Would public libraries gain from more central leadership and direction? How are they faring in the digital age? Update spoke to Tony Durcan, President of the Society of Chief Librarians, about current and future challenges for the public library service.
It’s often said that public libraries lose impact through being split between 149 different local councils.
Too much is made of the idea that we are 149 separate authorities and therefore cannot agree. Some say we can’t do anything
nationally because of the local political differences.
I think people move from one extreme to another. It’s not as if you have to do everything on a national platform. You could relate to the key issues – unite behind them. I think there is now greater consensus among individual public library services about trying to work as one.
We already do it with the Summer Reading Challenge and Bookstart. It’s not 100 per cent, but it’s probably 90 per cent. That’s without a big stick or extra funding – it’s just that it saves a lot of time. It’s not about someone saying this is what you must do, it’s about the benefit.
It’s about sell as well. At local level, pushing the importance of the local library network, it is easier for the local chief if you are responding to a national message.
Whose job is it to put any national message together?
One of the issues is that there isn’t a single voice. A general view is that it should be MLA (Museums, Libraries & Archives Council). That’s why it was established.
I’ve told MLA Chief Executive Roy Clare that the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) is there to support MLA – not always to agree with MLA, but to try to agree in public, and to get to agreement in private.
Any ideas for the national offer?
I think there are enough common themes to create some unity. If you think of the local government and central government agendas, we are talking about children and young people, community cohesion, literacy and reading. No library service is going to say they’re not important.
You could do some national positioning around those three examples. We can all add our local stamp.
SCL would also welcome an advocacy campaign. Two agencies began work in 2004 on a marketing drive for MLA, but we never got their final message. Since then, MLA’s marketing section has been under-resourced. I’m sure this won’t be resolved until the MLA restructuring is resolved.
What about working with other organisations?
At the SCL’s AGM in May, the message that came back to the executive was that delegates wanted us to be less consensual – with the rest of the membership and with other agencies – to show more leadership, to be firmer, and to set the agenda.
A test will be the National Year of Reading (NYR) and how well we public libraries work with the Reading Agency and the National Literacy Trust. A library membership campaign will be one of NYR’s key projects. NYR will promote it in the popular media, if we can agree one message and approach, right down to individual libraries. There’s a big and exciting challenge for us here.
And CILIP?
I think if you are working on common important themes – and I suppose professionalism is one of them, and the implications of restructuring – there is willingness. What you have to remember is that SCL is a local government organisation. So it’s there to represent us as local government services. So we do particularly look at issues that relate to local authorities. Sometimes people forget that and think we’re a professional organisation. We’re not – it doesn’t mean to say we don’t support a professional association.
What are SCL’s ‘common important themes’?
We’ve agreed priorities as an organisation − to raise our profile around community cohesion and engagement, our role in local government, trying to start to make some sense of the shared services agenda. And of course the reading agenda. What we want is a fluent reading public... there’s more chance you’ll be fluent, if you’re reading for fun.
Any specific examples in these areas?
A shared service, with a library as part of it, isn’t as simple as putting into a multi-purpose building a room, or a collection of books and some People’s Network machines. That doesn’t necessarily have the ethos of a public library – a space where you can come and be comfortable and sit and not feel under pressure to leave, and perhaps have a conversation with someone – that serendipitous nature of browsing, but also being able to be focused.
People too easily think: We’ll build this contact centre as part of the swimming pool entrance, and we’ll give Tony this entrance area and he can put – how many shelves shall we let him have? And oh! it’s a library.
I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but you need more than just the bookcases. It’s quite difficult to articulate when you are doing a brief for your local authority. That’s the sort of issue we’d like to work on. Those are the local government strands.
Any more examples?
Then the service strands, perhaps more allied to the professional agenda – how we will continue to work on reading and learning, information and knowledge.
And there’s the digital issue. A huge issue.
What’s the digital issue?
As I see it there is absolutely no national leadership on the digital future of public libraries.
We really have to sort this out. Individually, we try to think it through in our local authorities, or perhaps in the regions, but we haven’t necessarily got the vision or the ability to know all the issues.
There hasn’t been anyone to champion ICT in public libraries since the installation of the People’s Network. But it is a big issue for us. It’s something where we do need national leadership – the voice, and then we can get behind that. I hope Roy Clare’s up for that. If he can’t force the issue, there won’t be many who can…
What thoughts do you have on the digital future?
If people think about it, they think in terms of the future of the People’s Network. Which is a bit like saying ‘Who should succeed Queen Victoria?’, when you have had time for several reigns in between.
The People’s Network is a huge success. But it was introduced in 2003 – nearly five years ago – and we’ve not given any thought to what follows.
The best discussions the SCL has had have been with the British Library, on its vision for the future of library and information services. We haven’t had any vision from MLA or DCMS or CILIP (it’s a professional issue as well).
