Libraries for Life for Londoners

CILIP Says Public Library Provision Will Get Worse

In a letter to the new Culture Secretary, James Purnell, the library professionals’ organisation, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), has accused Local Authorities of denying many communities the library service they're entitled to. In the letter, CILIP suggests that public library service provision has become a postcode lottery and is expected to get worse.

Although the letter is mainly concerned with the interests of library staff, the users’ needs are also coupled with these.

Unsurprisingly, Ian Snowley, CILIP President, has firmly blamed local and national politicians rather than local government officers for the deteriorating situation.
Press release:
http://www.cilip.org.uk/aboutcilip/newsandpressreleases/news070808.htm

AT , Aug 07

First Consultation on the Amendments to Copyright Exceptions Recommended by Gowers

On 8 January 2008 Lord Triesman, Minister for Intellectual Property, launched the first of a two part consultation on the recommendations made by the Dec. 2006 Gowers report on Intellectual Property.

Lord Triesman pointed out that it was necessary to ensure the IP protection systems are “robust enough - and sensible enough - not only to protect the rights holder from illegal activity, but to ensure that the consumer and user can make sensible use of protected works and also respect the rights attached to them.”

The consultation will cover recommendations for changes to copyright law that will:
· enable schools and universities to make the most of digital technologies and facilitate distance learning;
· allow libraries and archives to use technology to preserve valuable material before it deteriorates or the format it is stored on becomes obsolete;
· introduce a format shifting exception to allow consumers to copy legitimately purchased content to another format, for example CD to MP3, in a manner that does not damage the interests of copyright owners; and provide a new exception for parody.

The responses to the consultation will be analysed and then a further consultation on the resulting draft law will follow.

Further information:
http://www.dius.gov.uk/speeches/triesman_copyright_080108.html
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/policy/policy-issues/policy-issues-gowers/policy-issues-gowersreport.htm

AT Jan 08

Return of the Public Library Philanthropist?

The beginning of the public library movement was marked by the support of public-spirited individuals. Visionaries, such as Andrew Carnegie & John Passmore Edwards, were willing to use their energy and wealth for the betterment of less fortunate citizens. Now, in the UK, these nineteenth century philanthropists are only dimly remembered and are considered to have little relevance to present day circumstances.

However, under the influence of tightening local government finances, those circumstances have been changing for some time. For over twenty years there has been a slow drift away from a firm official belief in the importance of providing the poor with free access to a wide range of literature. That belief is now quite conditional - hemmed-in by many provisos. The nature of the link between education and the public libraries has been almost forgotten. The library safety net has been allowed to decay and many more people are now falling through it.

In contrast to the UK, the USA has never lost a strong voluntary aspect to the delivery of public library services. Thus, it is probably not very surprising to Americans that a financier, Stephen A. Schwarzman, should donate $100m to the New York Library Service. Indeed, one member of the NY Public Library’s board thought that he should have given more – an astounding reaction when viewed from this side of the Atlantic.

Are there no UK billionaires interested in improving the literacy of their fellow citizens? There is little doubt that they will soon be sorely needed.

Reference:
http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/03/11/billionaires-library-donation-biz-cx_af_0311schwarzman.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/mar/11/useconomy.usa

AT Mar 08

The Literacy Disaster

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) is undertaken every five years (2001 & 2006) in over 40 countries around the world and measures the "reading literacy" & associated factors for children aged approximately 10 years old. Thus, in most countries, the Pirls investigation is aimed at children with four years of formal schooling. However, in some countries, including England and Scotland, it takes place after five years of schooling.

The score for England in 2006 was 539 and was 527 for Scotland. The highest 2006 score was 565 for the Russian Federation. The average score was 500 and the lowest score was 302 (South Africa).

The 2006 study found that children’s performance in England and Scotland had fallen in the previous five years. The reading performance of children in England had fallen from third to 19th in the world and Scotland also fell, from 14th to 26th. Top scoring Russia only managed to equal the Scottish score in 2001.

