with baby changing facilities. In addition, Friends of Long Crendon Library plan to improve the library’s opening hours to reflect local need, offer a toy library and extend the range of activities to include film nights and educational classes. They will also work in partnership with Surestart to provide a range of activities for parents and carers.”
• Green light for Haddenham and Wendover community libraries – Bucks county Council.   “As one of the largest community libraries, Wendover will become a community partnership with a phased approach towards a self managed community library.”
• Gloucestershire – A serious case of deja vu: libraries call-in rejected – Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries.   “We are disappointed but not surprised about the call-in decision. The last time the administration were attempting to push through almost identical, and deeply unpopular cuts, we witnessed a similar farcical “scrutiny committee” in which members voted according to party politics, rather than what was best for the electorate. With a committee that was largely made of up Conservative members we were under no illusion that the outcome would be any different.”
• Greenwich – Striking library workers win support in Greenwich – Socialist Worker.   “More than 25 strikers and supporters joined the picket line at Woolwich library on Friday of last week. Solidarity delegations from other groups of workers at the council, Greenwich Community College and Greenwich and Bexley Trades Council joined strikers. Supporters handed over around £400 for the strike fund.”
• Hertfordshire – Cassettes for Blind People service to be handed over to RNIB – We Heart Libraries.   “Cassettes for Blind People (CfBP), an in-house postal service which currently supplies talking books on cassette to 378 people at a cost of around £50,000 per year, is set to be wound up and its budget used to fund subscriptions to a RNIB service under a three-year agreement. This would ensure that users had access to a much more up-to-date service including a wider range of formats and a specially-designed player. However, it will only be funded in future for those people who meet stricter sight criteria than are currently applied, and who are on low incomes.”