Sintoblog

Last post

2011-12-19T14:10:00.000Z

I began this blog almost 5 years and 317 posts ago. This is my last full day in the office before taking up my new job with the Arts Council, so this is my last blog. I won't go all retrospective on you. A big thank you to all my readers. I hope you found my musings on matters professional useful and/or interesting. Perhaps a new blog will arise for libraries in Yorkshire - who knows?

For now it's goodbye and all the best in the future.

Carl Clayton

SULOS

2011-12-08T10:16:00.000Z

Cessation of the Sheffield Union List of Serials
Over the past year SINTO has conducted a review of SULOS in order to establish the value it offers within the context of today's enriched and developing resource discovery landscape. Opinion was sought from the wider SINTO community and this process culminated in a workshop focussing on resource discovery held in August 2011.

After the consultation process, SINTO has decided that SULOS no longer meets the community’s changing needs and that the value added by a physical union catalogue is not commensurate with the costs of maintaining and updating it.

SINTO members can now however access the new SINTO resource discovery landing page hosted by the University of Sheffield.

In particular, this provides details of serials holdings via SUNCAT, monograph information via COPAC & details of walk-in access to electronic journals.

The SINTO ILL scheme will continue to act as a cost effective means of obtaining documents from local libraries & the SYALL agreement continues to provide users with access to libraries in the region for reference & study.

For further information see the SINTO Resource Discovery guide.

Close to home

2011-11-25T14:40:00.000Z

An important document of relevance to Public Libraries was published recently. It is the Equality and Human Rights Commission report; Close to home: an enquiry into older people and human rights in home care.

The report contains no mention of libraries and there is absolutely no reason why it should. It is not about libraries at all; and yet it is very relevant to the whole debate about the role and future of libraries.

Some librarians and library campaigners might even think that the report damages the case for libraries and provides ammunition for those who want to cut local authority library budgets. One argument that has been used by the leaders of local councils is that much as they would like to maintain funding for libraries they are forced to make decisions about priorities. The cost of providing support for the growing population of elderly people is a major and increasing part of the local authority budget and therefore they have no choice but to cut back on other, non-essential areas such as libraries. Libraries, they argue, are nice and may have widespread support, but the priority has to be looking after vulnerable people in the community.

This report makes it clear that there are many failing in the quality of home care for elderly people. The inquiry revealed many examples of older people’s human rights being breached, including physical or financial abuse, disregarding their privacy and dignity, failing to support them with eating or drinking, treating them as if they were invisible, and paying little attention to what they want. The inevitable and immediate conclusion is that more money should be spent on home care and that to find this extra money library budgets have to be cut. There is little doubt that many politicians, council officers and commentators will take this line.

Does this mean that librarians, and those who campaign in support of libraries, should ignore this report, or dismiss it as not relevant? I think the answer is no. We should pay attention to this report and think about what it means. For those whose job is to run public library services, or who believe in the value of libraries, we must not bury our head in the sand. This report demonstrates an important reality about the situation facing local authorities; a reality that we cannot ignore.

But I am not conceding that this report means that it is futile to fight for libraries. I believe that we need to develop library services that meet the needs of our communities and advocate for the value of libraries, and both of these can only be done with a full understanding of the reality of the situation facing local authorities. I don't think that we deserve to be listened to if we can't show that we fully appreciate the challenge facing our authority's social services department. Above all I believe that this reality strengthens our case.

By this I don't just mean that there are aspects of the library service that can benefit those receiving home care. There is a bigger and more fundamental issue.

This key message of this report is that it is essential that care services respect people's basic human rights. Councils need to take a holistic approach. It is not enough to provide care workers to wash and feed elderly people in their homes. They have to consider their needs as people and to recognize that they have basic human rights. Public authorities also have ‘positive obligations’ to promote and protect human rights. The underlying causes of bad practices are largely due to systemic problems rather than the fault of individual care workers and are caused by a failure to apply a human rights approach to home care provision. The report states;

"Whilst financial restraint is an inescapable reality, our evidence shows that some local authorities are still successfully finding innovative ways of doing things differently, rather than doing less of the same".

The report also highlights a clear need for supportive senior leadership on the central importance of quality, including respect for human rights principles such as dignity and personal autonomy, in the services commissioned. It warns that commissioning care should not be focused only on price.

I believe that this person-centred approach to decision making will highlight the value of library services as an essential and integral part of supporting the dignity and human rights of elderly people. It shows that cutting library services in order to fund social services not only does not produce a significant amount of cash but also contradicts the core goal of the local authority. Libraries are central to human rights and civilisation. You cannot have a human rights focus to care and not take account of libraries.

As I said above, this is the big message to be found in this report, but I will finish by enumerating some of the specific ways in which the public library service can contribute to the human rights of elderly people receiving care.

• Care is about quality of life. For many people reading is a key element of this.

• Isolation and loneliness. For some people reading can help reduce the sense of isolation. A visit from a home library service can be an opportunity for social contact. Getting out of the house is a major problem but if this can be overcome the local library could be a place to visit.

• Information. The report says that older people and their families need to have access to better information when making choices about care provision. The library can provide a range of information.

• The report goes on to say:

"Even when the information is available, it is often not easy to find, or easy to access. For instance, it is often online, although nearly 6 million people aged 65 and over have never used the internet: 42 per cent of those aged 65-74 and 76 per cent of people aged 75 and over. We were also told of information that is inconsistent, out of date or incorrect."

The role of the public library in overcoming the digital divide has been clearly demonstrated e.g. Brighton & Hove libraries winning the Guardian Public Service innovation & progress: transformation award for 2011.
• Support for care workers. The low pay and status of care workers is a fundamental issue that needs to be addressed directly. However the training and development of staff is important. Libraries should be an integral part of the councils' staff development programme and can contribute by developing empathy with elderly people through fiction and non fiction.

Mattie's Poem

What do you see, nursie, what do you see,

what are you thinking when you're looking at me?

A crabby old woman, not very wise,

uncertain of habit, with faraway eyes.

Who dribbles her food and makes no reply

when you say in a loud voice, "I do wish you'd try?"

Who seems not to notice the things that you do,

and forever is losing a stocking or shoe.

Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will

with bathing and feeding, the long day to fill.

Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse; you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still,

as I use at your bidding, as I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother,

brothers and sisters, who love one another.

A young girl of sixteen, with wings on her feet,

dreaming that soon now a lover she'll meet.

A bride soon at twenty-my heart gives a leap,

remembering the vows that I promised to keep.

At twenty-five now, I have young of my own

who need me to guide and a secure happy home.

A woman of thirty, my young now grown fast,

bound to each other with ties that should last.

At forty my young sons have grown and are gone,

but my man's beside me to see I don't mourn.

At fifty once more babies play round my knee,

again we know children, my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me, my husband is dead;

I look at the future, I shudder with dread.....

For my young are all rearing young of their own,

and I think of the years and the love that I've known.

I'm now an old woman and nature is cruel;

'tis jest to make old age look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles, grace and vigour depart,

there is now a stone where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass a young girl still dwells,

and now and again my battered heart swells.

I remember the joys, I remember the pain,

and I'm loving and living life over again.

I think of the years; all too few, gone too fast,

and accept the stark fact that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, nursie, open and see,

not a crabby old woman; look closer - see ME!!

http://www.seniorsnetwork.co.uk/poetry/mattiespoem.htm

A fable for our times.

2011-11-09T21:21:00.000Z

A chief librarian is interested in commercial partnerships as a proactive and innovative way of responding to the economic challenges facing his service. One day he is contacted by a frozen food manufactures who say that they have a proposition for him, so he agrees to meet them.

A smartly dressed business man duly turns up at his office with an offer. They will provide a donation of £10,000 in return for product placement in a library book.

“What exactly do you have in mind?” asks the librarian.

“Well take Moby-Dick for example” says the businessmen. For £10,000 all you have to do is change the name of the main character to Captain Birdseye.”

“I can’t do that” says the librarian “it goes against all my professional ethics.”

“How about £20,000 plus a 10% fee for you?” offers the businessman.

“But Moby Dick is a classic – it’s part of the Western Cannon!”

“You drive a hard bargain - £50,000 plus a 20% fee”

I really don’t think I can...”

“How about we throw in a life supply of fish fingers?”

“Well, OK then, but I will have to win over my senior management team”

They shake hands on the agreement and the business man leaves.

The next day the chief librarian calls a meeting of his senior management team – professional librarians with a lifetime of service in libraries.

“I’ve got some good news and some bad news” he begins. “The good news is that Birdseye have offered us £40,000 for product placement in Moby-Dick”

“And what’s the bad news?”

“We have to lose the contract with Starbucks”

Business critical

2011-11-03T14:27:00.000Z

I recently received an e-mail from the librarian responsible for training in a local public library authority saying that although she had booked four places on our Introduction to training skills course she would probably have to change this to 2 places. She explained:

"I'm really sorry but we have a spending embargo in place now and I can only authorise £250 - was £10,000. Anything over £250 now has to be authorised by our Deputy Director - and has to be deemed business critical."

Of course this is not unusual. The cuts are beginning to bite and whatever we think about the cuts we must all agree that if savings are to be made they should be in areas that are not essential. But how does this Deputy Director decide what is "business critical". Is training staff to acquire training skills critical to the core business of a library service today? When the DD makes this decision in a rational and logical manner (which is how all decisions in Local Government are made), what evidence will they use to inform that decision?

A starting point may well be the recent report from the Future Libraries programme - Change, options and how to get there. The clue is in the title. There will be change in libraries and they need to have the ingredients for generating change. One of these ingredients is the internal capacity to support change. As the report states "Human resource support is also vital …" (p21). Obviously, training skills are a central element of this.

Then the DD could look at the Arts Council strategic document Culture, Knowledge and Understanding: great museums and libraries for everyone - paying particular attention to goal 3 Museums and libraries are sustainable, resilient and innovative and goal 4 The leadership and workforce are diverse and highly skilled. They will note the emphasis on change and innovation, and the need of libraries to adapt to this. The DD will almost certainly highlight the sentence "We will encourage skills development, collaborative working and knowledge sharing, seeking to ensure that mainstream funding responds to the training needs of museums and libraries" and may well scribble "Training skills will help achieve this" in the margin.

Finally they may observe that Training Skills are included under Generic and transferable skills in CILIP’s Body of Professional Knowledge (BPK).

Of course, all these documents are external to this local authority and so may not indicate what is "business critical" to the organisation itself. For this the DD may turn to some internal documents. The library's own document on lifelong learning quotes David Blunket as saying

“Learning is the key to prosperity - for each of us as individuals, as well as for the nation as a whole. Investment in human capital will be the foundation of success in the knowledge-based global economy of the twenty-first century.”

It goes on to say:

"Both national and local Government objectives include creating a learning society where everyone is able to learn and improve their skills via lifelong learning. Learning is at the heart of the local community and fundamental to academic, social, economic and cultural development".

The DD will of course recognise that learning is facilitated by training and instruction.

Finally the DD will turn to the vision, mission and values of their own authority displayed prominently on the office wall which proclaims one of the council's goals to be:

"Striving for Continuous Improvement. This will mean the community would receive better care and their quality of life would improve. Employees will focus on efficiency and improvement and have a can-do attitude."

The DD will know that this is not just an aspirational statement! It means that any activity that contributes to continuous improvement - such as developing staff training skills - is business critical. So the application to send four members of staff on a training skills workshop will be approved.

On the other hand the DD might just think that saving £200 is a good idea.

YLI Music and Drama Service

2011-11-01T09:48:00.000Z

Yorkshire Libraries & Information has decided in principle to close the YLI Music and Drama collection and service as it currently exists. The press release says that "The reduced demand for the service across all 12 Authorities and the consequent fall in use and income has meant that the service is no longer financially viable in its current form."

The collection, based at Wakefield, comprises over 500,000 items of music and 90,000 copies of plays, making it one of the largest collections of performing sets in the UK. It is used by individuals, schools and music & drama groups in Yorkshire and Humberside, and also by organisations and groups outside the region on a pay per use basis.

YLI has set up a review team to investigate ways in which the collection could remain available to the public from April 2012.

Making Music - the organisation that supports and champions voluntary and amateur music groups and amateur musicians - has launched a campaign to stop closure of the service, Making Music is strongly opposed to this, as it will mean the closure of one of the most important public collections of music in the country. They say "We appeal to YLI to consider ways to maintain this vital community and cultural service, and welcome the opportunity to work together to ensure its protection for the benefit of the public".

In praise of the Big Library

2011-10-24T15:37:00.000+01:00

: has Philip Pullman got it wrong?

Few librarians could fail to be inspired by Philip Pullman's address to the Library Campaign's conference. His passionate support for libraries and librarians expressed in such his speech "Consider the context" will surely rank as a key text for the library profession and we hope for society at large. It points out that there is a context to all this talk of "Save our libraries". Saving libraries, argues Pullman, is not about saving libraries - it is about saving society.

The speech was especially welcome coming as it did shortly after publication of a comment piece in The Telegraph by John McTernan. This questioned the need for libraries in a modern society; suggesting that rather like horse troughs they had served a useful function in the past, for which we should all be grateful, but were not needed today.