In England, the Department for Children, Schools and Families commissioned a separate report on the findings, from the independent National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). This concluded that lower achievement among the better readers had contributed most to England's overall fall, rather than the small increase in the proportion of weaker readers. Perhaps the most worrying comment from the NFER is that there had been significant increases in the proportion of English 10-year-olds with the "least positive" attitudes to reading and who said they very seldom read stories or novels outside school.

The fact that both England and Scotland had a 2006 score somewhat above the average value of 500 has been suggested as a mitigating circumstance. However, if allowance is made for the extra year of schooling provided in these countries, this appears very much like grasping at straws. It is obvious that the rate of children's progress in most other countries is greater than England or Scotland.

Ed Balls, Children, Schools and Families Secretary, suggested that the same story was emerging from the government's consultation on its Children's Plan as from the Pirls study. He said "I'm calling today for everyone's help to get our children reading more and to kick-start a new national debate about the value of reading." As the public libraries have traditionally provided the UK’s educational safety net, Mr Balls would do well to ensure that Library Services are provided with sufficient funds to take up his challenge.

More information: http://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/pdfs/downloadable/PIRLSreport.pdf

http://timss.bc.edu/PDF/p06_international_report.pdf

Public Library Materials Fund and Budget Survey for 2006-08

Loughborough University’s LISU research unit has published its Public Library Materials Fund and Budget Survey for
2006-08

LISU found that total library expenditure for the UK fell by 0.3% in 2006/07, with a further fall predicted for 2007/08. Although the reported fall was small, LISU suggested that it was particularly disappointing as, at this time last year, libraries were predicting an increase of 3% in spending for 2006/07.

Expenditure on materials fell by 1.5% in 2006/07 and a further fall of 2.3% is expected for 2007/08. Within this overall fall, spending on books continues to decline slowly and, although spending on audio-visual materials (including electronic resources) rose slightly in 2006/07, it is predicted to fall again in 2007/08, by 1.4%.

Staff expenditure represents approximately 60% of overall public library expenditure, so small percentage changes in this figure has a far larger affect than other elements in a public library service’s budget. LISU reported that staff numbers have fallen for the first time for many years, and are predicted to fall further in 2007/08. The most expensive staff members are the professionally qualified ones and much of the decrease has been in this area.

Free download from: http://www.nielsenbookdata.co.uk/controller.php?page=91

AT Dec 07

Books on the Internet

HarperCollins, the publisher, has begun to make available selected books on its website. The free electronic editions are complete books, not extracts. Since November, HarperCollins has provided electronic extracts from about 15 of its current books and has obviously found that the initiative has paid-off in higher sales.

The HarperCollins move is a shrewd one. Although the entire contents of a book may be freely available via the internet, the rather clumsy nature of current computers, PDAs and e-book readers makes reading the complete electronic book an uncomfortable experience. Browsing the books, as in a bookshop, is another matter. The release of the Apple MacBook Air does not really alter the basic premise. Meanwhile:

Random House has digitised all its new books and is now proceeding to do the same to its back catalogue.
Tor, the science fiction publisher, is making one of its books available for free downloading each week.
Borders, the US bookshop chain, has unveiled a new concept - a store where shoppers can mix and burn CDs, explore their genealogies and even publish their own novels.
The digitalisation of out-of-copyright book collections by Google and Microsoft continues apace.
The first production rollup display e-book/cell phone has been announced by Polymervision

What was predicted in the LLL technology webpage a long time ago is beginning to happen. The digitisation process is building momentum and will result in fundamental changes to the way public libraries operate.

More Information:
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/news/default.aspx , http://www.polymervision.com/frameset.php?id=&page=

AT Feb.08

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlements for 2008/09 to 2010/11.

