Veronic Fraser, Frances Hendrix and Ayub Khan share their views on the themes of last year and trends for 2008.
Veronica Fraser
Head of Knowledge Management, Public Enquiries and Complaints, Customer Service Centre, Department of Health
The problem with being asked to review the year past is that the task always seems to trigger a memory delete button and I become incapable of remembering what happened when and in what order. Looking ahead and speculating on what might happen involves powers of deduction and prediction perhaps better spent on the National Lottery - but here goes.
My ‘annual report’ includes a sideways look at the health and NHS information scene, the new cross-government National Knowledge Council, a few questions about the current professionalism debate and some thoughts on CILIP itself.
The year saw yet more development of clinician- and public-facing information services. NHS Choices, developed by a consortium of existing health information providers, was proudly launched by outgoing Secretary of State Patricia Hewitt as a new service to help people make better choices about their health and get the best out of the NHS. With user-friendly content and music from the Zimmers, the site has proved popular with the public, although less so with critics, who bemoan the limitations of the search for NHS organisations and the inaccuracy of the detail about hospital and GPs.
Inaccuracies have been firmly laid at the door of poor old nhs.uk, with no ‘hands up – we should have checked first’ on the part of the Choices Team. NHS Direct continues, although whether as a sister service or a gradually dwindling resource remains to be seen.
The English National Library for Health (NLH) grows steadily in depth and breadth of content, with a range of specialist libraries covering conditions and populations groups, at last escaping from the technology-dominated constraints of the national programme for IT (Connecting for Health). Successfully re-homed with the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, it employs staff drawn from the active ranks of NHS librarians.
Despite its notable achievements, including development events for NHS librarians, NLH has been viewed with suspicion by some NHS librarians, who feel that their role and the front-line services they offer are talked up in national planning documents but not valued in reality.
We still await publication of the NLH-sponsored review of NHS-funded library and knowledge services in England, a national service framework for libraries, and renewal of the NHS copyright licence.
It is hoped the NLH review recommendations will lead to the next steps in resolving the funding and boundary issues that bedevil good service provision for health services staff who have a foot both in the NHS and HE/FE. There is still a need to encourage support for library services at Trust and PCT level. NLH is on record as supporting the concept of user-led services but also wants to wean users away from ‘the limitations of scientific journals’.
The library wants to encourage local ownership of LIS services, with qualified and experienced staff and a local library space, but hasn’t quite developed a model for how this fits alongside national provision aimed at desktops and personal computers. I hope the review really puts users first and continues to support local service development as well as nationally procured developments.
A final challenge for NLH is to provide leadership on the national copyright licence. Scotland led the way in agreeing an NHS national licence and demonstrating its value for better information sharing in health care. The English licence has had a chequered history and no doubt looks like a poisoned chalice if the budget to pay for a single overall licence has disappeared in organisational moves. It looks as though NLH is the only national body with the remit and the leadership needed to sort this.
Outside the NHS, I was sad to learn that several specialised health libraries have closed or reduced their professional staff. Meanwhile the British Library – a sleeping giant in health LIS – seems to be stirring towards a more effective interest in STM information. Attempts to foster a united NHS front in order to improve BL/NHS liaison foundered following the last major BL restructuring – another area for NLH and the Health Libraries Group (HLG) to develop in 2008.
Readers may know that CILIP has declared health one of its current priorities. A small group of Policy Development Committee members (Paul Clarke, Alan Fricker and I) have been working alongside Guy Daines and others to develop an advocacy strategy and implementation plan in order to position library and information services as key to effective health improvement for the public.
Although CILIP can harness a lot of members’ experience and energy for this, I believe we will need to work much more closely with others with similar agendas – MLA, NHS Choices, NLH - to see real development. Next year’s HLG conference in Cardiff in July will provide a lively opportunity to catch up with current themes and activities in health LIS – see you there.
Libraries in government departments were pleased to achieve recognition in the form of a newly established National Knowledge Council that reports to the Cabinet Office. The council, co-ordinated from the National Archives, has recruited key staff and aims to pioneer new ways of working, boost professional standards of information management and share good practice across government. An admirable aim and wholly achievable, but I am well aware how difficult achieving results via influence rather than staff or budget can be.