But despite that - or possibly because of that - we should not take everything that Pullman said uncritically. The bit that I want to take issue with is his statement "It would be far more sensible to close the big libraries and open even more small ones" I don't want to suggest he was entirely wrong to say this but to point out that we need to examine that idea in more detail.

First, in deference to the title of the talk, we must examine the context. The full paragraph reads:

This is why Brent and the other local authorities who want to close lots of small libraries in favour of fewer much bigger ones are wrong. It's a bad policy. It would be far more sensible to close the big libraries and open even more small ones. If Kensal Rise Library is still open, if Blackbird Leys in Oxford still has a library within walking distance of the people who live there, if hundreds of other libraries all over the country are kept open and properly staffed, then readers can reach pretty well any book they want to with the help of the inter-library loan system

.

To some extent the line about closing big libraries is a rhetorical riposte to the plan to close small libraries. It is based on the idea that many people need convenient local access to libraries if they are going to be able to use them. Pullman is also aware (as so many commentators on libraries are not) of the interconnectedness of libraries through the Inter Library Loan system).

The point I want to make is that there should be two elements. First there has to be a good library service and this is a function of size. There has to be a range and a depth of book stock. There has to be a sufficient number of library professionals with a range of specialisms. We need to offer a full range of activities and services to meet the diverse needs of our users. The service is not the same as an individual library building. It is not even the same as a library authority. As Pullman points out individual libraries and library authorities do work together to provide a service.

The second element is how to deliver this service to the people who desire to make use of it. As Pullman makes clear, many people, especially families with young children, will be unable to use the service if local small libraries are closed. On the other hand there are also many people (and John McTernan is probably an example of this group) who are unable to use the library not because of physical access but because the quality of the provision is not what they need. If the library does not offer the full range and depth of materials and services then they are just as excluded as the young child or family who can't afford the bus fares.

Pullman's point is that the network of small libraries is an access point to the larger service and so it should be - but as professional librarians we know this is not always the case. A dozen small libraries are likely to duplicate a fairly limited range of books and even a functioning ILL system does not completely overcome this. The user will not be exposed to the full range of titles on the shelves, there will be a delay in obtaining items and in some cases the user will have to pay a charge for obtaining books from outside the library service - undermining the concept of a free public library.

Large, modern central libraries can provide an in-depth book stock, specialist information services (e.g. business, science & technology, health etc.), a wide range of literature in English and other languages, specialist journals, archives, a range of activities, professional library staff and extended opening hours seven days a week. People who want and need these services will make a special journey to access the library. We are right to be concerned about those people who find physical access is difficult but I do not believe that we are doing ourselves or our customers any favours by not having these centres of excellence. Our communities deserve excellence as well as access and it is our responsibility to deliver both.

I believe in the concept of a big library. I believe that there is a synergy in a single large library that you do not get with a network of smaller libraries. Yes, I know that in theory you can go into the small local library and find what you want on the catalogue or with the help of professional staff, but it is just not the same.

Of course, what we want is both and I genuinely believe that the benefit to a community of such a library system far exceeds the cost. However, we all know that many library managers are being faced with the reality of having to deliver a quality library services with inadequate funding. I believe that as professionals we do need to come up with a realistic way of maintaining a service in the face of unreasonable cuts and that keeping a large number of small libraries open is not of itself better than a smaller number of bigger libraries. First develop the service, then deliver it as appropriate.

Business information

2011-10-21T16:03:00.000+01:00

JISC Open Innovation and Access to Resources (OIA2R ) project

I have been monitoring the pilot projects that were funded by the JISC Open Innovation and Access to Resources (OIA2R), funding call which is part of the Business and Community Engagement (BCE) programme.

For an introduction to the BCE programme see the video and the BCE blog

The aim of the Access to Resources stream of OIA2R was to develop integrated business information services involving universities and other agencies. Five pilot programmes were funded to explore different approaches in different areas.

The project funding has now come to an end and the projects have reported their results. In some cases workable outcomes have been produced while in others concepts have been explored but the results have been limited. It is possible that further work will be done on these projects. I have summarised three of the most relevant projects below.

In summary, the projects have demonstrated that local projects based on co-operation between HE and FE institutions and focused on the needs of local business can produce actual and potential benefits. Local businesses do have a need to access the information and expertise held by universities. Most universities already offer business support services but there is a need for wider and deeper engagement with the business community. Information Technology and the use of Web 2.0 tools can aid this engagement but the technical issues of integrating individual institutional websites must not be underestimated. The process of how individual organisations can work together and focus on the needs of local businesses needs to be considered as much as the technology.

These projects demonstrate that that it would be worthwhile exploring initiatives in our area based on co-operation with local universities, colleges and other organisations. It would be unwise to adopt one of the existing projects as a model - instead we should explore the needs of local businesses. The Universities would be expected to lead on such a project but the initiative should come from the local authority on behalf of local businesses and support agencies.

OPEN Biz

OPEN Biz involved the pilot of an online programme to support Scottish Universities’ engagement with the wider community – namely businesses, social enterprises, charities and business advisors.

Led by the University of Edinburgh and Interface – The knowledge connection for business, the pilot project focused on the West of Scotland, working with key University partners such as the University of Strathclyde, University of the West of Scotland, Glasgow Caledonian University and University of Glasgow.

Outcomes and achievements of OPEN Biz have been:

• Video case studies of 2-3 minutes hosted on YouTube-
• Live blended webinars events which engaged the virtual audience through the use of moderated online chat forum- (Problem with sound at start).

• Testing easier access to research publications via a digital publishing tool.

• A free to download iPhone app with business relevant content.-

For further information go to http://www.interface-online.org.uk/3897 or contact siobhan@interface-online.org.uk. A flyer is available.
BRACKEN

BRACKEN (Business Resource and Community Knowledge Exchange Network) project aimed to develop and optimise the knowledge, information and business support services provided by the South West Wales Vocational Support Initiative (SWWVSI) network of HE and FE institutions and regional business support agencies. The objective was to provide a one-stop-shop for business support information that would be continuously synchronised with the emerging services offer from the partner institution websites and would include general information about business support services in the region, including the support from sector-specific business support agencies, and also current opportunities for support funding.

The project also explored the Enterprise Architecture (EA) modelling methods to improve the operational effectiveness of the regional network.

A beta website has been set up but the project identified significant shortcomings in some of the partner institution business-facing websites and the information they provided about business support services. This had an effect on the ability of the information hub to trawl for information on those websites and was identified as a key area for the Bracken project to address. As a result of this analysis, each institution created a development plan for the improvement of services to be delivered through the SWWVSI network and disseminated through the institutional websites.

ENGAGE

The ENGAGE project, led by Queens University Belfast (QUB) with partner Belfast Metropolitan College (BMC), recognises the importance of bringing together co-located private companies and higher education organisations. In the knowledge that some high profile links have been established already to individuals or private sector organisations beyond the local community (i.e. usually international and attaching kudos), the project is very focussed on encouraging and nurturing relationships between small or large local companies and complementary groups within Queens University Belfast or Belfast Metropolitan College. A useful review of the aims of the project can be found here.

Brent

2011-10-14T12:26:00.000+01:00

I spent yesterday evening reading the judgement of Mr Justice Ouseley in the Brent hearing. Here are my comments, although I must stress that I am not offering any legal advice or guidance on this!

Brent Council's proposals for the library service were contained in a document called the Libraries Transformation Project (LTP). References below are to paragraph numbers in the judgement.

It is worth making clear that Mr Justice Ouseley was not asked for, and did not give, an opinion on the issue of whether the decision by Brent Council to close six libraries was in breach of Section 7 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 (s7), i.e. the "comprehensive and efficient library service" clause. He states:

"It is the Claimants' contention that the LTP involves a breach of s7 on its merits, regardless of the information gathered by the Council. This contest is not before me, and it will be for the Secretary of State to decide what to do under ss1 and 10 about the complaints made by the Claimants and others in that respect. Before me, their allegation is a more limited one concerning the way in which the Council obtained information and then analysed it when carrying out its assessment of needs. This, they contend, was irrational or failed to meet the necessary standards." (p92).

"… I would put it on the basis that if the Claimants can show that something has gone seriously or obviously wrong in law in the information gathering or analysing procedure, they should have their remedy in this court. Otherwise it should be left to the Secretary of State." (p 94).

Given that the Secretary of State has not responded to the complaints of the campaigners in Brent or elsewhere the focus of the argument was on the way in which the Council had gone about its assessment of the LTP. The Claimants hoped that if they could establish that this process was unlawful then the High Court would stop the Council from going ahead with the closures. They failed and the closures have happened, but in principle the Secretary of State can still consider whether the LTP is in breach of the 1964 Act.

The court considered the Complainants' case under 4 headings

1) The Council unlawfully ignored the role which community libraries and groups could play in fulfilling the s7 duties.

The FTP report proposed that by reducing the number of library buildings in the borough and concentrating resources in the remaining buildings; and by developing online and digital services, the Council would improve the quality of library provision while contributing to reduction in funding. This improved library service would, it was claimed, fully meet the requirements of s7. The Council said that it would consider bids by community groups to run private or community libraries providing that they met certain conditions, but that these would be in addition to the Council's provision and not part of the Council's statutory provision. The campaigners argued that the Council failed to consider the possibility of keeping libraries open through the use of volunteers. A key factor was that the Council's conditions for community libraries included there being no cost to the Council while the proposals that were submitted included continuing Council support. The ruling was that failure to proceed with community run libraries was not unlawful.

Some campaigners who are opposed to the use of volunteer libraries may welcome this ruling. Other local groups feel that they are being denied an opportunity to keep local libraries open. It would be a very different situation if a Council was intending to maintain community run libraries as part of its statutory requirements under s7.

2) The Council unlawfully failed to consult.

The Claimants recognised that there had been consultation but argued that way in which this was done was unfair and unlawful because it had not told the public what it needed to know about the running costs of libraries so that groups could make informed responses in support of voluntary arrangements. It was further suggested that the Council had only consulted on its own proposals rather than on a wider range of possible options. The judgement rejected both of these arguments saying that: "The Council was not obliged to consult on alternative means of achieving the same ends; there is no such general principle and such a requirement would make consultation inordinately time-consuming and complex". However it also said: "There was no evidence that the Council was unwilling to reconsider its proposals in the light of the consultation process if a strong enough case had been made". This could imply that a council that was unwilling to consider alternative scenarios could be in breach of its duty.

3) The Council unlawfully failed to assess the needs of library users.

Reference was made to the DCMS Wirral enquiry report which said that in deciding how to provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient library service’ the council must assess and take into account local needs. This does not have the force of law but is a significant document. The Claimants case was that the Council had failed to inform itself properly of the needs of the residents, and then to analyse those needs. It was at this point that the judge made the point that these issue are best considered by the Secretary of State in respect of s7 rather than in the process of a judicial review. Justice Ouseley concluded that the evidence showed that the Council had assessed users needs and that their analysis of these needs was reasonable. In this section he made the following observations:

"There is no requirement that all residents of an urban area should have access to a library within 1 mile of their homes; that is not a measure of a “comprehensive” service. Such a measure could readily have been enshrined in statute. And whatever may have been the guidance of government years ago for example in the Bourdillon report of 1962, it does not now represent the measure of a comprehensive service." (p106)

"The availability of resources is relevant to what constitutes a comprehensive and efficient service; the library service and s 7 duty are not exempt from resource issues and were not entitled in law to escape the budget reductions faced by the Council." (p107)

"The Council’s reliance on mitigation measures which included the use of the internet was criticised as falling outside the scope of s7 which focussed on “facilities for borrowing books and other material”. … In reality, a service which includes the provision of books and other materials by technology and goes beyond the loan of books or other physical items, or the provision of reading facilities on the printed page, falls within the scope of s7, which is not confined to the loan or use of physical items." (p116)

4) The Council was in breach of its public sector equality duty

The Claimants put forward a number of points relating to the Equality Act 2010. It was argued that the closure of the 6 branch libraries would result in indirect discrimination as there was differential impact on some groups, such as young people or particular ethnic groups. Justice Ouseley concluded

"... it did not put persons who shared the relevant characteristic at a disadvantage compared with those who do not. All users of the libraries to be closed have to travel further, irrespective of their protected characteristic or none. No issue of justification for indirect discrimination on race or religion therefore arose". (p139)

"Disproportion in impact may evidence indirect discrimination, and require its examination but it is not of itself proof of it." (p141)

"I do not think that a council can be said to discriminate indirectly against a group with protected characteristics when it closes a facility among the users of which that group is disproportionately represented, unless all those who share the same protected characteristic are adversely affected in their use of the facilities which are left." (p142)

Conclusion

The outcome of this decision was that six libraries in Brent were closed down. The case probably sets a standard against which the decision of other councils to close libraries can be judged. It is possible that other councils will not meet this standard and will have their decision overturned but generally as long as they can show a reasonable level of consultation, needs assessment and equality impact assessment they will not be judged to have acted unlawfully. Attention will now shift to the Secretary of State and whether he will respond to complaints that s7 of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 has been breached. It can be argued that in the long term it is better that the future of libraries is decided by a debate about the value of libraries and not by narrow legal arguments over whether a council has breached this or that piece of legislation. The library profession now faces the task of advocacy and of deciding what model of library provision best meets our current needs.