On 6 December 2007, the government announced details of the provisional local government finance settlements for the three years 2008/09 to 2010/11. London Local Authorities are extremely disappointed with the settlements which they believe completely fail to recognise the extent of service and financial pressures on local authorities in the capital. The London Councils will receive an increase in grant well below the average for England in each of the three years.

As London has been repeatedly penalised in this way over the past decade, services to residents have been under pressure for some time and this has resulted in library closure programs being proposed in Brent, Southwalk and Waltham Forest. The public library service is one of the few services in which central government allows local discretion to exist. Thus, it is easier to cut library services than almost any other locally provided service to the public.

It is the Local Authority, of course, which receives the criticism of library users, whilst central government is able to claim that it is in favour of public libraries. Perhaps it is in favour of public libraries outside London, it is certainly not within London, as its policies make it inevitable that they be cut back for the 7 million Londoners.

Oxford University’s Department of Social Policy & Social Work recently published “The English Indices of Deprivation 2007”. In this, London was ranked as the second most deprived region in England in absolute terms (after the North West) and the third most deprived region in % terms. London was also ranked bottom in a measure of the least deprived areas i.e. prosperity was spread more widely in all other regions. If these facts are combined with the knowledge that local taxation is not based on the ability to pay, the conclusion can be drawn that the poor of London are being forced to subsidize the rich in other regions.

More information: http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/doc.asp?doc=21594
http://www.local.communities.gov.uk/finance/0809/grant.htm
www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/576659

AT Jan 08

2007 Comprehensive Performance Assessments

The 2007 Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPA) were published on 7th February. These provide a measure of the quality of services provided by English councils to their local communities and their commitment to improving these services in the future.

Six of the 33 London boroughs are among the 13 authorities receiving the highest possible rating under CPA. The figures also show that 97 per cent of London’s boroughs are rated as improving well or strongly with 94 per cent gaining three or four stars (Harrow was the only borough to have less than 3 stars). Seven of the 13 inner London authorities were awarded 4 stars but only three of the 20 outer London boroughs were judged to have reached this standard.

The star rating gives a headline CPA result for a borough and thus provides an average picture for the performance of each Council. However, within this average, there are areas of high achievement and areas of low achievement. In almost every London borough, the cultural area was found to have performed below the average for the borough. The only exceptions to this rule are The City of London, Westminster and Richmond upon Thames. The culture area is where a borough’s public library service is usually grouped.
Click for a comparison of cultural performance with overall performance for all London authorities.

More information:
http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/ , http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/cpa/

AT. Feb.08

Busy Libraries

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) has published its 2007 ranking of the UK’s 20 most busy public libraries. The Norfolk & Norwich Millenium Library was the clear winner with 1,506,344 visits in the year and 1,158,080 issues.
The leading London library was Croydon Central Library with a 4th place based on visits (868,088) and 15th place based on issues (491,888). London public libraries performed better on the visits measure than on the issues measure.
CIFA’s data could possible suggest an issues problem in London’s public libraries and, more worrying, a general problem in inner London libraries (no representative in either table). With the high levels of deprivation in inner London and a great need to raise literacy levels, this would not be good news. However, judging the effectiveness of a borough’s Public Library Service on the performance of one “flagship” library does not take into account the other libraries which are usually better integrated into their local communities.
The inclusion of a borough library in the top 20 list could actually be a good reason to look more carefully at the overall library provision in the borough. One way to achieve a high ranking would be to reduce the service elsewhere in the borough i.e. restrict opening hours or simply close libraries. Such a policy would force people to travel to the “flagship” library and would, of course, result in the poor being penalised.