As a former public librarian I empathise with the challenges faced by public librarians – sometimes derided for not keeping up with developing trends and at the same time castigated for not staying closer to their ‘real’ purpose of providing books for all. The picture seems very mixed, with money for some London libraries to develop new services and refurbish, greater involvement in basic literacy work but also dwindling use and ageing buildings in many places.
A debate at the recent Public Library Authorities Conference seemed to deliver a depressing blow to all that CILIP stands for when public library chiefs voted against the need for professional qualifications. Some rethinking all round as CILIP is poised to campaign hard on the need for professionally led library services? I think we have yet to truly define what we mean by professionalism. In the age of Google search and Web 2.0, what is it that members of the library profession offer that makes us unique and valuable? Inspirational conference messages from Lynne Brindley and Phil Bradley suggest we must embrace new ways of information sharing and should ‘just do it’ – not always possible in tight structures governed by elected members.
Working with a team of highly professional, but not library qualified, staff has given me a clearer idea of respective skills and talents of information professionals and customer-focused staff, and my demand of CILIP is that together we clarify our specialists strengths and transfer lessons from the public library ‘professionalism’ campaign into generic advocacy and lobbying messages.
And so to CILIP itself. I have been really impressed with Council’s maturity and willingness to put aside sectional interests in favour of new governance arrangements and funding plans. My fear is that the new membership bands will lose us members but what I’m really looking forward to is a revitalised CILIP, promoting the very real value of information and library services and the skills of its members.
Frances Hendrix
Laser Foundation
A year like many others in library land, summed up, like so much, by Shakespeare in Much Ado about Nothing.
The public library world seems to struggle along year by year, with some major reports, some good quick fixes and some false hope for the future. What becomes of these reports? Very little. One that could have made a difference was the Define report (Public Libraries - destination unknown? A research study of 13-45 year-olds for the future development of the public library), produced by a group of expert researchers new to the library field.
The PwC report on the value and impact made by libraries in their communities, highlighted improvements the sector could make and provided us with the tools. The MLA promised to encourage libraries to use the techniques in the report. Both reports came to nothing in the UK, but both have been widely embraced by other European countries.
MLA’ s announcement of a Blueprint for the sector was more of a grey print. It didn’t go far enough, missed out so much that was essential in taking a long-term view of the sector and was not really research, more mutterings.
The big debate focused on the Better Stock, Better Libraries work and proposals from MLA. At the time of writing it is on ice, or rather being reviewed. Having national systems in place could make the book supply sector more efficient, but the BSBL approach was too much, too top-down, too expensive, too complex and failed to take advantage of existing successful schemes, not only in book supply but also in national cataloguing and catalogues, minority ethnic book supply and bog standard co-operative schemes.
Then there was the Tim Coates bandwagon. What is it about Tim that he can reach the parts other people, libraries and agencies cannot reach? His ability to catch the headlines is remarkable, and maybe this in itself is a good thing. Much pilloried by librarians he did get the sector talked about.
Again in 2007 we have suffered from short-termism. There have been the nice little projects such as Love Libraries, but no sustainability and no all-embracing solutions.
New hopes are raised every time there is shuffle of departments and ministers. Usually they start well with apple-pie statements about the value of libraries, and then fizzle off into declaring that they can’t really do anything. We must wake up to the fact that politically we have no clout and no prospects.
Research now consists of a sprinkling of realistic and visionary funding opportunities. There are patchy small-scale projects that spring up and die down, but nothing major, and the dearth of funds is shocking. Of course we have the mega bucks of the Lottery now and again, but there are very tight restrictions on what can be bid for. How can long-term planning take place in this environment, and what hope is there of consistently high and innovative services across the sector? Every public library should have the same level of service at its core, just like a McDonalds, or M & S.
This year the Laser Foundation closed its books after funding some very imaginative projects. Apart from the Define and PwC work mentioned above there was a project by Bolton Libraries which on very little funding did amazing things in community engagement.
So there is too little funding for innovative research, too little take-up of successful projects that have been funded, and no major, long-term research which would tackle head on the changing nature of society, the fast-moving technological change and the consequences.
With an ageing population of librarians, with fewer opportunities for the bright young things that are around, there will be little opportunity and scope to develop and practise research techniques.