Speaking up for libraries

2011-10-05T12:51:00.000+01:00

I have been listening to the Radio Sheffield interview with Mayor Peter Davies (Items at 0:59:24, 1:05:20 and 1:25:46.) I don't intend to comment on his plans for volunteers to run several branch libraries. What was clear was that Mayor Davies has little appreciation of the value of libraries - he regards them as a cost rather than as a benefit. He also has a very low opinion of the value of professional librarians. He says he can't understand why you need professional staff to stamp out books. His view is that running a library is a simple task that can be performed by volunteers with no training and that "things are made mysterious" by librarians.

Now I think we should all stand still and take a few deep breaths.... is that better?

So, why would the leader of a local authority take this view (and let's face it, he is not unique in his views although the style in which he expresses them is quite special). Most librarians would say that he does not understand - that he has not got the message. So why is this?

If you have studied communication theory you will know that for communication to happen you need a sender who develops and encodes the message, a channel of communication and a receiver who decodes the message. A failure of communication can result from a fault by the sender, a fault by the receiver or problems with the channel (noise). In this case one suspects that the receiver is unable or unwilling to decode and understand the message. Several reasons can be suggested for this - many of which will involve criticism of the receivers intelligence, personality or politics. Listening to the interview it is clear that Mayor Davies feels that he must find savings, has identified the library budget as a source of saving (albeit a very small percentage of the whole) and is not interested in discussing the details.

However, just because we can blame the failure of communication on the receiver does not mean that the sender has no responsibilities. The case for the library service and the role of professional staff has not been made successfully and as professionals we have to ask ourselves why this has happened. Do we have any responsibility ourselves, as the senders of the message, for this failure? Could we have done any better?

This is where advocacy skills come into the picture. Librarians are, I think, generally good at doing what they do but are not good at blowing their own trumpet - at convincing people of the value and impact of what they do. As Mayor Davies pointed out - we tend to 'make things mysterious' instead. All library services need people with advocacy skills to sell the service to their 'power people'.

In a commercial organisation, if you are good at doing what you do then you please your customers and they pay for your service. In a public service like libraries you still have to please your customers but they do not pay directly. The people who do pay are not receiving your service directly. That is why we need advocacy.

SINTO is running two workshops on advocacy. Gaining support and influence: an introduction to advocacy shows how a planned approach to advocacy can put your library in a strong position. This course is for librarians with responsibility for speaking out about the value of their service.
Measuring and communication impact: advanced advocacy takes advocacy a step further. It looks at ways of raising the profile of your organisation by making sure you demonstrate how it already plays a part in the delivery of key policy agendas.

Having advocacy skills does not guarantee success but not having these skills will probably contribute to failure.

SINTO Training Programme

2011-09-28T14:59:00.000+01:00

The recent spell of warm weather may not be an Indian Summer to be pedantic. (Of course, for librarians, pedantry is not an insult but rather a job description). However, it does remind us that the summer is over and winter is on its way - so it is time for the SINTO Winter 2011-2012 training programme.

SINTO was expecting problems in delivering a training programme during 2011 and 2012. We knew that training budgets were likely to be limited. Also we have been emphasising that our training programme relates to workforce development, in other words providing staff with the skills that are needed to achieve the future strategic goals of the library service. But what are those strategic goals? Continuing uncertainty about the level of future funding and the exact impact this will have on the service makes it difficult to plan ahead. Beyond that there are big questions about where library service should be going. For public libraries that is represented by the debate about the Future Libraries project. The outcome of all this is that library leaders (and yes, I am talking to you!) find it difficult to know what their library service will look like in the next few years and therefore what skills they should be providing for library staff.

SINTO's response has been to listen to its members and to provide a lead - identifying future needs and offering a programme that will meet these needs. Our Preparing for the Future programme is an integrated programme of workforce development events and activities. The goal is to strengthen the link between training outcomes and the strategic goals of the library and its parent organisation.

This is what we have to offer over the next 6 months.

Advocacy. It is probably too late to tell your decision makers how good the library service is after cuts have been proposed. Advocacy has to be 24/7 - an integral part of everything we do. Two linked workshops; Gaining support and influence: an introduction to advocacy and Measuring and communicating impact: advanced advocacy; will give staff at all levels the skills to promote the service.

Copyright. Essential for everyone working with published information. This day will be in two parts - in the morning, an introduction to copyright and in the afternoon, an update on recent developments. You can book for either or both parts. The workshop is lead by copyright expert Graham Cornish.

Training skills. The ability to provide training to small groups is a key skill for library staff. Whether it is staff training or providing instruction to library users, staff need the skills and knowledge to be effective. A two day course.

Answering enquiries. A repeat and update of the successful Enquiry desk techniques events that we have run in the past this workshop will cover the essential interaction with the enquirer - whether they are face to face or remote - and the skills needed to find the information. So much is changing in libraries but this remains a core competence for library staff.

Effective communication. No matter how good you are, if you don't communicate well you (and your organisation) will achieve nothing. Is there a secret to being a 'great communicator'? This workshop will explore communication in the work setting from both a theoretical and a practical standpoint.

Perhaps you don't know exactly where your library service will be in 5 years time but this package of skills will help the library workforce respond to the challenges they will face.

Community engagement

2011-08-23T13:55:00.000+01:00

I recently blogged about community engagement and a course that SINTO is planning to run on this subject. I pointed out that community engagement is one of the "ingredients for change" that are listed in the recent Future libraries report. Most of the debate on this report has, understandably, focused on the "four models of reform" but the ten ingredients for change were identified as important success factors in developing, planning and implementing change. While politicians, heads of library service and the profession and public at large are debating the pros and cons of the models, it will be job of senior library managers to look at the list of ingredients and consider how they can be embedded within their library services. It doesn't grab the headlines but it is an essential part of delivering a library service.

The response so far to the SINTO course has been 'interesting'. One library authority wants to run the course in-house for their staff as they see it as an important part of what they are trying to achieve and want as many staff as possible to attend. I have been happy to help arrange this.

Apart from that I have had only one booking. Does this mean that the topic is not relevant to most authorities? But in that case why is it relevant to two? Is it that senior library managers want to send people on the course but cannot afford it? Or is it the case that over the summer librarians are focusing on their holidays? To be fair, perhaps they are focusing on keeping the service running with reduced staffing levels as other people are on holiday!

I have talked in the past about workforce development. In theory, libraries decide what it is they want to do (e.g engage with their communities), identify the skills that they will need to achieve this and then identify the training provision that will give their staff those skills. In practice it does not always work out like that! Perhaps the e-mails, flyers, blogs and Tweets I have sent out about this course have got lost in the clutter on people's desk, or in-boxes or brains. It happens! See Current Awareness, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the "Mark All As Read" Button by Woodsiegirl and Phil Bradley on filter failure.

I have to remain relaxed about all this. I put this course in the SINTO programme because I thought it was important for the current workforce development needs of our members. If I am wrong then I will postpone or cancel it. But perhaps, when we get to the end of this long hot summer (as if), people will rediscover the messages under all the clutter and will book places. Let me know soon - I am taking a late break myself!

Arts Council England announces commitment to library development

2011-08-16T13:57:00.000+01:00

[This is the text of a press release from the Arts Council England, Yorkshire]

On 5 August 2011, we signalled our commitment to the continuation of the Future Libraries programme, in partnership with the Local Government Group (LGG) and the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS).

The first phase of the Future Libraries Programme has now concluded, with the Local Government Group and MLA publishing the lessons learned on Saturday 6th August. The Arts Council will build on the achievements of this first phase and continue with the partnership approach for Future Libraries 2, a two-stage programme that will run from autumn 2011 to the end of March 2013.

The first stage of Future Libraries 2 will be delivered by the Local Government Group, and will share ideas, learning and best practice from the original programme through seminars and the development of expert guidance. The Arts Council will deliver the second stage of Future Libraries 2, which will focus on long-term goals, strengthening the sector encouraging partnerships and innovation at a local level. We will announce further details in September.

While the Arts Council will not be responsible for providing or funding library services, we will play a significant role in supporting and developing the libraries sector. We see our role as developing the cultural richness and potential of libraries. We would like to facilitate the formation of new partnerships and develop innovative approaches, to enable a stronger 21st century library service for communities across England.

Continuing discussions with the libraries sector, new in-house expertise and a national overview will enable the Arts Council to draw an accurate picture of the challenges and opportunities for libraries, and be in a unique position to help drive national cultural policy.

We will work with partners to promote reading, encouraging people of all ages to experience and enjoy it through festivals, reading challenges and groups, author events, and other initiatives. Digital technology will be harnessed, enabling many more people and communities to access and appreciate reading and create the content themselves.

This is a challenging time for libraries, as it is for many different kinds of cultural institutions across the country. Through working collaboratively with museums and arts we believe exciting opportunities will open up for libraries to build on the important role they play in our communities.

Relationship Manager, Libraries
The position of Relationship Manager, Libraries, in the Yorkshire Office is currently being advertised on our website, with a closing date of 22 August 2011. Further information can be found here:
http://gs12.globalsuccessor.com/fe/tpl_arts_council01.asp
Please feel free to disseminate details of the vacancy to any relevant networks.

Companion to Achieving Great Art for Everyone
In September the Arts Council will also publish a companion document to Achieving Great Art for Everyone, our 10 year framework for the arts, on how we will interpret our strategic goals for museums and libraries between 2012 and 2015. This will also outline the benefits and opportunities we believe exist for all our stakeholders as a result of our wider cultural role. This will build upon the publication of Estelle Morris’ review on how the Arts Council could best approach our extended remit.

We have further work to do ahead of taking on these functions and will continue to engage with you and the wider museums and libraries sector as we look to adjust the Arts Council’s goals to reflect their needs and priorities. An informal consultation on the longer term focus beyond 2015 will be launched in the autumn to ensure a wide range of views are heard about how best to reflect the long-term ambitions of all the sectors that the Arts Council now represents.

I hope that you find this information useful, please do not hesitate to contact Cluny or myself if you have any other queries.

Kind regards,

Abi Cattley
Assistant to the Regional Director
Arts Council England, Yorkshire
Email: abigail.cattley@artscouncil.org.uk
Direct line: 01924 486225
Fax: 01924 466522
Textphone: 01924 438 585

Politics, pragmatism, principles.

2011-08-11T12:23:00.000+01:00

In my recent blogs I talked about the call for librarians to be "political with a small p". But what exactly do we mean by that.
One answer can be found in a paper by Ann Curry published in Journal of Librarianship and Information Sciences 1994 (1). This paper explores the relationship between the chief librarians of public libraries and members of their local authority and was based in part on Bob Usherwood's investigation of public library politics and governance (2).
The paper shows that chief librarians were concerned that elected members might try to influence policy, especially library selection policy, because this might introduce political bias. There was particular concern about "special-interest lobbying groups" and both councillors and librarians felt that they had a better insight into the needs of the community than the other. The councillors felt that they were representing legitimate concerns of minority groups while the librarians complained that members were too ready to respond to unrepresentative pressure groups.

Many UK librarians (in contrast to Canadian librarians) deliberately avoided introducing a stock selection policy on the ground that it would have to go to a library committee and that would encourage a political debate that might not be to the benefit of the library. This sort of pragmatism was also reflected in policy on library displays. The aim of the chief librarian was to avoid conflict. "You have to be reasonably pragmatic. If a councillor says that you must do this, then it is no skin off anybody's nose to move or remove a book. There is no point in having a blazing row over something that is not important in the broader picture". Similarly "Exhibiting material which challenges council policies was considered by officers to be foolhardy and futile, like 'shooting yourself in the foot' according to one respondent." Examples of such taboo subjects included race, sexuality land development, education, taxation, labour relations, nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons. Librarians were particularly keen to avoid controversial media stories. They observed with 'cynical resignation' that "The political careers of the councillors would certainly come before any beliefs in the freedom to read".

This shows a high level of political awareness and skill in avoiding anything that might upset the elected members. The justification was that retaining the good-will and support of elected members was of more benefit to the library service in the long term than having arguments over individual matters of principle.

That was 1994 and seventeen years is a long time in politics. Much has changed including I suspect a distancing of councillors from any involvement in the details of library policy. The community is more empowered and I think would be less tolerant of councillors deciding what books to buy or display. On the other hand pressure groups might want to have a direct say over library policy, so the librarian is faced with a similar need to be pragmatic and avoid controversy.

But is this all that we mean by being political? For some the term means awareness of and involvement in public policy debate. An example of this is social exclusion. The report Open to All? The Public Library and Social Exclusion (3) contains statements such as "Public libraries, as institutions of the capitalist state, are thus configured like many other agencies, in favour of the middle class, who consume public goods to a disproportionate extent". This is a long way from a desire not to upset elected members. The report draws attention to the accelerating problem of exclusion in the United Kingdom, and the widening gap between rich and poor. "This is of concern to the Government because it has implications for both the economy and for social stability".