Busiest London Libraries Based on Visits/Year

NATIONAL RANKING	BOROUGH	LIBRARY	VISITS
4	Croydon	Croydon Central Library	1,033,410
9	Haringey	Wood Green Central	783,687
11	Hounslow	Hounslow	753,038
15	Barnet	Hendon	724,334

Busiest London Libraries Based on Issues/Year

NATIONAL RANKING	BOROUGH	LIBRARY	ISSUES
15	Croydon	Croydon Central Library	491,888
19	Bromley	Bromley Central	471,145

More information: http://www.cipfa.org.uk/press/press_show.cfm?news_id=32026

AT Jan.08

Public Library Volunteers in London

The subject of Library Volunteers is becoming a popular topic of conversation among members of London’s Public Library Friends groups and the new issue of CIPFA Library Statistics has some data to add substance to those conversations (see below).

Just over half of London boroughs have public library volunteer schemes,but there appears to be enormous variability in how the boroughs use those volunteers. Some have very few volunteers and use each of them intensively. Others operate in exactly the opposite manner.

Inner London boroughs (42% have volunteer schemes) are less enthusiastic about volunteers than their Outer London counterparts (60% have volunteer schemes).

Some boroughs (3 of the total of 17 boroughs with volunteer schemes) are so off-hand about this form of help that they are unable to say how many hours of work are freely given by their volunteers per year. However, on average, London’s public library volunteers give only one hour per week to their library service (allowing for holidays). For the widespread, major improvements in service which advocates of volunteer programmes suggest is possible, there has to be a great increase in this commitment. Relying on a large number of people coming forward is unrealistic.

As with all published statistics, the CIFA figures are historic and tell us nothing about what has happened since the end March 2007. Because of this, the picture painted of the Hackney library service volunteer activities is quite average – an average number of volunteers occasionally helping out in the borough’s archives. This picture changed radically in March 2007, when Hackney reopened a library which had been closed since 1996. This small library is completely volunteer run and has proved to be a notable success. A LLL delegation visited Woodberry Down Community Library and has come away impressed. A report on the visit can be viewed at: VolunteerLibrary.htm

Inner London Borough	No. of Volunteers	No. of Volunteer Hours	Hours per Volunteer
		for Year 2006 - 2007	for Year 2006 - 2007
Greenwich	9	2600	288.89
Hackney	28	1381	49.32
Hammersmith & Fulham	5	138.5	27.70
Wandsworth	56	2052	36.64
Westminster	75	4268	56.91

Outer London Borough

Bexley	116	5030	43.36
Bromley	48	1991	41.48
Enfield	31	1422	45.87
Haringey	6
Harrow	22
Havering	96	794	8.27
Hillingdon	13	1514.7	116.52
Hounslow	9	1692	188.00
Merton	25	1294.5	51.78
Newham	39	1170	30.00
Redbridge	16
Richmond upon Thames	69	3327	48.22
Total for Average Hrs. Calc.	619	28674.7
Overall Total	663
Average Hours /Volunteer/Yr.			46.32

AT Aug 08

Scanning Delivers the Goods

The scanning of documents and artefacts in libraries and museums around the world has been going on for a couple of years now and the results of this are beginning to appear on the internet.

The big national libraries, such as the British Library and Library of Congress were among the first to start this process and we can now see what has been achieved in their websites ( www.bl.uk/onlinegallery , http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/index.html ). The BL offering has some particularly interesting, world-class subjects e.g. the da Vinci notebooks (www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/leonardo/accessible/introduction.html ), Mozart’s composition books for 1784 – 1791 (www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/mozart/accessible/introduction.html ) and Jane Austen’s “History of the World” (www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/austen/accessible/introduction.html ).

The huge libraries and museums of the developed world are not the only organisations digitising collections and Unesco has provided a website for these other, less well-known, establishments (www.wdl.org/en/ ). For instance, it is possible to view Christopher Columbus's diary for 1493, in which the explorer describes his discoveries, from the Center for the Study of the History of Mexico Carso ( www.wdl.org/en/item/2962 ).

This is only the beginning. The central libraries and museums of the world have such large collections that it will take decades to scan all those items of general interest, let alone those of purely academic interest – the New York Public Library has scanned 30,000 items in 9 months, but has 50 million items to go.

