Editorial

Two things stand out for me in the last week and a bit (no, PLN is not going fortnightly – I had the flu). The first is that Northamptonshire is announcing big cuts to libraries. Now, this has all sorts of ramifications. The county was seen as a bit of a golden boy due to its alliance of libraries with health services and also its chief executive, Paul Blantern, was once chair of the Libraries Taskforce. Mr Blantern has resigned this month over the cuts forced on to the council, which amounted to more than £500m between 2010 and 2020. £500m. That figure shows that, in this age of austerity, no council safe from the depth of the cuts forced. It doesn’t matter what the arguments are or how efficient or imaginative your council: cuts of this magnitude are going to get you if yours is one of the councils that the funding formula decides it does not like. Alan Moore, a native of the county and writer of the Watchmen and V for Vendetta, has already shown what a false exonomy this is by threatening to take filming of his new show away from the area.

The second thing is the announcement that Voices for the Library is folding. Set up by a number of volunteer (back before that word raised concern amongst paid library staff) library supporters in 2010, the group aimed to publicise the good things about libraries and provide contacts for the media.  The deep cuts announced from 2010 onwards swiftly turned the group into something else as well: a protest against what was going on. I joined the group in 2011 as its interests (pro-library, publicity and, at that stage, campaigning) very much tied in with mine. I have since left the group as I have reduced by more blatant “campaigner” side but austerity, as Northamptonshire shows, is still very much alive and well. Voices will be missed.

Changes

• Aberdeenshire – Banff library reopens after renovation: museum, sofas with USBs, new furniture.
• Barnet – Church End reopens in new location. Open technology introduced.
• Derby – Debt Advice charity willing to run all ten libraries under threat, with volunteers.
• Devon – Chagford Library moves into Jubilee Hall extension.
• Greenwich – Record usage reported.
• Hertfordshire – New Berkhamsted Library sees 31% increase in usage.
• Hull – Holderness Road Library to be closed, moved to new location as yet undecided.
• Lancashire – Bamber Bridge Library to be passed to scouts.
• Northamptonshire – 21 out of 36 libraries, plus mobiles, may be closed or passed to volunteers. 12 week consultation. [not “out of 46” as originally reported]
• Pembrokeshire – Smaller libraries to be closed or passed to volunteers.
• Sutton – £700k refurbishment for Sutton Central

Ideas

• Augmented reality book reviews

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Editorial

I’m off to France for a week so there won’t be a new post for a few days and Twitter is likely to be quieter too.  Here’s hoping for a quiet week full of good news. Wishing you a good few days.

Changes

• Essex – Mobile libraries to be cut.
• Lambeth – Open+ installed in Minet Library.
• North Lincolnshire – Scunthorpe Library to include housing, employment and health services in £1m co-location/refurbishment.
• Pembrokeshire – Tourist Information Centre may co-locate into Newport Library.
• Powys – Llanfair Careinion premises paid for by town council, volunteer staffing.
• Stoke on Trent – Opening hour reductions £100k cut. Staff consultation.

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Editorial

I had the opportunity to see a couple of GLL libraries (run under the public name of “Better”) at close quarters after agreeing to do a (paid – full disclosure here) talk for managers there on the current UK public libraries situation. GLL started off in Greenwich as a leisure company and has since expanded throughout the county, holding interests in all part of the UK. It has also started expanding in the library sector, with it becoming soon enough (in terms of branches and number of authorities anyway) the largest public library provider in the country. By the end of the year, it is expected to be running the library services of Greenwich, Wandsworth, Lincolnshire, Dudley and Bromley, as well as 12 prison libraries and a couple of other concerns, easily eclipsing other single-authority library trusts or indeed the beleaguered Carillion. GLL is also behind an somewhat controversial move towards installing “gymbraries” in Lambeth.

I’ve seen a fair bit for and against GLL so it was good to physically visit in Woolwich and Greenwich. I was there for a few hours and can confirm the libraries were busy, well-maintained, with good book-stock (in multiple languages, face-on displays plus magazines) and numerous PCs/good wifi. The library staff I talked to, frontline as well as managers, including professionally qualified librarians, seemed happy, some very much so. Interestingly, also, they’re not tied to the local government pay settlement and so have suffered less than council staff by pay freezes/below-inflation increases. The two libraries were co-located (one with council services, the other in a leisure centre) but with well-used at-the-front libraries. They recognise the need for regular (daily, not just weekly) children events and other things such as reading groups and have (a big tick in my book) quiet sections/rooms for the multitude with nowhere else to study.

On the other hand, I was surprised to see “no food or drink” posters in one and also a requirement for ID before joining (we’ve done away with this with no ill effect in my authority years ago), although this is hardly unusual nationally. Both libraries had book-sorting machines – the first I’ve seen – in little glass secure rooms (apparently, fingers can get mashed otherwise) which looked great fun to me but I did not see either working other than the one I put through just to see what happened, and indeed one was out of order due to some vandalism on the roof above. There was some tatty furniture in one branch, noted with much annoyance by the librarian I was with (who I suspect is going to get it replaced pronto), but again, this is hardly unusual in libraries and generally what I saw was certainly no worse than average, and a considerable improvement on many I have seen.

