Comments on: Librarians better start knowing the price of everything they do or they risk their value becoming nothing https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2013/03/librarians-better-start-knowing-the-price-of-everything-they-do-or-they-risk-their-value-becoming-nothing.html What's happening to your library? Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:19:26 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 By: Sauce Gander https://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/2013/03/librarians-better-start-knowing-the-price-of-everything-they-do-or-they-risk-their-value-becoming-nothing.html#comment-5688 Mon, 04 Mar 2013 22:11:50 +0000 http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/?p=4284#comment-5688 “It is becoming more and more obvious that public libraries are being asked to prove, in cold and harsh terms, that they provide sufficient return for councils.”

Sorry, why does this even need to be justified? Libraries consume £1 billion worth of public money in England each year. Even if the times were good they should be able to justify that this money is being used efficiently and as well as possible and that they make a real difference to people’s lives. Just asserting that they do, especially when library use has been falling as the DCMS Taking Part survey shows, isn’t enough.
Libraries should welcome the opportunity to demonstrate their value, not see it as some onerous duty or a sign of the times. And, even if libraries and their advocates don’t welcome the opportunity, then who cares? They get public money. With that comes a duty to deliver and to deliver without waste. Otherwise libraries just don’t deserve the cash.

]]>