Ian Anstice

It’s great to see Chris Packham join the ranks of celebrities speaking out to defend public libraries.  It’s also good to see the ever-excellent US Geek The Library campaign’s page on debunking the myths behind US public library finance.  It would be useful to have a similar page somewhere in the UK too to challenge those who think that all council services are padded and wasteful. A recent Oxford University report which shows the altogether disastrous impact to teenage studiers of not having an online connection is also useful ammunition in the fight to highlight the continued importance of the library.

The good effects of having a far-sighted and dynamic, and perhaps well-funded, public library service is shown further down today’s post in the success of Edinburgh.  It’s also good to see a vacancy in Norwich for someone to keep up the good work there.  It’s not often one sees a job advert like that these days.

As to what public libraries should be for … well, that’s always been a contentious issue.  There are some who see libraries as simply for the provision of literature and information and others who see them as having an altogether wider remit.  The response, below, by Tim Coates to an article by Phil Bradley on 3D printers shows this difference of opinion in sharp relief.

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The above quote is from an excellent brief clip about the author Junot Diaz’s first experience of a public library that shows the impact and importance of public libraries.  It’s a message that the ex head of Lancashire libraries makes clear needs to be got through to those holding the purse strings … especially those in central Government.

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The Labour Party have released their long-awaited review of library policy, entitled “Libraries: innovation, co-location and partnership”.  Dan Jarvis MP said when launching it:

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Eric Pickles, the Communities secretary, appeared to call library campaigners “luvvies” in Parliament today.  He also put forward the view that Cultural services such as cultural institutions should make money.  On the same day, a new graph – called the “Jaws of Doom” – shows that the planned cuts in council budgets combined with an increased demand for their services will mean a cut of nearly half in council’s spending.  This will mean – as the people of Newcastle (one of the few councils who have made their plans public for the next three years, rather than for just one) have discovered – the effective end of Arts provision and, at least, the halving of public library provision.  Not that Pickles will care, especially as he appears to believe  that such cuts can be achieved solely by efficiencies.  Conveniently for him, this means that he can blame councils – and not his own policies – for any cuts in services.  As a campaigner pointed out in an email I saw today, it also means that it’s “becoming clear that the real purpose of the Localism Act was to transfer blame, not power, to local authorities”. That the public will protest actively against such cuts has been more than proved by the last two years of protest.  Expect a lot more to come.

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The above eye-catching headline is not about libraries generally, nor the average time left for paid members of staff (although it feels like it) but the window of opportunity that public libraries have with e-books before things are settled.  An important article looks at the subject in some depth from different points of view.

In these hard-nosed times, one of the key weapons libraries have of defending their worth is to point out their economic value.  Two new resources have been produced by Carl Clayton (in his private capacity) that will be useful in this regard:

• The economic value of public libraries – Depression costs the Uk £12bn. Bibliotherapy – as well as library’s help in job hunting etc – can greatly help those suffering from depression. “Every pound spent on library services will create a future saving in costs for the council. It is not possible to quantify this saving exactly but a comparison of the limited cost of the library service with the large costs of depression (not to mention other illnesses) indicates that this would be significant.”
• Value of public library services – Covers “published reports that consider the value of public library services in a quantitative sense.”  Lists and summarises some very useful documents including some unfamiliar ones such as a Norwegian study showing that libraries have a cost benefit ratio of 1:4

For volunteers, a new court decision has meant that volunteers cannot claim under employment law unless they have a contract or are undergoing vocational training.  This removes an obstacle for volunteers taking over libraries in that it frees them from having to worry about employment law with their unpaid workers.  Of course, it’s also equally a detriment to those same volunteers who cannot appeal to the same rights that paid workers have, at least in this instance.

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