No one, least of all the authors of this report, would suggest that investing in libraries and promoting social inclusion through libraries could, of itself, prevent a breakdown of social stability. Libraries are a part, and a very small part, of any solution. But they are a part. As I have said before, the Darien statement that "the purpose of the library is to preserve the integrity of civilisation" is overblown and probably pretentious. But there is currently a debate on how we can preserve the integrity of civilisation. Some look to water cannons, plastic bullets and more police on the streets. Others are looking at underlying causes. Libraries are not the answer but they definitely have a part to play in giving individuals and communities some hope of a better future. As Bob Usherwood points out we must not allow councils to play off one part of public service against another. I'm sure that some will say that we can't afford to spend money on public libraries when we have to tackle the real problem of disaffected youth and a 'sick' society, but they are wrong. We should argue for the role of libraries in a political context.

So we have two concepts of what being political means. Heads of service have to work within the system and be pragmatic. They cannot damage the service as a whole for the sake of every 'principle' that comes along. Perhaps this is a function of age and experience. To paraphrase - if a librarian is not an idealist at twenty they have no heart, if a librarian is not a pragmatist at forty they have no brain.

But there is a principle at the core of what we do and we should understand what that is, explain it to our 'Power people' and seek to defend it. Without that core of principle the profession is an empty husk and does not deserve respect. We have to decide for ourselves on the right balance between pragmatism and idealism - and that choice is a political act.

References
1.Curry, Ann. The chief officer / councillor relationship in British Public Libraries. JLIS 1994 26:211
http://lis.sagepub.com/content/26/4/211
2. Usherwood, Bob. Public library politics: the role of the elected member: Library Association Publishing, 1993.
3. Open to All? The Public Library and Social Exclusion. Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, 2000

Communities - empowered or engaged

2011-08-08T11:42:00.001+01:00

What is the difference between community engagement and community empowerment? A good basic explanation is given by the Local Government Group. Community engagement is about talking and listening to local groups. The Group suggests that "Residents can be sceptical about consultation. They often believe that it is a phoney 'box ticking' process and that the council had already decided what it wants to do". Perhaps this is a result of consultation on the lines of "Which branch library would you like us to close?" or "Should we shut the library on Monday or Friday?"

Community empowerment is defined as the outcome of engagement. "Power, influence and responsibility is shifted away from existing centres of power and into the hands of communities and individual citizens".

Both terms are used in the report Future libraries: change, options and how to get there. Learning from the Future Libraries Programme Phase 1 published by the Local Government Group and MLA. "Empowering communities to do things their way" is one of the four "models of reform" presented in the report. This includes transfering library assets or management to a trust or community forum and the increased use of volunteers to run libraries. This has not proved popular with many campaigning groups such as Voices for the Library.

This is followed in the section "The ingredients for generating change" with a section on user and community engagement. This talks about the need for early engagement and the difference between engagement and consultation. "The dynamics of the [engagement] processes are entirely different and produce significantly different outcomes".

The question is has there really been widespread community engagement about libraries and has it really produced the outcome of a desire by communities for empowerment along the lines suggested in the report? Were they really demanding the transfer of library assetts and an increased use of volunteers? I suspect (and tell me if I am wrong) that most library authorities have not progressed far beyond consultation and into engagement, let alone uncovered a demand from communities to run their libraries. A quote from Hertfordshire and Shropshire councils on page 27 of the report ends "However, the engagement also highlighted the need to have 'professional' support and backing through the local authority".

Engagement is essential for public libraries. It can strengthen our case on the value of libraries. It can teach us important lessons about how we should deliver services. It might make us face up to an uncomfortable truth that communities would prefer community run libraries using volunteers to no library service at all. If that is the case we need to do some serious thinking about how we deliver that within the context of a professional library service.

True engagement with a community is not easy. It requires more than good intentions. SINTO is offering a training programme on Achieving Community Engagement through Action Learning. It takes an innovative approach to the subject which may be challenging but which I believe is worthwhile. So far no one has signed up to this. This event is not 'about' training. It is 'about' the future of libraries - change, options and how to get there. Public libraries need to engage with their own future as well as engage with their communities. They need to empower themselves as much as empower their communities.
[At the time of writing I could not find a working link to the Future libraries report. I will review this later.]
Link now added.

Library leadership

2011-08-05T14:55:00.000+01:00

There has been a running theme in my recent blogs, and the SINTO AGM & Members' Day, about Library Leadership and the question of whether librarians should be 'political'. Both terms need to be defined. Library leaders can either mean the senior professional librarians who manage the service or the elected members and senior officers who have ultimate responsibility and control of finances. In this context we are talking about the professional leaders.

Politics also needs to be defined. It can mean the broad view a person has about how society should be organised and governed e.g. "If a man is not a socialist in his youth, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 30 he has no head". However it can be used in the phrase 'playing politics' to mean the horse-trading, wheeler-dealing, and compromise that takes place in order to reach a decision.

On the whole I define politics as the art of the achievable. To achieve the goal of providing a good library service you have to engage with the decision making process in your organisation. There is no point in assuming that the Power people will automatically know what you are doing or appreciate the value of your service. They are faced with many conflicting demands and their goal is to make choices that in their eyes generate the greatest benefits for the smallest cost. They are subject to all sorts of pressures and most of those pressures will direct resources away from the library. Library leaders need to be inside the chamber where the decisions are being made and they need to understand what motivates the decision makers. (One is reminded of the observation that Michael Heseltine was able to find the clitoris of the Tory party!).

That is never easy! There are formal channels of input to the decision making process but there are also I suspect informal channels. In the good old days Chief Librarians probably influenced decision makers by being members of "the club" - in some cases, literally, of the golf club or even, I suspect, the local Masonic Lodge. Today it is in theory all above board and professional but I suspect that library leaders find themselves on the fringes of the real decision making process. However, we must seek out, recognise and seize upon any opportunity we can. We must have the appropriate performance and impact indicators at our fingertips. We must have our "elevator pitches" ready and waiting - and recognise that it could be worthwhile riding the elevator up and down all day waiting for the opportunity! We must collect the stories that will appeal directly to the hearts of the most dedicated bean-counter. We must have a clear policy for advocacy and the confidence to put it into practice.

I have discussed the ethical issues about library staff campaigning against cuts elsewhere. Library leaders need to bear this in mind but they do have a right, indeed an obligation, to make a strong case for libraries.

SINTO is running workshops to help librarians make this case. Two workshops on advocacy will give you the basic and advanced skills for raising the profile of your library. The workshop on community engagement will help root your service in the needs of your community which in turn greatly strengthens your hand when dealing with the decision makers. Leaders, as much as those they lead, need to develop their knowledge and skills. The SINTO training programme will help you achieve this.

Trust me. I'm a librarian.

2011-08-04T11:59:00.001+01:00

Today I am featuring a guest blogger - Prof Bob Usherwood. Bob has been chair of SINTO for the past 9 years and has helped us to be an effective organisation with a firm focus on professionalism. This blog is based on his summing up the presentations at the SINTO Members' Day last week which I have transcribed so it is not in the polished style of writing that Bob usually employs. Bob, in common with many library professionals, is not a blogger or Tweeter but it behoves (lovely word that) those of us who do inhabit the blogosphere to remember that challenging and radical ideas can exist elsewhere.

Bob's Blog!
I would like to pick up on some of the themes in today's presentations.
First of all the idea that librarians are political. Some of us have been saying this for a number of years and one of my heroes, E A Savage (1942), wrote a book about the librarian and his committee in which he examined this relationship. Two recent books; Libraries and Social Justice by Pateman and Vincent (2010) and the Holts (2010) in the US also stress the importance of politics to libraries. We need to grasp and learn about the importance of lobbying, how to get on with politicians and so forth.

Another major theme was how we evaluate and demonstrate the value and impact of libraries. This goes back to the debate about qualitative and quantitative research and the fact that politicians tend to look only at the numbers of bums on seats or book issues. As Einstein said "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted".

Then there is the whole idea of the role of print in the digital age. Among the older generation 25% do not have access to computers.

One thing that came through but was not stated, and annoys me, is how politicians these days are trying to set library services against other public services. I remember the Mayor of Doncaster and the Council Leader in Oxfordshire saying "Well I hope those people who are protesting against library cuts will talk about the old people who won't be served; or the young people who won't be served; or people with dementia." I only wish they had seen the kind of thing that Carla and Becky have done on services to the homeless and dementia patients to show that library services are an integral part of such services. It is wrong to pitch one part of local government services against another.

The whole idea of professional leadership has come up in different ways. Leadership from CILIP; the relationship between librarians and elected members. I think it was Becky who mentioned the importance of trust and that is something we should sell harder. I remember when I was doing some work on library public relations a colleague in a marketing agency said "trust is marketing's magic ingredient". At a time when the Murdoch's of this world are polluting the information area, trust is one thing that libraries can demonstrate.

References:
Holt, Leslie E & Holt. Glen E. (2010) Public Library Services for the Poor: Doing All We Can. Chicago: American Library Association 158pp £45. 50 ISBN 978-0-8389-1050-4.

Pateman, John and Vincent, John (2010) Public Libraries and Social Justice
Farnham: Ashgate 199pp £40 ISBN 978-0-7546-7714-7

Savage, Ernest A, (1942) The Librarian and his Committee London Grafton

Resource discovery in the SINTO area

2011-08-03T14:08:00.000+01:00

SINTO is holding a meeting to discuss local resource discovery on the 15th August.
A definition of resource delivery is the location and retrieval of specific information for library users from a network of collections. In many ways it is the same thing as cataloguing but it is applied to finding items from a number of collections rather than in a single library.
Today the term is generally used for finding information on the World Wide Web but in this meeting we will be looking at local resource discovery - how we can find books and journal articles for our users within the SINTO area. However we cannot ignore the fact that much information is available in electronic form via the Internet.

When looking for something the first step is to check our own library catalogues to see if we have the item in stock. If it is not available we need to explore resources outside our own library. Either we can locate the item and bring it into the library for the user or we can send the user to another library where they can use it.
This is what SINTO was originally set up to do. The scheme has grown and developed since then but the world of information has also changed. The time has come not just to review what we do but to ask why we are doing the things we do.

There are two paths to resource discovery in the SINTO area:
• Inter-library loan scheme. SINTO members can sign up to the local ILL scheme and agree to lend books and supply copies of articles to other members free of charge (except to cover direct costs).
• South Yorkshire Access to Libraries for Learning scheme (SYALL). SYALL members agree to allow the public access to their libraries for reference and study.

SINTO provides various tools to help with local resource discovery:
• The SINTO Directories. The SINTO ILL Directory provides contact details for ILL staff in all SINTO member libraries that take part in the ILL scheme. It also provides details of the online catalogues for libraries in the scheme.
• Learners' Guide to Libraries in South Yorkshire. This annual publication gives contact details for all libraries participating in the SYALL scheme
• Libraryfinder website. This is the online guide to libraries participating in the SYALL scheme. It can be searched by region, organisation and by broad subject headings.
• Sheffield Union List of Serials (SULOS). Many SINTO members list their periodical holdings on the periodicals catalogue of the University of Sheffield. A search of this catalogue will give locations not only for the University of Sheffield's libraries but of other libraries in the region.

Questions for the meeting.
1. What is the need for local resource discovery?
a. Do users still expect libraries to provide them with specific books and journal articles?
b. Is this still part of what your library service offers to its users?
2. What alternatives are there to local resource discovery?
a. Everything is available on the Internet - isn't it?
b. The British Library can provide any item - but what about costs?
c. There are other schemes such as the Unity System.
3. How useful is the current system of local resource discovery?
a. Is SULOS up to date?
b. Are library staff aware of the SINTO tools and do they use them?
c. Does the local ILL system work? Does it deliver access to items in a timely manner?
4. Are there alternative ways of providing a local document discovery service?
a. E.g. Instead of a network could requests be sent to a central hub which then passes them on to other libraries?
5. How should a local document discovery scheme be marketed?
a. I.e. how should the product be developed to meet customer needs and promoted?

The discussion will take place in a relaxed World Café format. If you are interested in attending please contact me sintoenquiry@shu.ac.uk

SINTO Members' Day

2011-07-28T15:10:00.008+01:00

We had a very successful AGM and Members' Day yesterday. Papers from the AGM will be circulated soon. I will also circulate a report on the presentations at the Members' Day including Ronan O'Beirne's paper on From Lending to Learning, the presentation by the two SINTO Bob Usherwood prizewinners on reminiscence work and outreach to homeless people and my reports on the Measuing the Impact of Public Libraries workshop and the Arts Council round table.

The Power Point presentations are available on Slideshare.

Here is short version of Ronan's paper.

From Lending to Learning: the development and extension of public libraries.

Libraries offer a range of services that have evolved in a haphazard way. This is not to say that there is poor quality of service, simply a lack of consistent strategy. The question is "Who looks after public library services in this country?" Is it central government, regional bodies, local government or quangos, and is it all held together by the short term thinking of hands-off politicians and civil servants?

Leadership
There is a conflict between the professional role of librarians and their role as managers within the local authority structure. Many senior library managers are limited to a planning and overseeing role. Leadership qualities are not required and may not exist. Examples of leadership skills would include motivating staff in difficult times and convincing elected members of the relevance of library services to the community. There is a schism between national government policy for public libraries and local authority provision with library leaders caught in the middle. Library leadership is often reduced to an exercise of dismantling a service piece by piece in a way that delivers savings yet maintains the appearance of an acceptable library service. It is rare to find a library service that is led by a professional librarian and not by the local authority bureaucracy.