In the short term, the present economic chaos will probably slightly dampen the ongoing increase in the digitisation rate. However, the experience of the past two/three years and the lessons which have been learnt are now beginning to significantly improve the quality of the scanned images. Further, it has been discovered that it is possible to combine techniques from other fields to produce images of documents and artefacts which have previously been impossible to view by any means. The use of multi-wavelength scans, CAT scans and X-ray technology to read invisible images and brittle scrolls without unrolling them is now feasible. This would have made the reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls very much easier. However, there are very many scrolls in a similar or worse condition than them which now become candidates for serious investigation. A large range of new and forgotten knowledge is on the brink of becoming accessible.

AT May 09

New Powers for Local Government?

In a new report, the Communities and Local Government Select Committee of the House of Commons stated “that local authorities need both sufficient formal powers and more general autonomy to pursue a leading local leadership role”.

The Committee recognises “the frustration that, regardless of their track record, local authorities remain subject to invasive central government scrutiny and interference”. and urges “the Government to take a more flexible view of decentralisation, and to deliver on its promises of earned autonomy”.

Full report:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmcomloc/33/3302.htm

AT May 09

The Noise Issue

Mobile phone conversations, teenage chatter & giggling, the hiss of espresso machines, the rattle of coffee cups and a liberal scattering of food waste - these are all desirable attributes of a modern public library. At least they are according to national politicians.

It is a well known phenomenon that, as politicians claw their way up their particular greasy pole, they become increasingly divorced from reality. Their contact with ordinary life is restricted to a very few hours per week and they begin to live more and more in a fantasy land containing only other Westminster-village virtual people. Of course, part of the fantasy is that they all believe that they are in close touch with their electors. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the nonsense of noisy libraries should be given such wholehearted support by some of these arbiters of what is good for us.

It is the nature of adversarial politics that everything is viewed as a black & white issue. In real life, most issues are actually just shades of grey and the noisy library is one of those. If the argument was about what should go on in large, modern libraries only, there would be some sense in the suggestions. These buildings usually have some spare space that can be used for coffee shops etc and their structures can often be fairly easily modified. Even in this circumstance, care must be taken in applying these transiently fashionable concepts, to avoid more people being driven away from libraries than are attracted to them. A few simple rules should be used to ensure that it is the library user that is really the beneficiary, rather than the victim, of any changes:
· Ensure that there is a noise barrier between the quiet, library areas and any new facility.
· Do not steal space from the library proper for the new activity.
· Use the voluntary sector to run any commercial enterprise, in order to keep all the benefits in the local community.

The vast majority of Britain’s public libraries are more friendly institutions than the large monuments to civic pride that politicians and librarians love. However, they are also small and elderly – suitable for their original purpose of housing a largish collection of books, but little else. The addition of a few public-access computers into each of them necessitated considerable modification to their layouts and often resulted in the loss of bookshelves. Perhaps the politicians believe that the loss of bookshelves is a bonus and should be encouraged. Surely they cannot be that out-of-touch, or can they?

The main supporters of the noisy library idea in the Palace of Westminster are Andy Burnham MP and Lyn Brown MP (ref: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-libraries-should-be-about-books-955421.html , http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/04/lyn-brown-libraries-mla )

AT Nov 08

Andy Burnham’s U Turn

Andy Burnham, Secretary of State at the DCMS, has removed the telescope from his blind eye and has seen that there is considerable, countrywide opposition to the proposed mass closure of (11) public libraries in the Wirral. The previous DCMS position of "not minded to intervene at this time" has been modified to: “They [public libraries] should never be an optional extra for local authorities."

The Secretary of State has ordered a local inquiry into Wirral Council's plan and the Council has promised that the libraries will remain open during the inquiry.