So why is this important to those who don’t work for GLL? Well, they’re growing fast, being expansionist and with regional support structures for leisure (buildings etc) that mean they’re placed to bid anywhere in the UK. I suspect they’re the main competition to other trusts (library or leisure) competing for contracts. I also suspect this is not good news if you work in some parts of the library service as they’re going to go with economies of scale where they think it would work (I certainly would in their position) but, when we’re all seeing deep cuts repeatedly up and down the country, well, there’s worse out there. Better the devil you don’t know, perhaps. From what I saw, they were positive (notably so – no defeatism here) and boasted of good increases to usage and visits. While not alone in the latter, it’s good to see and it’s been long-term in at least the two original boroughs (50% and 100% increases were noted). Obviously, the trust is less directly democratic than council libraries but on the other hand, when told by a council to cut, this is an organisation that will be able to question it rather than have to simply do it.

OK, that’s a general view and I am sure some things are bad (e.g. how gymbraries are being handled) and I missed much. They’re not angels (because who can afford to be, really, in 2017 UK) but I did not see any Satan-worship either, just busy libraries. It was just a day there, but, you know you can walk into a library and instantly sense if it is doing well or OK? Well, the two I visited were fine. And that’s something impossible to hide. And better than some.

Changes

• Kensington and Chelsea – Plan to move North Kensington Library shelved, linked to Grenfell Tower disaster.
• Salford – £590k extra over four years for IT (£100k): expanded or new library services in Irlam and Cadishead, Worsley and Broughton leisure centres, and Beesley Green, The Valley and Wardley community centres and the Helly Hansen Watersports Centre  Aim to save £1.26m p.a. by tech and co-location.

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Editorial

So I had a very interesting Sunday and Monday, the first day walking two Australian library chiefs around Storyhouse in Chester and the second attending the Libraries Global Excellence Tour conference in London. There were a lot of learning points from talking to experts in this country, Australia and the USA. The big ones for me were how libraries were seen by the Aussies as sometimes putting artificial barriers in front of their users. Seriously, the Australians looked at us pityingly for charging fines for adults. And then one questioned why libraries demand online renewals of items, wondering aloud if it was for our stats rather than for helping users. Questions like that as well as one about coping with the eventual disappearance of cards in wallets fair sent heads spinning. And don’t get me started on floating stock, seemingly widely accepted in the antipodes (and in Peterborough by the way, it turns out) but avoided most other places.

There was also a vision of another world – where Australian state libraries hold budgets and co-ordinate training and development and where libraries had to cope with only the one crisis (that of technology) rather the two (austerity). Oh and, by the way, their pay is something like twice ours, even taking the varying exchange rates and costs of living into account. Mind you, spiders.

But there’s no point dreaming for something different than what we have. As a friend far more knowledgeable than I (hi Mick) pointed out, the One Card achievement of South Australia pales a bit when one considers its population is only that of Kent and there’s a One Card situation in 19 Scottish authorities and in Manchester, as well as (I think?) Wales. These were achieved without the UK government doing anything and that is I think the brutal truth. If libraries need to achieve wonders, then that will nee to bee achieved by themselves. Collaboration for mutual benefit is the key here. Heck, it may even save money. Relying on Whitehall has not been a viable library strategy since around 1964 and wishing it was not so will not change matters.

Or move to Australia. Just, you know, big sharks too.

Changes

• Anglesey – 5 libraries (Beaumaris, Cemaes, Moelfre, Newborough and Rhosneigr) out of 10 under threat: consultation.
• East Sussex – 7 (Langney, Pevensey Bay, Willingdon, Polegate, Ore, Mayfield, and Ringmer) may close.
• Haringey – Highgate will not relocate.
• Leicestershire – £230k cut – Staff may be replaced by open technology for some hours in 15 libraries. Part of larger £1.3m cut by 2020/21.,
• Powys – Knighton Library moves into co-located building, allowing more events [This entry amended after email received- Ed.]
• Surrey – Performing Arts Library may close in £150k cut. 4 week consultation.

Ideas

• Cinegi – £100 cinema film hire.
• Esports – Free computer games increase library use in kids [well, yes, they would wouldn’t they? – Ed.]

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Editorial

I was talking to someone else concerned about public libraries the other day. She asked (a) what could be done to prevent major cuts to libraries and (b) how come other countries are not undergoing the crises of the UK. My answer to the first was, simply, government intervention. One decision to intervene by a minister due a council reducing the budget too much would do it. After all, library budgets are tiny compared to other services the council provides and are only really worth attacking, given the public support for them, if it’s clear there’s going to no statutory response. The reason the government does not intervene is likewise simple: austerity is their decision in the first place (albeit one shared by many) and secondly localism – allowing the local councils to decide where to cut – is part of the unspoken deal that stops councils rebelling more than they are.

The answer to why other countries are not undergoing the UK crisis is closely allied to what I have already said. An organisation can cope with one major crisis at a time but UK libraries are coping with two: massive technological change and deep budget cuts. Places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand are faced with one but (largely) not the other, and generally have far superior library usage because of it.

Changes

• Cornwall – St Keverne Library closed, replaced by mobile.
• Durham – Peterlee library to close, with site bought by Tesco. New library to be co-located in leisure centre.
• Fife – Kinghorn reopens as volunteer.
• Herefordshire – Scraps charging fines for those under 18. Other charges changed.
• Staffordshire – Open technology may be introduced. Issues 15.8% down in 2016/17 (several libraries passed to volunteers in same period)

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