What is the digital future of public libraries? Is it about people accessing info through their handheld mobile phone?
The leader of our council in Newcastle has just come back from Poland, where there’s big investment in putting broadband access into community buildings. As in the UK, more and more people are not having landlines at home because they have cheap mobile phone contracts. Very positive until you want broadband access at home – that means expensive reconnection charges. How do you make sure you’ve got that equal access?
I’m not saying the public library is the only place, but it’s one of the key places, where you can also get specialist support. I’m not sure people are going to be seduced by being able to use a modern PC and that’s it, for much longer.
What about more efficient stock procurement?
I think there’s already been a shift. Not universal, but more people are willing to work together. How many public libraries would refuse to standardise, would refuse to go to the National Acquisitions Group standard? Not many, I suspect.
We mustn’t misinterpret the difficulties of better stock. I wouldn’t wish to assume it automatically means that most library services aren’t willing to modernise. It’s quite complex, too, for the library suppliers.
Many authorities have moved on in the very long period since the MLA’s Better Stock, Better Libraries (BSBL) was conceived. A number have totally modernised their stock procurement service. You need an impetus, but some of us have done it without being part of BSBL.
SCL is happy to help MLA, other partners and colleagues consider how to deliver what remains of the programme.
How does the future look after Public Library Service Standards (PLSSs) end in April?
There is a mixed view. There is no doubt that having them helped a great many public library services to gain extra resources or to stave off cuts and improve services. A number of my colleagues are very anxious about losing the PLSSs.
But times have changed. The whole local government culture now is less about nationally prescribed standards, more about local determination.
It’s more about how we achieve that through Local Area Agreements (LAAs). It’s very difficult to see how we will get a culture indicator – the one library indicator – into an LAA. The jury is out. But I don’t sense that it’s hugely negative.
How can libraries use the new LAAs and Comprehensive Area Assessments?
We don’t have any examples of good practice yet, because it hasn’t happened. Some people (like Lincolnshire and Enfield) were very successful in the earlier LAAs – but that wasn’t with the present indicators. I’m not saying they won’t be successful again, but the rules have changed.
We’re keen to work with MLA and the LGA (Local Government Association) on good practice guidance.
What else is significant in the Local Government Act?
First, there was an opportunity for local authorities and districts to bid for unitary status, and several have. That means, let’s say, the county disappears and you become several unitaries. Where will libraries sit?
We’ve taken a view as SCL executive that we’re not there to recommend a best model, but to demonstrate how the different models can and should work. We’re putting together a best practice post on our website, which will be supported by examples: ‘It works really well in this unitary... but for these reasons – the Chief Librarian is visible, there are links through to the portfolio holder’... and so on. It’s not our job to say, ‘The SCL thinks there should be a separate library department in every authority.’
And anything else significant?
The second issue is community engagement. The extreme is handing over assets to community groups. But it’s really about how to engage local people in development and delivery of services.
SCL doesn’t have just one answer to that. We have written to central government and others and they don’t have easy answers either. In Newcastle we’ve been very specific, talking about involving people in the management of the service. We wrote to DCMS and said we were keen to pilot this and asking if they had any advice.
I think it’s quite difficult. And it’s a political thing – I don’t know if it’s necessarily ideological, but it’s not been thought through. Perhaps the approach has deliberately been not to define a process in the belief that, if you don’t think it through, it will evolve locally. That’s a positive way of looking at it! But there’s loads of work to do on this.
What can be done at local level?
It’s about, again, exploring best practice and local research into whether there is an appetite for community engagement. In one part of Newcastle, Libraries, Arts & Leisure is consulting individuals and residents through a survey.
It’s really hard because it’s about articulating what the offer is.
So is it: ‘Would you like to be able to influence our programme, our reading groups, our swimming programme?’ Is it: ‘Would you like to be able to set performance targets, influence our opening hours? Is it: ‘Shall we hand over the building to you with some rules?’ Is it: ‘Would you like to run the service yourselves?’ What is it? I think they’re very difficult questions, for us to ask and for the public to know how to answer.
And there is the issue about representation as well. If you do have an interest group, is it representative?
Why do public libraries matter?
Libraries deliver much better satisfaction than many other local authority services. But we have to be careful not to become complacent. I think we do a really good job, but it’s not for as many people as it should be. There is high satisfaction, but it’s among a particular group.
We’re a loved service. People will support us, even if they never walk through the doors. But how long will that last? I think we have to keep working at it.
There’s a huge strength in being a universal service, but it carries a huge responsibility.
Tony Durcan is Head of Culture, Libraries and Lifelong Learning, Newcastle, and President of the Society of Chief Librarians.
Updated: 20 February 2008