Laura Swaffield’s Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals blog commented: “It will open up quite a can of worms. The last time anyone even tried to do this intervention thingie was in 1991. One can almost (I said almost) sympathise with Andy for trying to dodge it”

Perhaps it will open a can of worms. However, that is not what Andy Burnham will want. A quiet burial would be his preference and he will choose a Chairman of the inquiry who will be sympathetic to this viewpoint.

The Cilip blog: http://communities.cilip.org.uk/blogs/update/archive/2009/04/03/public-libraries-andy-acts-at-last.aspx

AT April 09.

Addendum
Sue Charteris has been chosen by Andy Burnham to Chair the Inquiry. She is a Founding Director of Shared Intelligence and a public policy consultant specialising in local government and public service improvement. Her comment on her appointment was: " I am very pleased to have been appointed to lead this Inquiry into the Wirral library service. Having been involved in local government and worked for local authorities, I fully understand the challenges that they face in the provision of services - particularly in this difficult economic climate - but also know the valuable role that libraries play in local communities. My advice to the Secretary of State will be based on a thorough study of the evidence, and I will give all interested parties the opportunity to comment."

Sue Charteris' report is due in June, and the Secretary of State's decision will follow shortly after.

Reference: http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/media_releases/6121.aspx
http://www.sharedintelligence.net/viewstaff.php?staffid=22
AT May 09

London Boroughs Comprehensive Performance Assessment - 2008

The 2008 Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) scores for Local Authorities have been published by the Audit Commission. The CPA measures how well councils deliver services for local people and communities. The new report contains comparisons of council performances since the last set of results was published for 2007.

Each score is on a scale from 1 to 4, where 1 is the lowest score and 4 is the highest. The relevant category for libraries is the Cultural one and the table below gives each London borough’s score for that.

The change assessment given below covers all council services, but can be assumed to be a measure of the commitment to the improvement of cultural services as well as other services. Only one London borough has been assessed as not improving adequately. This is Haringey, where there are well known problems.

In general, the lowest assessment made for any service is 2. The exception to this is for "children & young people’s services". In this very sensitive area, a more critical regime now seems to exist and some “1” assessments have been made. As is to be expected, Haringey appears in this list, but no other London borough.

The inevitably low 2008 Haringey score highlights the overly rosy picture which the CPA usually gives of local government performance. The 2007 scores for this borough were 3 star overall, 3 for culture and improving well (see LondonCPAScores1.htm). There was no indication that things were about to fall apart in Haringey - rather like the assessment of Enron by its auditors.

Comprehensive Performance Assessment 2008
	Cultural Category Score	Change Assessment
Corporation of London	3	Improving strongly

Inner London Boroughs
Camden	3	Improving strongly
Greenwich	2	Improving well
Hackney	2	Improving strongly
Hammersmith & Fulham	3	Improving strongly
Islington	3	Improving strongly
Kensington & Chelsea	2	Improving strongly
Lambeth	2	Improving well
Lewisham	3	Improving well
Southwalk	2	Improving well
Tower Hamlets	3	Improving well
Wandsworth	4	Improving strongly
Westminster	4	Improving strongly

Outer London Boroughs
Barking & Dagenham	3	Improving strongly
Barnet	2	Improving strongly
Bexley	3	Improving well
Brent	2	Improving strongly
Bromley	4	Improving well
Croydon	2	Improving well
Ealing	3	Improving strongly
Enfield	3	Improving well
Haringey	4	Not Improving adequately
Harrow	3	Improving well
Havering	2	Improving well
Hillingdon	2	Improving well
Hounslow	3	Improving well
Kingston-upon-Thames	2	Improving well
Merton	4	Improving strongly
Newham	3	Improving adequately
Redbridge	2	Improving strongly
Richmond-upon-Thames	4	Improving strongly
Sutton	4	Improving strongly
Waltham Forrest	3	Improving well

Reference: http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/reports/NATIONAL-REPORT.asp?CategoryID=&ProdID=D97994F2-F25D-4402-8861-CEA711AC40A6&SectionID=sect30#

AT Mar 09

Inner London Growing Faster Than Anywhere Else in UK

HBOS plc compiled a very useful digest of population statistics just before it fell victim to the Credit Crunch. The statistics were taken from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates and show that the four local authorities with the biggest percentage population growth between 1997 and 2007 are all in Inner London. These are the City of London (40%), followed by Westminster (29%), Kensington and Chelsea (26%) and Camden (25%). Population growth in the rest of Greater London is not far behind these leaders. For comparison, the country, as a whole, only increased its population by 5% in the same period.