Informal learning
This is a very powerful concept. People use libraries to improve themselves and achieve self fulfilment through self-directed learning. The library provides a body of knowledge arranged so as to be accessible. Our focus should be on the content of the book - the information and learning they contain - and not on the physical books. We have not capitalised on this enough. We should consider the architecture of learning space in the community unifying academic and public libraries. In Bradford Public Libraries Ronan developed engagement with learning both within and outside the library. Many people trust the neutrality of libraries where they don't trust educational organisations. The current Big Society agenda means there is a need for a revival of the Community Librarianship approach of the 1970s and 80s.

Information literacy.

This is an important concept that has not been fully recognised in public libraries. The implementation of the People's Network was very successful but the training was based on the European Computer Driving Licence and this was too shallow. On the whole users were not interested in word processing and spreadsheets but in using the Internet for information and communication. front line staff weren't trained in this. In Bradford Ronan developed the Pop-i project using online virtual learning to train public library staff in information literacy. It increased job satisfaction by enabling them to help library users. An attempt was made to involve MLA in distributing the package to all public libraries but they were not interested.

In the UK the information literacy agenda is biased towards the needs of academic libraries with an emphasis on plagiarism. In the USA recently there was an Information Literacy Month supported by Barak Obama to help people understand the implication of the information that they are exposed to. Technology has failed to remove the barriers of social exclusion in libraries and the promise of free access for all has not been met.

Ronan finished with three key messages
1. Library leaders need to be political with a small p. This is against our own sense of being professional but we need to get inside the chambers of local authorities and say "This is what we do". The next generation of professional staff need to take this on board.

2. Learning is happening in public libraries. It is informal and hard to measure, but it happens.

3. Digital literacy is the territory of librarians and we need to move into this.

Arts Council and libraries.

2011-07-21T14:44:00.000+01:00

This week I went to Dewsbury to take part in a regional roundtable event, hosted by the Arts Council England (ACE), for key museums and libraries stakeholders within the region. The event was part of the 'journey' to transfer responsibility for libraries from the MLA to ACE as covered in my previous blog. It looked at Estelle Morris's review and focused on thinking around how we can make the most, in Yorkshire, of our broader cultural footprint.

It was in many ways a symbolic meeting. There were no major developments to report and it was not a forum for hard bargaining about what the libraries and museums sector want from ACE. Instead it was an opportunity to get to know each other. We are still in the 'forming' stage of team development and will have to move on to 'storming' and 'norming' before we start 'performing'. It does mean that libraries in out region can now put Dewsbury on their cognitive map.

Many items of interest did emerge from the discussion. Some in the arts world are concerned that the inclusion of the museums and libraries sectors will dilute the support of ACE for their sector, and this is exactly the point that I made about the concern of librarians. However everyone recognised that there were areas of common interest and possible synergies to be had. The Arts Council has a good track record in influencing its sector through advice and in the distribution of funding from government and lottery sources. It recognises that the position of public libraries with regards to funding is different but is keen to engage with the sector.

The roundtable gave a general welcome to the Morris review and is looking forward to the appearance of a revised ACE strategy document. It was suggested that there should be a stronger and more aspirational overarching statement on the value of 'arts and culture' and I contributed the Darien statement that "the purpose of the library is to preserve the integrity of civilisation" with a warning that such statements can be too aspirational!

ACE has the role of advocacy for its sector but like the MLA before it we should not expect them to be a 'Save our Libraries' campaigning body as such. The MLA did come in for criticism of its role in this respect and this is one issue that ACE will need to sort out. ACE does have a good track record in protecting the arts and influencing decision makes. It was pointed out that this comes down to winning hearts and minds and in this sector the contribution of creative and performing artists in arguing for the value of the arts has been critical. The impact of authors supporting Save our Libraries campaigns has been significant (e.g. 'Bennett to read riot act in court over library closures' The Independent 20th July 2011), and links with the wider arts community can only help.

This led on to my asking a question about measuring the value of arts and cultural activities. I had noticed that in the ACE strategic framework for the arts - Achieving Great Art for Everyone - there is a section on evaluation which says "Robust evidence will be important, both to inform effective policy making and to demonstrate the impact and value of the arts" and this echoes what is happening in our sector. (Come to the SINTO Members' Day if you want more information). One aspect that was raised in the meeting was wellbeing, and this is an area where arts and culture can be shown to have an impact. English National Ballet has been working with people with Parkinson's disease and a recent report identified seven steps to protect against Alzheimer's which include mental stimulation in old age. Given the rising costs of care of elderly people to society, the benefit of cultural activities including library use is compelling. Of course ultimately we don't want to save libraries, or ballet, because they have a cost benefit. They have an intrinsic value which transcends this. Achieving Great Art for Everyone contains a number of statements on the theme 'What can art do' which are applicable to culture in general and to libraries by implication. I will finish with a small selection:

Art reminds us of what more is left to do in the world
Art can help us find expression for the ecstatic joy of being alive…
Art in the form of books and the written word can … make us better human beings and create the circumstances for a creative and humane society.
Art gives meaning. Life is meaningless and art is an attempt to make sense of it.
[Art] allows us the illusion of escaping our daily lives while simultaneously taking us deeper inside ourselves.

Review of the Arts Council's strategic framework

2011-07-14T14:21:00.001+01:00

The news of the transfer of museums and libraries (but not archives) from the MLA to the Arts Council was I suspect greeted by the majority of the profession with neither whoops of joy nor cries of disappointment. For many people the overall strategic framework in which we operate has little practical impact on what we do. For public librarians fighting against or struggling to manage cuts in public libraries the change may appear to be about rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

While having some sympathy for this view I do feel that this strategic framework is important and has the potential to make an impact on what we do for good or for ill. It is therefore a discussion which library staff at all levels should be part of.

The aim of this review by Baroness Morris of Yardley is to consider how the five strategic goals in the Arts Council strategic document Achieving great art for everyone, could be developed so as to embrace the expanded responsibility of the Council for museums and libraries. Critics of the review have said that “They [the Arts Council] are trying to shoehorn the needs of the library sector to fit in with the functions of the Arts Council". To some extent this is a valid point. The existing Arts Council goals are being developed. No one is suggesting that they should be torn up and a completely new set of goals written. That is the political reality and I am not sure that there is any point in trying to change that. We need to accept the good intention of the Council in commissioning this "icebreaker" and embarking on "a wider conversation with the libraries and museums sector about our future role."

One concern of the libraries sector is with dilution. If we accept that there is a need for a strategic oversight of the libraries sector then we want a body that can focus on libraries and understands the sector. There used to be a Library and Information Commission. This merged with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and now this is merging with the Arts Council. We fear that no one really understands what it is we do; will this just get worse when we are a small fish in an even larger pool?

A second concern is that the Arts Council is not a good partner for the libraries sector. Yes, there are areas of common ground but do we really have much in common with the 'luvvies' of the Arts world. Won't we be left nursing a drink in the corner of the ball while the person who brought us dances with the glitterati?

The solution to these concerns surely lies in our own hands and that is why we should be careful of responding negatively to this initial approach. As Baroness Morris points out "One of the challenges for any sector is not to let itself be defined by its organisational structure… The success of any sector depends in part of its ability to cross boundaries and link with and learn from others. The activity itself can outlive its organisational structure."

We must not allow ourselves to be defined as wallflowers. The roll of libraries is unique and special but Baroness Morris has identified enough areas of common ground and synergy to make further debate worthwhile. She has suggested the following overarching goal:

"Museums and libraries, art and performance are of value in their own right but they only make real sense when they connect with people and become part of the life of the nation and its citizens. The overarching goal of the arts and culture sector must be to realise its potential as an essential part of a civil and civilised society."

No, perhaps this statement on its own would not convince council leaders bent on wielding the axe that public libraries are really needed. But it echoes what many librarians and library campaigners have been saying, and by joining together with artists and performers - and those who appreciate such things - it must give us greater strength.

Baroness Morris concludes:

"Whether it is a performer or an artist, a local library or a major collection, it is only through being confident in themselves that they will ever recognise their place in the wider sector and the part they can play in society."

We cannot expect others to share this belief in our role if we don't recognise it ourselves and express it with confidence. We cannot allow ourselves to be the wallflower at the party. As Diana Krall said:

There may be trouble ahead

But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance

Let's face the music and dance

Freedom of Information

2011-06-27T12:32:00.000+01:00

The "mission statement" for the website Whatdotheyknow.com is "To help you find out inside information about what the UK government is doing" It achieves this by helping members of the public submit Freedom of Information requests to national and local government. Full details of the FoI requests and the responses are made available on the site.

The site currently contains details of a request made to Leeds City council under the heading Rationalisation of Library Services: e-mail from officials, which asks: "Please supply all emails by or to council officer Catherine Blanchard that relate to the current proposed Leeds Library Services changes and cuts."

The correspondence is of interest on many levels. It shows the local authority as being slow to respond to the request and defensive. Perhaps this is justified. There is such a thing as "vexatious" requests and from the Whatdotheyknow website you can see that this applicant has made over 600 FoI requests. Does this make him a champion of human rights fighting on behalf of his community or a serial complainer out to cause trouble?

At one stage in the correspondence the local authority objects to the fact that the request has come through Whatdotheyknow.com rather than from a private e-mail address. This raises an interesting question about the role of the library in helping users with the FoI legislation. The mission statement quoted above could be applied directly to the library service. It is clearly our professional role to "help you find information about what the UK government is doing". Libraries provide access to government publications, newspaper reports, websites, etc. Librarians would be expected to provide information about FoI legislation and material on how to use it. Providing signposting to Whatdotheyknow.com must be seen as part of this. But would library users be able to access it from the library or might they find it is blocked by the council's filtering? Would members and senior officers be happy with the library directing users to such a site? Would some librarians impose censorship by, for example, not listing this site under sources of government information? Our responsibilities as professionals are clear.

Another issue is that it serves to remind to library managers and leaders of the concept of freedom of information. At one point in the correspondence, the Information Commissioner's office is quoted as saying:

"It is the view of the Information Commissioner's office (ICO) that staff acting in a professional capacity must have a reasonable expectation that comments and opinions that they make in the course of their work may fall under a request made ... While the disclosure of comments... may result in embarrassment to the
staff concerned and to ... the organisation, the data cannot be withheld unless there is a valid exemption"

One would hope that information professionals are information savvy. One would also hope that they are technically savvy and would not accidentally copy e-mails to people they are not intended for, and that they are aware of the requirements of the FoI legislation and the principles of freedom of information in general. It is not a bad idea to think that any e-mail you send might enter the public domain and to ensure that what you are saying is professional at all times.

One effect of FoI legislation will probably be to ensure that when people want to make potentially embarrassing comments they won't do it in a recorded form such a e-mails. If you want to tell a colleague that the local library campaigners are a bunch of nutters who should be ignored then do it face-to-face! But the real lesson should be that the public do have a right to know what government is doing in their name and that libraries exist to help them achieve that.

Future of Libraries Services in the Big Society

2011-06-23T12:07:00.001+01:00

6th National Conference, London 21st June 2011
A conference of this sort is clearly aimed at library leaders; i.e. not just heads of services and senior library managers but also at senior officers and members - those who make the long term policy decisions and control the purse strings. It is this latter group that have the greatest need to hear this sort of discussion - given the widely recognised low level of appreciation of the issues by many library leaders - and it was disappointing but not unusual to find that they were underrepresented in the audience. My own quick rough count of the attendees list shows c40 librarians, 11 senior directors and 4 councillors.

But of course you didn't have to be there in person. I and apparently many others were watching the conference on-line courtesy of Policy Review TV. I would love to know how many heads of service set up viewing sessions for their Directors, Chief Executives and portfolio holders. They would have been able to share and event that, while not exactly earth shattering in terms of new ideas, provided much to consider and debate.

The first speaker was Ed Vaizey MP, Minister for Culture with direct responsibility for libraries. The significance of Government Ministers at events like this is quite arcane. They will arrive, deliver a speech, and then leave, so there is seldom an opportunity for debate. Sometimes they will use the opportunity to deliver a major policy speech but, as in this case, it is usually more subtle. The fact that they have accepted the invitation to appear - and have actually turned up - is often the most important aspect. In this case it suggests that the Government (or at least a part of it) does think that library services have a future. It is not much, but it is better than nothing.

Mr Vaizey's speech went little further than this. He began by saying he was in a positive mood and praised the "fantastic work going on in libraries all over the country". Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick at any rate. He then moved on to specific examples, the coming together of three London boroughs to form a unified library service; the award to Hillingdon of the Bookseller's Library Innovation of the Year award; Lancashire Libraries' partnership with the University of Lancashire and examples of new builds and refurbishments. There was nothing in the way of carrots or sticks to encourage other authorities along the same path except for keeping Mr Vaizey in a positive mood.

