Library staff were often redirected, because they were council assets, during lockdowns. Despite this, there was a major pivot towards digital resources. It’s hard to tell what else they could have done? Remember, libraries were literally prohibited from opening. As such, I’m not surprise locked libraries were at a lower level than when they were (ahem) open 20 years ago.

Obviously you call public libraries “a disastrous failure” is not attacking in any way. Um … what would you define as an attack by the way?

I would agree library data has to be significantly improved. As you know, Tim, you were basically the only private individual that could afford the ridiculously expensive CIPFA statistics beforehand. And CIPFA produce them late, without checking, and without any requirement for services to actually return them. In my opinion, this is not going to change until the Government forces change. But of course they are showing no sign of doing so.

Right, no more replies from me for your comments from now on, on this post but I will of course approve your, um, “pointings out of the truth” (hints of “Fake News” there, Tim, watch yourself) if you choose to continue.

Just because libraries aren’t ‘private companies’ doesn’t mean that they should not be able to organise themselves in order to provide the service that the public needs

I’m not attacking – I’m pointing out the truth, without which management will not face its problems

The figures that there are imply that use of public libraries is now 5% of what it was 20 years ago; the mechanism for producing data has stopped, because libraries would not comply with the requirements. There is no evidence of significantly rising use after the pandemic.

In England the public library service is a disastrous failure – and yet the public are paying a fortune for it. And a large part of that has come because no one will tell the truth about what has happened.

Tim, a lot of library staff were moved – as you know – to other council support services. I myself spent half my time phoning people shielding to make sure they were still OK. For once let’s admit the truth – instead of always attacking – and accept that public libraries are not private companies.

Ian – yes of course, but during the pandemic other book providers found ways of offering home delivery and collection to the extent that, as we know, book reading went up, not down. Both for pleasure and for education.

Libraries were not starved of funds.

The library websites and delivery services were and are very poor. Within library management there is no mechanism for change that brings improvement.

For once let’s admit the truth – instead of always defending – and set about making improvements.

It is perhaps worth remembering that library doors were physically locked shut during this period so a fall in print lending is perhaps, well, to be expected.

Dave

Of course you are right – library lending of print and eBooks probably fell by 80-90% during the pandemic.

All the polemic (propaganda) about how successful libraries were, particularly with eBooks, was nonsense. Somebody should tell the DCMS and Libraries Connected …. tim

Just a word of caution on those figures (“public library lending … fell by 64% during the Covid lockdown”).

I saw a significant number of library services describe during the pandemic that they were auto-renewing loans, rather than letting them go overdue. Both PLR and CIPFA count renewals and issues together (creating a combined ‘loans’ figure).

I’ve always thought this was a bit of nonsense, as choosing a book and borrowing it is in no way the same as simply renewing it for a little extra time, or in the case of the pandemic, the library service setting up auto-renewal policies.

So, the figure is probably “at least 64%, but it could also be 80% or 90%, ignoring books being renewed”.

At the same time we know that reading of books increased both for pleasure and for education

Funding of public libraries was not reduced during lockdowns.