The organisation representing London Local Authorities, London Councils, has expressed deep concern about the ONS figures. It believes that they significantly understate the populations of London’s boroughs. London’s library users should also be concerned. Any underestimate of a borough’s population automatically reduces the money received from central government and most of the income of the boroughs comes from this source. History tells us that library services are the first to suffer, when money is short. So it is extremely important to get the estimates right. It is actually doubly important, as London is already financially penalised by central government in its robbing Peter to pay Paul exercise of local government funding – London is always cast as Peter - see below.

HBOS Report: http://www.hbosplc.com/media/pressreleases/articles/halifax/2008-09-27-londonboro.asp?section=halifax
London Councils’ Comment: http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/media/current/pressdetail.htm?pk=604

AT Oct 08

Unison Library Campaign

Unison, the public sector trade union, has launched a campaign in support of public libraries or, more accurately, in support of public library jobs. The campaign, “defend the public library service” pointed out that there had been 60 public library closures in the UK during the last year and that more were planned.

Like some library users, Unison disapproves of a shift towards computer services within public libraries and the fall in expenditure on books. Worryingly, it suggests that the use of volunteers is a cause of reducing services, rather than a method of maintaining and improving services. It would be interesting to find out if there was any concrete justification for such a allegation – beyond the long standing antipathy to a community helping itself.

The demands put forward are not completely restricted to special pleading on behalf of library staff, but do have some relevance to users.

“Taking stock: the future of our public library service” is a 59 page Unison document which has recently been published and contains a lot of useful data on national trends in library service provision. This data has been abstracted from CIPFA publications, so can be considered to be reliable. However, care must be exercised in using it to make comparisons with individual local authority performances. A better method of carrying out comparisons is to compare the individual authority with its peer group e.g. an inner London authority should be compared with all 12 inner London authorities.

More information:
http://www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/17301.pdf
http://www.unison.org.uk/localgov/library.asp

AT Dec 08

Sustainable Communities Act – Extreme Consultation?

On 14th October 2008, Hazel Blears launched the Sustainable Communities Act. The Act is intended to give everyone the power to tell Government how to help stop communities declining and is the result of a cross party campaign. The supporters of the Act claim that it “is not just another consultation”.

Of course, this is where the hollow laugh and cynical smile occurs. Most people’s initial reaction is, without doubt, to shrug and move on to something useful. It is too much to expect that the unholy alliance of a bemused civil service and a gaggle of out-of-touch politicians should have radically changed its character. Surely, top-down is the way central government likes to work, not the reverse (see previous posting, below)? It has certainly acted that way in the past and, if this opportunity(?) is a sham or fails for some other reason, it will continue to do so. Therefore, contrary to what past experience indicates, there is an argument for taking the hype at face value - with your fingers crossed.

The publicity says: “People everywhere will know better than us what is needed in their area. Indeed, our philosophy has been that local communities are the experts on their own problems – and the solutions to them. Not central government.” They have got that part right, anyway.

The assessment that central government is ineffective in addressing problems within local communities is accurate. What has not been said is that central government is sometimes the direct cause of those problems, which is also accurate. The under-funding of London’s local authorities is an example of the latter situation (see below).

It is unclear what actual influence the act will have on central government policy. Each Council that opts-in will have to set up local panels (representatives of local people) to consider suggestions put forward by other local people. After this, initial stage, the Councils must then try to reach agreement with their local panels on which suggestions should be sent to the next stage of the process.