The Minister then declared that "… the public library service is a huge asset to be exploited; not a burden to be gradually got rid of". This reference to the Governments consultation on administrative burdens on local authorities suggested a commitment to maintaining the Public Libraries Act, particularly as he moved directly on to the issue of his intervention in library closures under the act. He stated that he would not shy away from doing so if there was a case for it but immediately mentioned two provisos. The first was that the current situation was still fluid. The second was that it was better to have a dialogue with local authorities and that officials from his department had met with officers and campaigners in 5 local authorities to discuss cuts. He added that he would not meet with people personally as this might compromise his position in making a final decision as required. His message to local authorities appeared to be that he was happy to give them plenty of time to discuss options and alternatives but although he was keeping his powder dry he was prepared to use the weapon of intervention if all else failed.

At this point the Twitter feed for the conference was filled with Tweets pointing out examples of library service cuts which appear to show a very strong case for immediate intervention. Inevitably many will see this claim to be holding fire "for the present" as covering up an intention not to shoot at all.

Mr Vaizey then moved on to the options and alternatives that he was inviting authorities to consider. Rationalisation (i.e. mergers) was one option. "Community supported" libraries was another. He did promise that continued council support to community libraries with a core service would be a key factor. He referred to the MLA document Community Managed Libraries and the work of Locality

Finally the Minister referred to the transfer of responsibilities to Arts Council England and the benefits that this would bring. He promised another Future Library project and hinted at a "few more ideas that we need to explore". Opportunities for libraries to access Arts funding were dangled before the audience and the desirability of WiFi enabled libraries was mentioned, without of course any indication of how this might be funded.

Overall it was a disappointing presentation, at least for anyone hoping against hope for a stronger lead on library cuts. His support for the role of volunteers in delivering library services was clear. The Minister did draw a line in the sand and warned councils not to cross it but their room for manoeuvre behind that line is large. His closing remarks that the situation provided "opportunities" for libraries shows that his scriptwriters had run out of any original ideas and were scrapping the bottom of the cliché barrel. However we must take what we can from this speech. Mr Vaizey could have sent his apologies and his phrase that "the public library service is a huge asset to be exploited; not a burden to be gradually got rid of" could well feature on the Voices for the Library website (although the cynics out there may well ask exactly how the "asset" of libraries will be exploited, and by whom!).

Sharing top billing with Ed Vaizey was Annie Mauger, Chief Executive of CILIP. Annie's theme was the role and importance of professional librarians in delivering library services. She began by saying that that CILIP members would of course expect her to defend the role of professional librarians but pointed out that CILIP is also a charity with the clear aim of upholding the "public good" and not just the interests of librarians. The two were synonymous. Public libraries always have been living examples of the Big Society in practice - including the use of volunteers. The core professional skill of librarians in knowledge of their community was central to the process; Annie drew a parallel with the role of GP's in the NHS under the Government's reform proposals.

Leaders of library services are often not librarians themselves. This is not important in itself, what is important is that people get a good library service. Everyone seems to think they know how to run libraries but they don't know what they don't know! There are three key aspects of professional skills:

• Librarians know what you don't know. These information finding skills are central to open access and knowledge sharing which are the basis of the Big Society.

• Librarians know their communities. They understand their needs and plan to meet those needs. They make the process so easy that it is almost invisible.

• They are impartial, neutral and safe. Above all they are trusted.

Turning to volunteering Annie pointed out that this had existed within library services for many years but what was new was devolving services to communities. There was talk of a statutory core network and a community network. How do you ensure the standards of the community network? Volunteers need training and support at least. There was a need for a capacity of skills and knowledge. Some communities might be able to provide this capacity but other more deprived communities lack this, and the greatest need is with the latter. Annie stressed that we were talking about "brains not bricks", not about library buildings but services.

"If we lose an understanding of what a professional library services is" claimed Annie "then we lend books but we don't inform, support, educate, help to grow, help local authorities intervene early in the lives of young people; and put some heart into communities."

In conclusion, there is a distinct set of core skills. The library profession has a responsibility to skill-up the library workforce and young professionals need to aspire to a leadership role in librarianship. A key new role for librarians is as a collaborator with communities.

This was an inspiring speech but lacking, it has to be said, an inspiring presentation. Compared with the always inspiring Miranda McKearney who spoke later, Annie was rather subdued. Her message about library leaders not knowing what professional librarians bring to the party is not new but is very relevant. What she could only hint at is that often this is the fault of those professional librarians for not keeping their skills up-to-date and not putting themselves forward. As I said at the start of this blog, how many heads of service have used this conference as an opportunity to get this important message over to their local "Power people"?

Video recordings of the presentations at this conference are available at http://www.policyreview.tv/live/571/216

From Lending to Learning

2011-06-01T14:10:00.000+01:00

What is the role of libraries and librarians? In particular, what is our role in respect of books?

For some the library is dead. Everything is available on the Web and it can be delivered to your mobile digital device so why do we need the library as an intermediary? Many people (and not just librarians) strongly disagree with this and argue that the library is still an important concept for many reasons. It provides access for the digitally excluded; it selects and organises information in digital and print formats; and of course everything is not available on the web.

Some observers have a more fundamental objection to relying on digital information. Professor Susan Greenfield fears that "our very understanding, our sense of reasoning, might now also be diminished and brutalized by the simplistic sensory sensations of the screen experience" (ID: the quest for meaning in the 21st century). She suggests:

"For us, the icon on the screen can be a symbol for many things but without a pre-existing conceptual framework there can be no metaphor. An intellectual skill that comes from reading books is the process of generalization of an abstract concept from a multitude of different examples. Might succeeding generations be less inclined to savour ideas without icons? Will they understand concepts such as democracy, honour or soul? Once you have framed your question about an abstract concept you can turn to Google or Wikipedia. But my concern is that such open ended questions won't occur to those brought up in a world of screen experiences. A world of immediate response rather than of reflective initiative."

So books and libraries are still relevant, but what exactly is the role of libraries and librarians. Some critics have accused us of loosing the plot:

"The once famous and treasured book collections had been allowed to dwindle to the point of uselessness, if not extinction. Book lending - the libraries' main function - had halved. Visitor numbers had fallen." (Tim Coates. The Good Library Manual).

Coates is not anti IT. Far from it, but his message is that librarians should focus on the essentials. Provide a good stock, an attractive building and extended opening hours and everything else will fall into place. Anything that distracts attention away from this core function is a bad thing. If I understand Tim Coates correctly he is saying that if we run "good" libraries then the users will come and when they come they will benefit from all the wonderful things that libraries and books can provide. But librarians should not be overly concerned with those final ends. Those goals - lifelong learning, social inclusion, community empowerment - may well emerge, but our concern should be with running an efficient library and nothing more.

However, many professionals are not prepared to accept this view of their role. Ronan O'Beirne is the latest to call for a new direction in his recent book From Lending to Learning;

"… the role [of libraries] has less to do with books and more to do with literacies, people, the human condition and social justice - and … much to do with learning"

O'Beirne is not arguing against books nor against the role of libraries in providing books. Instead his argument is that the focus needs to shift from the stock to the users;

"The library needs to focus on learners; it needs to embed an understanding of the needs of learners in both traditional and computer-supported learning into every activity. This shift of emphasis needs to be championed by library leaders and set before the users of the service in a clear way."

Ronan O'Beirne will be the keynote speaker at the SINTO Members' Day on the 27th July this year. This is an opportunity to hear his views and debate the issues raised for the profession.

Difficult users

2011-05-24T12:29:00.000+01:00

"I cannot imagine life without libraries, the librarians are real friends and so helpful."

This quote (taken from the Voices for the Library website) is typical of the views of many thousands of library users who have nothing but respect and even affection for library staff. But it is not always the full story.

As in any public facing service, library staff will also have to deal with people who are unfriendly, grumpy, annoyed, angry and even aggressive. Libraries are freely open to their clients and our doors are open to anyone. It's not something that most library staff spend much time worrying about, but the fact is that any member of staff might find themselves dealing with a difficult customer.

In the past the usual response of front-line staff was to call for "the librarian" to deal with problems, but changing staffing patterns mean that front-line staff are more likely to have to deal with problems without the immediate support of senior staff.

The aim of Dealing with Difficult Users is to recognise factors which may influence the negative attitudes and behaviours of the user and to understand the different methods of dealing with these attitudes and behaviours. During this one day session learners will discover their own natural style when dealing with a difficult user. In an interactive format learners will discuss techniques and practice applying them in a ‘scenario’ session.

The goal is to defuse difficult situations so that staff and user can work towards a solution. However the course also recognises that sometimes, through no fault of the staff, a difficult customer can become aggressive and even violent. Staff will be shown how to recognise the warning signs and how to use distance to when dealing with a difficult customer. Finally the use of "reasonable force" will be explained.

Libraries have a duty of care to their staff and other users. Although such situations are thankfully very rare library staff must be given the confidence and skills to manage difficult customers. This course, delivered by staff from the West Yorkshire Police Training Centre, is essential training for all staff dealing with the public.

Further information is available here.

Developing and managing e-book collections

2011-05-23T12:41:00.000+01:00

Developing and managing e-book collections on a budget 8th July 2011

A recent report in The Guardian on the popularity of e-books points out that both Waterstone’s and Amazon in the UK say that sales of e-books outstrips the sale of hardback books while in the USA Amazon sells 105 e-books for every 100 print books.

In April The Guardian looked at the growth of e-book lending by UK public libraries. Phil Bradley, vice president of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip), was reported as saying: "It's a 24/7 service; you don't have to physically look after the books; you're able to get books to people who can't get to the library, such as shift workers and those who live in rural areas; the readers can choose the size of the font, which helps the visually impaired; it's flexible and it helps to outreach library service."

As part of our Preparing for the Future programme, SINTO is offering an course to help your library service prepare for the impact of e-books.

Developing and managing e-book collections on a budget: an introduction is designed to support libraries in any sector that are beginning to set up e-book collections. The course will also facilitate consideration of the new opportunities e-books offer for libraries and users in academic, public and special library and information services, and will explore some of the significant collection management and promotional issues which challenge information and library staff.

Further information here.

The future of the library

2011-05-18T12:08:00.000+01:00

Seth Godin is an author, speaker and marketing guru with an interest in libraries.

Seth Godin's blog The future of the Library: what is a public library for? explores the changing role of libraries. According to Seth the role has changed from "The library as warehouse for books worth sharing" to "The library is a house for the librarian". The future according to Seth is built around e-books and electronic information. He concludes

"There are one thousand things that could be done in a place like this [the library], all built around one mission: take the world of data, combine it with the people in this community and create value".

He also suggests that "Librarians that are arguing and lobbying for clever ebook lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending library as warehouse as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario".

This resonates with the new SINTO training programme Preparing for the future. We have identified two linked themes. The first "Impact" looks at the fundamental question "What is the library for?" The SINTO Members' Day will look at one aspect of this. The second theme is technology and how that will affect libraries. We are running a course on e-book collections. Incidentally, this course may well look at "clever e-book lending solutions"! I am not convinced that we are missing the point here but it is an interesting issue for debate.

But how concerned are librarians with "The Future"? Inevitably many librarians are focused on the present. The financial year end is the future that we are most concerned with. But we all know in our hearts that there are times when we have to get out of the office and take the longer term view. The SINTO training programme is designed to help you achieve that.

SINTO Training Programme

2011-05-16T17:12:00.000+01:00

I have just circulated the SINTO Summer Training programme to members of SINTO. As I mentioned in my previous post I have been trying to put together an integrated programme of workforce development events under the heading Preparing for the Future. At the same time I am exploring several different themes so there is something for everyone.

The first theme is progress through technology. OK, I pinched that from the Audi adverts; it translate into German as Vorsprung durch Technik. I have invited Chris Armstrong and Ray Lonsdale to deliver their workshop on Developing and managing e-book collections. Chris recently published The 2011 Guide to Free or Nearly-Free E-books and copies are available to delegates at a reduced price. I plan to follow that up with a workshop on mobile technology and access to information.

The next theme is developing the skills of staff. We are running a workshop Dealing with difficult users. Most of our users are anything but difficult but with any public facing service there will always be times when staff have to deal with difficult and possibly agressive users. The aim is to defuse these situations and turn them into something positive but staff have to know what to do if things start going wrong. I suspect that with decreased staffing levels, front-line staff are more likely to have to resolve such issues without immediate support from senior staff. Libraries have a duty of care to ensure that their staff have the confidence and skills to deal with such situations.

The final theme is Impact of library services. This has several strands; how to measure impact; why we need to measure impact; and what that impact should be? We will beging with the keynote speaker at the SINTO Members' Day. Ronan O'Beirne will be talking about his book From Lending to Learning. If libraries are about lending then impact can be measured with issue figures. However, if libraries are about something else (or something else as well), then we need different ways to measure impact.

I hope to follow up this theme with events about community engagement, advocacy, and measuring impact.

Details of the current programme can be found on our website.

From Lending to Learning

2011-04-27T15:56:00.000+01:00

In a recent post I explained that SINTO was developing a training programme called Preparing for the Future which was an integrated programme of workforce development events and activities. The goal was to match training outcomes with the strategic goals of the libraries in our region.