Many will become disillusioned with the sector and the slow rate of change. Role models are now few and far between and getting fewer. What I would like is a centrally funded unit designed to kickstart and strategically develop the public library sector for, say, a period of 10 years.
It would, among other things, fund large-scale research and act on the results. Its focus would be entirely to change the public library sector in whatever way is needed to be fit for purpose. Charlie Leadbeater suggested some such idea in his Laser Foundation-funded work Overdue, but with more emphasis on the research into how we achieve the ‘New Public Library’.
What did the turnarounds achieved by Marks and Spencer, W.H. Smith, Ladbrokes have in common? Drivers, entrepreneurs, vision, money, courage and clout. We don’t have any of those. Lynne Brindley (November 2007 Update, p. 34) has seen the future. Her comment to public libraries? ‘Get on with it.’
Ayub Khan
Head of Libraries (Strategy), Libraries, Learning & Culture, Warwickshire County Council
For too many, inequality is still an inescapable daily reality – disabled people confronted by very real obstacles to participation in society, women facing inequality in pay and bearing an unequal share of caring responsibilities, people with mental health difficulties facing isolation, older people facing a perception that they have a limited potential to be part of society.
It is not only public libraries which have a responsibility to respond to cultural diversity. All library and information staff (in whatever sector) need to have access to a current profile of the community they serve, whether it is a geographical community, a student population or a community of interest (e.g. business, health) and take it into consideration in the management and delivery of every aspect of the service.
There is now a legal imperative for action on equality and diversity issues, but there is also a sound ‘business case’ to be made. Good recruitment practices, which lead to a more diverse workforce, give employers access to a comprehensive range of knowledge, experience and skills. Diversity can help access new markets and improve a company’s image as an employer.
Discrimination is bad for individuals and can be equally counter-productive for an organisation. It can cause stress-related illness, poor work and long-term absences. The resolution of formal complaints requires significant staff time.
A study commissioned by the Cabinet Office and Barclays Bank (The Business of Diversity – Schneider-Ross), involving 140 leading private and public sector organisations, revealed that 80 per cent of those organisations that had made significant progress in delivering equality and diversity were also high performers.
Equality should be a key issue for everyone working in library and information services. But the pace of change is very slow despite all the legislation.
Equality and Social Inclusion SWOT Analysis
Strengths
- Public libraries play a key role as gateways to other civic and community services, e.g. LDA’s Welcome To Your Library project
- Partnership work, e.g. great strides in work with looked-after children.
Weaknesses
- Challenges of multiple discrimination issues still not fully understood
- Competing priorities within the financial context can reduce resources available to bring about change
- Inclusion is taking a back seat in many services due to competing priorities and capacity issues
- Leadership – not sure we are getting this from SCL/MLA/CILIP/ in recent years.
Opportunities
- On 1 October 2007 the three equality commissions – Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) – merged into the new Equality and Human Rights Commission. This should provide a stronger voice for equality
- At IFLA in Durban the IFLA Multicultural manifesto was launched, which we hope will also be adopted by Unesco. Global embrace of diversity.
- Demographic growth – real business opportunity to meet the needs of new communities
- Compass report. Black and minority ethnic staff are seriously under-represented in the library and information profession – especially at management and senior levels. CILIP launched a pilot initiative – provisionally called Compass – to offer a work-based professional development scheme for minority ethnic groups. Research commissioned by CILIP from the Tribal consultancy considered a number of different models. Tribal finally recommended a combination of workplace development backed up by personal and management development support provided directly by CILIP. Candidates’ participation in the scheme will contribute towards Certification or Chartership. A forum attended by representatives of library & information organisations and of existing initiatives in this area warmly welcomed the proposals. It has been gratifying to see how committed the larger LIS community is to pursuing this initiative. We now have a chance to create a mechanism to address the under representation of Black and minority librarians within the profession in general and especially at a more senior level.
Threats
- Loss of focus on race equality agenda in light of growing move towards single equality schemes
- Community ‘sleep walking’ into segregation as many community development roles are cut back
- Number of smaller libraries in remote areas under threat of closure denying rural communities opportunities.
Updated: 21 January 2008