The third stage is at the Local Government Association (LGA) level. Here, all the ideas submitted by individual Councils will be prioritised before being sent to the next stage.

The fourth stage of the process is for the LGA and the Secretary of State to try to reach agreement on which, if any, suggestions should be acted on.

Thus:
· It is extremely unlikely that any idea slightly against a Council’s existing policy will reach the third stage of the process.
· It is extremely unlikely that any idea purely dealing with one or two localities will be given a high enough priority, at the third stage, to be seriously considered by the Secretary of State.
· It is extremely unlikely that any idea which attempts to seriously modify central government policies will be allowed through stages three or four.

The number and magnitude of the barriers set up between local people and the Secretary of State does not give great confidence that the act will succeed in its claimed objectives. Of course, some suggestions will be allowed through the filters. However, these will probably not be those that address the real causes of local problems.

So far, only two London boroughs have opted-in, Islington & Lewisham. Therefore, for most of us the act is only of academic interest, but this may change with time.

Although there is no mention of public libraries within publicity associated with the act, it is clear that this type of service provision does fall within it.

Ref: http://www.localworks.org/files/localworks.org/sustainable_communities_act_guide.pdf

AT Nov 08

European Online Library

The European Online Library (described here in Sep 2006), Europeana, was launched on 20th November and proved immensely popular. It received 10 million hits an hour and promptly crashed. The site was relaunched in early January 2009.

More than 1,000 cultural organisations, including The British Library in London, are making contributions to the library. National libraries from all over Europe have contributed printed and manuscript material, including digitised copies of rare and valuable books, such as the Gutenberg Bible. Also among these institutions are the Louvre in Paris and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam which have supplied digitised paintings and other objects from their collections.

The intention of Europeana is to provide digital access to information on Europe's history; in the form of image, text, sound or film; which is held in libraries, archives or museums.

The Institut National de l'Audiovisuel has supplied 80,000 broadcast recordings from the 20th Century, in addition to early footage shot on the battlefields of France in 1914, and The British Library has provided access to its vast collection of sound recordings, covering British accents and dialects, British wildlife, and early ethnographic wax cylinder recordings.

Internet users will be able to access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archive documents, paintings and films, without charge.

Link to Europeana: http://dev.europeana.eu/

AT Nov 08

Bloomsbury Open Access

Bloomsbury, the publisher, is to offer free, non-commercial, downloading of books from the internet. Initially the books will be in the social sciences and humanities areas. It intends to build thematic lists on current global issues and expects to have approximately fifty new titles available by the end of 2009.

Bloomsbury is assembling a high-power advisory board for its new venture, drawing in academics from the British Library, MIT, Open University, Max Plank Institute, LSE and Johns Hopkins University.

The works will also be sold as books, using the latest short-run technologies or Print on Demand. The Print on Demand method of distribution is ideal for academic publishing, as it avoids the high set-up costs of normal book printing.

Academic authors are not primarily interested in earning money from their books. They are more interested in gaining greater peer recognition for themselves and for the ideas which they espouse. As their works will not be subject to the normal long production process, the authors will benefit from having them distributed very quickly. Also, the books will be capable of being searched more easily and need never go out of print.

The first book to be made available by this new venture was published in October and, appropriately, it was written by Lawrence Lessig, the copyright reform campaigner. In his new book, Remix, he makes the point that the present copyright laws tend to criminalise people, especially the young.

Bloomsbury's German partner, Berlin Verlag, will be actively participating in the new venture and discussions are also underway with Melbourne University Publishing.

Further information: http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/

AT Nov 08

2nd July 2009	6th August 2009	3rd September 2009
1st October 2009	5th November 2009	3rd December 2009

	Chair: Alan Templeton templeton_alan@hotmail.com
	Vice Chair: Susan Chinn sbchinn@btinternet.com
	Treasurer: Peter Richardson plr@ukgateway.net