Of course for this to happen the libraries concerned have to have a clear idea of what their strategic goals are and for public libraries in particular this is often a problem. It's not that public libraries don't have strategic goals - on the contrary they often work under detailed statements of mission, goals, aims and objectives. The problem is that that they are often diverse and sometimes unclear. Librarians often feel that local councillors and senior officers don't understand what the role of the library is or could be but professional librarians themselves don't always agree on the fundamental role of the library service or what its future direction should be. Should the emphasis be on excellence or equity? Is the priority to get greater footfall and higher issues? Should the library service be measured by its contribution to other government agendas or against its own values?

A recent contribution to this debate is Rónán O'Beirne. Rónán is director for learning development at Bradford College and before that was a librarian with first Haringey Libraries and then Bradford Public Libraries. He has published From Lending to Learning: the development and extension of public libraries.

Rónán's thesis is that the role of the library has less to do with books and more to do with "literacies, people, the human condition and social justice - and … much to do with learning." Learning for Rónán is not about following accredited courses to obtain qualifications but rather with informal lifelong learning. Public libraries should exist not only to give people access to the resources they need for learning but to provide a learning space, develop information literacy skills and provide support and guidance. He suggests for example that public libraries should provide their users with access to a Virtual Learning Environment such as Moodle.

Rónán warns against the tendency to equate the iconic significance of the book with the public library, claiming that "it bestows upon the public library a reverence it rarely deserves based solely on the books it stores." Instead the library "needs to focus on learners. This shift of emphasis needs to be championed by library leaders and set before the users of the service in a clear way". He also says that in calling for a raised priority for learning we must challenge the book-lending role of the public library.

Such statements will inevitably attract criticism from those who see book lending as the libraries' main function. Tim Coates is not alone in criticising "the constant denial by librarians of the connection with books that has not only led to libraries having less books, but to the public finding libraries to be less useful, and thence to them being closed". However I believe that this is not a denial of the connection with books but instead an argument that libraries are about more than books, they are about how and why people use and value books – and that is for learning. Rónán draws attention to the role of the reference library and points out the paradox that the explosion of information, rather than increasing the role of the reference library, is making it redundant in its current form. However this does show that libraries did have a valid role that was not about lending books and suggests that a new learning role could develop that also is not obsessed with loans.

Rónán's aim is to free librarians from the burden of diverse goals that often relate to other people's agendas and replace these with a single coherent goal that looks back to the traditional roots of public librarianship and forward to the needs of our communities and the imperatives of technology. He is critical of some current professional thinking and there is much in this book to take issue with - but that is part of its value. You might disagree with this book but the concept of a clearly defined "big idea" at the heart of what it is that public libraries are all about is attractive and powerful.

From Lending to Learning is published by Chandos.

Next Generation 12

2011-04-27T10:39:00.000+01:00

The long established Next Generation programme (provided by SINTO and Renaissance Yorkshire) will be running in 2011-2012 with delegates from eleven organisations.

It is not too late to book for the whole programme but it will also be possible to book for individual workshops over the next 12 months at a price of only £60 per workshop (plus VAT).

Next Generation 12 will cover the following topics:

Managing yourself
People management
Leadership and team working
Change management
Project management
Financial management
Communication skills
Influencing & persuading
Marketing
Creative thinking

The exact schedule is developed with the candidates at the start of the course. Workshops are held at various locations throughout Yorkshire. If you are interested in receiving details of the workshops please contact sintoenquiry@shu.ac.uk.

What they said about Next Generation 11:

"I have learnt so much from this course and it is so refreshing to be able to go back to the office and immediately see how to put theory in to practice. I have kept experimenting with ideas and concepts and developed the way I use them. I am REALLY going to miss the course and the people. I am hoping I can convince others to support the course from the organisation."

"The overall standard of the course was excellent, and I would definitely recommend it to others."

"I'd like to pass on my thanks to all involved for the delivery of a really interesting course. It has had a big and lasting impact on my personal development and working practice. I can think of many instances where I've come back to work after a Next Generation session, enthused and fired up, ready to share what I have learnt with the rest of our team."

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for a wonderful course. It has been a fantastic opportunity and I have learnt so much over the last 12 months that has and will continue to contribute towards my development as a manager. A great starting point to the challenging journey into management!"

To book a place or for further information contact:

Carl Clayton
SINTO
The Learning Centre
Sheffield Hallam University
Collegiate Crescent
Sheffield S10 2BP
0114 225 5739

sintoenquiry@shu.ac.uk

Closed for training

2011-04-15T10:20:00.000+01:00

The Library is closed for

staff training on

Improving Services

to Customers

This is an old joke but is making a serious point. Many library services are facing cuts to training budgets and I covered that in a previous blog. But some library services are also reporting that it is becoming increasingly difficult to release staff to attend training events because reduced staff numbers mean there is less cover. Many colleagues report that it is difficult to juggle the timetable to enable even a single person to be out of the library for a day and that sickness can easily throw these plans into disarray.

So does this mean that some libraries will have to give up on training staff or that the above notice will be seen more frequently? I doubt that many librarians would contemplate closing a service point to release staff for training but we should all be asking ourselves the question "What is more important - opening the library or training staff?" If you think the answer to this is obvious then ask yourself if you would open the library if you didn't have any books? Of course not! The point is that keeping the library open is not an end in itself - it is a means of providing access to the resources and services you provide. An open library is only of use if it provides your users with what they want and part of this has to be a workforce with the skills and knowledge required to provide that service. If your workforce doesn't have those skills and that knowledge then why are you opening the library?

This only makes sense of course if the training you are contemplating is essential - and by that I mean essential to the library services and not just to the individual needs of library staff. Training, in the sense of workforce development, has to relate to the core strategic goals of the library; the goals that explain why the library is there, why it opens its doors every morning, why it employs library staff.

The following statement on Preparing for the Future is being discussed by the SINTO Training Group in an attempt to develop a training programme that delivers these core goals. If your library would like to be a part of this please get in touch.

Preparing for the Future
The biggest challenge recognised by professional librarians is the need to make fundamental changes in the way in which libraries, and library staff, operate. This is not a result of budget cuts but rather an ongoing development responding to environmental changes. SINTO is responding to the challenges facing the sector by launching a new programme: Preparing for the Future.

Preparing for the Future is an integrated programme of workforce development events and activities. The goal is to strengthen the link between training outcomes and the strategic goals of the library and the organisation it services. The programme has the following aims:

• Events will be affordable and sustainable.

• They will meet the strategic goals of the organisation.

• They will form an integrated package of value to libraries from all sectors.

• There will be long term support and opportunities for networking.

• Local libraries will contribute to the planning and development of courses.

• Libraries will be confident that releasing staff to attend events will outweigh any temporary reduction in frontline services.

• There will be measurable outcomes.

Preparing for the Future has begun with discussions with the SINTO Training Group to identify training needs linked to the strategic goals of libraries. So far the following areas have been identified:

• Impact of library services and advocacy. Hoe we identify and measure the impact of libraries and use this information to gain support and influence in our organisations.

• Income generation. Re-thinking our approach to raising funds from both our own organisation and external sources.

• Marketing library services to users and non-users.

• Community engagement. Building and maintaining partnerships with your community.

• Behavioural competences. Soft skills of value to both front line and managerial staff.

• IT developments. Electronic books, mobile devices etc aimed at both professional and front-line staff.

Many of these are cross sectoral and benefits will accrue from sharing experiences between different libraries. Some activities will focus on individual sectors (e.g. feedback from the Future Libraries project).

In summary, Preparing for the Future is about workforce development. It is not about sending staff out of the library to meet their individual professional development needs; it is about bringing skills and knowledge into the library to achieve the objectives of your organisation.

MLA report on libraries

2011-03-30T12:12:00.000+01:00

The Voices for the Library website has recently posted a link to a MLA report on library authorities in the north of England which was obtained via a Freedom of Information request originally made by “Save Doncaster Libraries”. In this report (dated December 2010) library authorities are rated red, amber or green, based upon the plans they have for their library services and the concerns the MLA have for them. Red = ”High uncertainty and / or change. And / or poor capacity to address change”. Amber = “Medium uncertainty and / or change. And / or limited capacity to address change”. Green = “Low uncertainty and / or change. And / or good capacity to address change”. I have reproduced the entries for the Yorkshire and Humberside authorities below. These of course are a snapshot of MLA's opinion in December last year and much has changed since then. In most cases I have edited out references specifically to museum services but the overall rating does refer to both sectors.

Doncaster (Red) : Previously a poor performing service. Now taking action to turn things round and meet C&E, but is aware of the distance to travel to keep this transformation on track, particularly at the same time as wider cuts. MLA has supported the council to produce a strategy; service point assessment matrix; community consultation and member briefings. Strategy now to go to Cabinet in January. Subject to approval it commits to recruiting HoS; investment in training of staff; rationalisation of service points – relocation rather than loss where appropriate and investing in remaining poor building stock. The service is likely to come under different directorate and officer when senior staff review is completed. Uncertainty as to which of remaining library trained staff will take voluntary redundancy. Council has attracted interest of national library campaigners, with some local campaigning. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services. Museums undertaking MA-funded collections rationalisation. Admission charges introduced – model needs refinement. Poor staff capacity.

Barnsley (Green) : Museum, library and archive service remains split across different directorates. Currently 18 libraries, 6 co-located with customer service centres. Since 2008/9 implementing service improvement plan - results seen in users experience, profile of service and limited cuts to date. Success at last months Y&H local government awards - Library officer won ‘public service employee of the year’. Officers pressured to close libraries. Plans are being developed - local press have speculated the loss of 8 service points. Report due to cabinet December. The SoS letter was well- timed in supporting officers ensuring community needs assessment was undertaken. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services. Town hall museum and archive capital development underway due to open 2012. Aim to maintain exisitng museum staff, absorbing vacancies and achieveing sustainability through significantly increasing income by year 3 and 4.

Sheffield (Amber) : Decision making process is not clear cut: Libraries moved directorate mid budget planning process, but still reporting to old portfolio; hung council multiplying decision scenarios; May elections. At present c30% cuts: 2011-12 £1.5m; 2012-13 £0.5m; 2013-4 £0.5m. Options range from loss of 14 libraries and most mobiles, but increased hours at other service points to no mobiles and service-wide reduced opening hours across. Community-run service points likely to be taken forward.

Rotherham (Green): Central library, regimental museum and art gallery are due to move from current building and reopening in ground floor of new council offices by March 2011. This integration of museum, library and archives services will improve coherence customer experience. And its collocation with council service point will also result improve efficiency, e.g. shared staffing; children’s activities and after school clubs. Currently revising library strategy. Elsewhere a small number of service points may be proposed for closure / relocation. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services.

Calderdale (Amber) : Culture is likely to be cut disproportionately to protect other services. Council sought views of the public on what services they would prioritise – small sample of responses with libraries in top half of priorities. New BLF King Cross library demonstrating value of investment in right places. Have made savings so far – staff review in consultation – will lose 12% posts, including managers. Proposals for second phase of savings in February. Previous library changes have met with vocal protest. Strong community infrastructure gives potential for alternative service delivery. Currently heavily reliant on income stream from excellent sound and vision lending service – need to replace this income stream. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services.

Kirklees (Amber) : Closures proposed, but decisions not taken yet. Currently scoping 25% cuts over 3 years (15% in year 1). Proposals to all party ‘star chamber’ in December. Solutions rely heavily on community-run service points. Kirklees already delivers one library through a local social enterprise. Calm and methodical approach at present. Leading Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services. Signficant cuts to museum premises anticipated, but location of service introducing political dimension to decision making.

Leeds (Green) : Will consult on reducing service points from 53 to 33 service points (20 of these are only open 8-15 hours per week, which does not maximise use of resource. Staff restructure is central to this has been undertaken. It was intended to undertake public consultation starting in October. However, the council called in the plans. They will now go to exec on 16th December, and then if passed out to consultation. The aim is to implement any changes from April. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services.

Wakefield (Amber) : As part of the strategic review closures are proposed and the council recently issued an open invitation to community groups and partners across the area asking for expressions of interest in running service points. Response has not yet been overwhelming and has included expressions form commercial companies. The service is also reviewing its provision to schools and prisons. And exploring how it could integrate more fully with other cultural services. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services.

North East Lincolnshire (Amber): Participating in FLP cross regional project led by Lincolnshire. Options for future service delivery are up the air following Monday’s announcement (7.1% cuts anticipated, but 8.9% confirmed). Further information available on proposed approach by the end of the week.

North Lincolnshire (Green): Cuts comparatively manageable at present.

North Yorkshire (Amber): BLF-funded Harrogate Library recently reopened to great success with residents queuing to get in and its new ebook service is proving popular. Clear strategic direction from officers and political awareness of the role of the service. Proposals for a new delivery models have been developed. The council is aim is to maintain a core infrastructure of 18 libraries, 2-3 in each district, which have 80% of the users and 70% of the issues. Alongside this the council has been piloting a range of community library models. It is now consulting with local people on how 24 of these smaller and largely rural service points will be delivered in future. Public consultation runs to early February with decisions in early March, ready for implementation asap in 2011/12. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services.

Kingston upon Hull (Amber): Amber as waiting further information about muserum cuts - likely to lead to significant changes. Renaissnace plans submitted. Looking to merge library services with customer services, with customer service centres moving into current library buildings. At present no library service points are proposed for closure. Aiming to create integrated service rather than coexistence. Also developing website to ensure quality access 24/7. Decision timetable keeps changing – now January. Currently working to 22% across the board, 40-50% in some areas, but making business case for savings achieved form amalgamation. If further savings are required posts will go. Participating in Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services.

