Comments on: Librarians answer questions with facts, politicians answer questions with … https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2012/12/librarians-answer-questions-with-facts-politicians-answer-questions-with.html What's happening to your library? Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:06:07 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Shirley Burnham https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2012/12/librarians-answer-questions-with-facts-politicians-answer-questions-with.html#comment-5582 Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:28:29 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?p=3427#comment-5582 The DCMS should be thoroughly embarrassed to note that *Wales* at least attempts to monitor its service, whilst we in England do not. There is a relevant news article (6 Dec 2012) ‘Conwy county’s library service is improving after criticism from CYMAL’ – North Wales Weekly – to which you might refer.

If you google CYMAL and/or the Welsh Public Library Standards, you will find the following:

” The aims of the Welsh Public Library Standards are to maintain the quality and standard of public library services for the people of Wales.

“The statutory requirements of public library service provision in Wales are enshrined in the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. The Welsh Public Library Standards allow us to assess whether library services in Wales are complying with their duties under the 1964 Act. They also assess the efficiency in terms of the manner of delivery of library services in Wales.”

Here – shamefully – nothing like that is in place.

How do we demand that our own Secretary of State and Minister – charged with the legal and moral responsibility for public libraries in England – cease yawning and do their job ?

]]> By: Victoria Harrison https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2012/12/librarians-answer-questions-with-facts-politicians-answer-questions-with.html#comment-5581 Thu, 06 Dec 2012 09:44:27 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?p=3427#comment-5581 Hi, Just to let you know that the North Tyneside Libraries Ease Extra Premier Card is actually £30 per year, or £24 for concessionary. If you scroll to the bottom on the link it has the pricing there.

]]> By: Shirley Burnham https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2012/12/librarians-answer-questions-with-facts-politicians-answer-questions-with.html#comment-5580 Thu, 06 Dec 2012 06:27:15 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?p=3427#comment-5580 Is Ed Vaizey (and, indeed, readers of your Blog) aware that an Advisory Council on Libraries (ACL) was established under the 1964 Public Libraries Act to provide Ministers with independent advice? The decision of Parliament to make it a *statutory* body recognised the importance of Ministers’ access to independent and transparent advice to enable them to undertake their duties properly. This advisory body has been allowed to disappear from public sight – but I am unable to find any ‘amendment’ to show that it has ever been legally abolished.

Perhaps the Secretary of State should be asked :

(i) Was the ACL formally abolished, or not?
(ii) If the ACL was not formally abolished, but just told not to meet any longer – how is it that DCMS has got away with erasing this *statutory safeguard* by stealth?

Is the foregoing one of the reasons why her Minister, Ed Vaizey, took such pains to evade the salient points in Dan Jarvis’s parliamentary question?

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