East Riding (Green): Exploring opportunities for diversifying income and increasing outcome focus, e.g. being commissioned to deliver health and wellbeing outcomes and personalisation. Clear strategic approach to cultural services from officers. Strong political support for cultural service at present. May elections. As a rural service is a key player in the Yorkshire-wide review of mobile services.

York (Green): Renaissance plans submitted - stong sense of direction.

Launch of West Midlands public library health, well-being and social care offer

2011-03-01T13:32:00.000Z

Public Libraries in the West Midlands launched a pioneering health, well-being and social care offer at NHS West Midlands’ Patient Information Forum Partnership Event in Birmingham at the end of January.
The offer positions public libraries as key partners for the health and social care sector, advocating the important contribution local services are making to improving the health and well being of the communities they serve. The shift of responsibility for public health from the health service to local authorities makes this a timely rallying call for the positive health benefits libraries can deliver.

“The Public Library Health and Social Care Offer has been developed by West Midlands Society of Chief Librarians (SCL), in partnership with The Reading Agency, as part of a regional advocacy campaign promoting the impact of public libraries on the health and well being of local people. It has been designed for that five minutes in a lift moment, outlining at a glance why libraries should be partners of choice for the health and social sector”. Kate Millin, Assistant Director, Libraries, Archives and Adult Learning, Dudley.

The offer advocates the value of public library assets including accessible and non-medicalised community space, the ability to reach out and work with local communities, provision of on-line services and expert staff. It also promotes the health and well-being benefits of a modern reading service providing targeted health and social care information and learning resources as well as events and activities including social reading activity such as reading groups.

The West Midlands Public Library Health and Social Care Offer is the centrepiece of an online partnership toolkit developed by The Reading Agency, the independent charity working to inspire more people to read more. The toolkit brings together examples of good local practice by libraries with the wider evidence base for the role of public libraries and reading in delivering health and social care outcomes for partners and local people.

“Recent research shows public libraries make an important contribution to the early intervention and prevention health, well-being and social care agenda. This contribution is not always obvious to health and social care partners. The West Midlands approach is a pioneering development in that it makes clear how libraries can support the health and social care agenda and the work of local, regional and national health partners in supporting healthier and happier communities”. Debbie Hicks, Director of Research, The Reading Agency.

“The West Midlands Public Library Health and Social Care Offer is a significant step in bringing the work of public libraries onto the health and social care radar in the region. The developing partnership with libraries has also been formalised by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between SCL and NHS West Midlands”. Sarah Greening, NHS West Midlands.

• To receive a copy of the West Midlands Public Library Health and Social Care offer, please contact Kate Millin on 01384 814745 or Kate.Millin@dudley.gov.uk

SINTO Library Campaigns event

2011-02-22T14:34:00.000Z

The SINTO Executive Board is concerned that CILIP should have taken it upon itself to announce the decision to cancel the SINTO Briefing “Library Campaigns. Are we all inside the tent?" without consulting the SINTO staff or Board. We are particularly disturbed by the tone of the statement and by the decision by CILIP to distribute it in the form of a news release. We accept that the speakers, who had originally agreed to take part, were entitled to change their mind about participating but do not agree that this, as suggested by the CILIP statement, was caused by any aspect of SINTO’s organisation or promotion of the event.

SINTO arranged this briefing with the aim of increasing understanding and exploring areas of agreement between the various groups involved and continues to believe that it would have been a useful and worthwhile occasion. It was concerned with an issue with which the library profession and library campaigners needed to engage and aimed at professional librarians and library campaigners with an interest in working together. Tim Coates, Annie Mauger and Lauren Smith, with Alan Gibbons as Chair, were invited to make separate presentations on library campaigning. There was no intention of staging a debate or confrontation between the speakers. The audience would then have been invited to contribute to the discussion. All participants in the event were asked to abide by the CILIP Code of Professional Practice section 3C:

"Refer to colleagues in a professional manner and not discredit or criticise their work unreasonably or inappropriately."

The three speakers agreed to participate on this basis. At no time were any concerns raised by them or the chair with the SINTO Director, regarding the way in which the event was being organised and promoted, until on Wednesday 16th February Annie Mauger contacted Carl Clayton to announce that the speakers had decided to withdraw. The CILIP news release was issued the following day.

Carl Clayton, Director, SINTO
Professor Bob Usherwood, Chair, SINTO Executive Board.

Please note that I do not intend to publish any comments received regarding this posting. Enquiries can be emailed to Carl Clayton.

Library campaign briefing

2011-02-18T10:55:00.000Z

This event has been cancelled. At present I am unable to make any further comment.

Tim Coates watch

2011-02-14T13:45:00.000Z

In his recent blog Phil Bradley attacks the website Tim Coates watch and the associated Twitter feed. The core of Phil's argument is:

"The purpose of these accounts is to make direct attacks on a library campaigner, Tim Coates. It's no secret that I don't particularly like him, and I'm pretty sure that he doesn't like me either. I don't like his opinions or his attitude towards librarians. However, he has EVERY right to hold them, and although I think his attempts to save libraries are not focussed in the way that I would like them to be, that's beside the point. Tim would probably use exactly the same words about me.

"If we're to debate and discuss issues, then let us do so. Ad hominem attacks do no good, and in fact draw attention away from challenging his methods and approach. "

I agree with Phil. The annonymous writer of the blog claims to be using satire to poke fun at Mr Coates and his views but appealing to the spirit of Jonathan Swift (or even Viz) does not justify the style and content of this unpleasent blog. As a small illustration the blog's strapline is "The deeds and misdeeds of Tim Coates, bookseller turned self-styled library campaigner". How can you accuse anyone of being a "self-styled" library campaigner? There is no official body which accredits library campaigners so surely everyone who regards themselves as a library campaigner is self styled! This is a minor point but I don't want to give more publicity to the abusive comments the blog regularly employs.

The reason I think that this is important is that I have invited Tim Coates to speak at a SINTO briefing. Now many librarians strongly disagree with Tim's arguments and also in the style in which he presents those arguments. Like Phil they want to argue against them in a professional way but it is difficult when some librarians are resorting to such purile comments. Of course lots of people agree with some of the things that Tim says and many librarians share his criticisms of CILIP and senior professionals. Tim's latest onslaught against CILIP is hard to take because of what could be seen as an insulting and disrespectful comments about our professional association and the concept of professionalism. But is Tim's use of the title SYRUP in reference to CILIP any worse than the suggestion by John Kirriemuir "That CILIP shall henceforth be known as 'CLIPCLOP' as the former is both silly and pretentious, but the latter is merely silly and is therefore an improvement."

Librarianship is not above criticism - being self critical and open to outside criticism is a mark of professionalism. We can respond to criticism but as a profession we should not tollerate the likes of Coates Watch.

The cruel futility of hope?

2011-02-07T12:41:00.001Z

I'm feeling a bit Monday morningish today. Perhaps it's because the Pittsburgh Steelers were beaten in the Superbowl last night (well you've got to support the Steelers if you live in Sheffield) but mainly it's a dip following the euphoria of Save our Libraries Day and the Shush-In for Sheffield Libraries. The event on Saturday was really amazing and although we obviously staged managed some aspects of the event, the response to my "let the wild rumpus begin" call was spontaneous and enthusiastic. You can see the full video of the event made by the Green Party here or highlights of the Shush-In here . Coverage in the local paper is here.

But it is the morning after the night before so we have to take a sober look at what happened. Of course the Steelers should have run more on first-down but to return to libraries I think that most of us know that the demonstrations, read-ins, shush-ins and passionate arguments from readers and authors will not in themselves make the decision-makers change their minds about library cuts. However, what we have done in Sheffield and elsewhere is to put libraries into the media and raised their profile. We must never forget that many people, especially those with overall responsibility for the financing of libraries, generally pay little or no attention to them. What the national day of action has done is to create a window of opportunity while libraries are in the headlines to get our message across.

What is that message? The core message is that expressed by so many library users, writers, librarians and a scattering of celebrities on the value and importance of libraries to both individual, communities and civilisation as a whole. However we also have to be quite cynical in framing arguments that will appeal to the decision makers in local government. I suggest that the following arguments would hit home.

1. Libraries do not cost much to run. The budget for Sheffield Libraries is less than 1% of the total city budgets so cutting libraries does not help other service avoid cuts,

2. Libraries are one of the most popular (if not the most popular) services provided by local authorities. Many elected members already feel that they have been made the scapegoat for the Government's cuts policy so why court even further pain for so little gain?

3. It might be the case that cuts are inevitable and that everyone must share in the pain but this should be based on outcomes and not inputs. In other words it is not a case of looking at a spreadsheet and saying that the column headed "Libraries" must take the same percentage cut as the columns headed "elderly", "learning disabled" or "pot-holes". Authorities should consider the outcome on the people affected. The cuts will hurt the elderly, people with special needs and those who are losing their jobs - and it is precisely these people who need library services the most. Libraries are often their last remaining hope, a light when all others have failed. It might be just as a source of entertainment and escapism (and why not! We want bread and roses too!). It might be a source for information (including health information) when other services have closed. It might be for lifelong learning, training or help to set up in business as ways of escaping from unemployment. Above all libraries provide ideas, inspiration and hope. We could be very cynical and say that the last thing people need today is hope because they are bound to be disappointed, but I don't believe that local councillors want to take hope away from their communities.Or do they?

Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, has said that calls to exempt libraries from cuts were "a call to heap more cuts on care of the elderly, learning disabled and those with mental health problems. Have they thought through the impact of their messianic message about literature on the most vulnerable in our society?"

The answer Mr Mitchell is Yes! We have thought about the impact of our message on the most vulnerable in our society and that is precisely why we believe that libraries should be exempt from cuts. Have you thought about the impact of denying your community hope of a better future?

Save our Libraries

2011-02-03T15:57:00.000Z

This is the text of my introduction to the SINTO course "Sources of health and wellbeing information for the public" which is running on Friday.

Welcome to this SINTO training event on sources of health and wellbeing information. As you may know, tomorrow is Save Our Libraries day when people all over the country will be showing their support for public libraries. Now I probably shouldn't have said that. It's possible now that someone from Sheffield City Council will turn up and tell us we can't hold this event because it is too political!

The reason I mention it is that there is a big debate going on about the value and importance of libraries - and one argument you often hear is "Well we don't need libraries any more because it's all on the Internet."

Now this course is going to look at the resources that are available on the internet among other things but even if "it is all on the Internet" (and we know that is not the case), that does not mean that libraries and librarians are obsolete.

I decided to do a search on Google yesterday for Alzheimer (it had been a bad day). I typed it in and Google came up with 20 million hits! Now isn't that marvellous! What more could I possibly want? Being experienced in this sort of thing I knew that in that list would be something like 100 hits that would be exactly what I wanted. Up-to-date, accurate, authoritative and designed to meet my exact requirements. Unfortunately that leaves 1 million, nine hundred and ninety thousand, and nine hundred hits that are not relevant - and the problem of sorting out which are which.

That is why we need libraries and that is why you are here today.

I click therefore I am

2011-01-31T15:33:00.000Z

In my last post I copied a press release issued by the Sheffield based group Library Workers for a Brighter Future. They had invited the poet Ian McMillan to an event at Hillsborough library as part of Save our Libraries day. It appears that Sheffield City Council banned this event because it was "political"- but since when have Local Authorities had the right to stop their citizens being "political"? In any case, this event was about democratic engagement and public libraries have to be central to that.

Sheffield City Council, like many other councils, is suggesting cuts to the library service budget along with cuts to other council services, because the Government has reduced its grant. The democratically elected members on the Council will have to consider these proposed cuts and make a decision. That is how it should be. But does this mean that the Council has the right to supress any dissent, let alone discussion of this decision? There is a debate about public libraries taking place on the Sheffield Forum web site. Many people are very supportive of libraries but others say they must take their share of the cuts. That is what political debate is all about. The Council however wants to put a stop to debate.

The Leader of the Council, Paul Scriven, is well known locally for featuring in a music video promotion for Mercure Hotel. It might have been nice instead if he could have produced a music video promoting Sheffield Libraries with his refain of "You just keep me coming back". (When you have seen the video you might think it's a good idea that he didn't!). But why does he think it is right to promote a hotel and then stop the libraries promoting themselves?
The council probably thinks that it can get away with this sort of censorship because librarians and library users are quiet, timid people who won't make a fuss. We hope to show that they are wrong with our Shh4sheflib event on Saturday. I don't suppose they will be too keen on that either but so far they haven't said they are going to ban it. I hope that the people of Sheffield will turn out in force to demonstrate that we will not be told what we can do by the Council. We are promoting this event through social media sites and it might demonstrate to the Council - as with many oppresive governments worldwide - that you can't stop people with bans and censorship.

I will finish with a poem by the banned Ian McMillan
CONNECTED

Before, when you got mail,

It was a chap in a cap with a sack packed full;

Before, when you researched

You sat and sweated in a library that was just this side of dull;

And when you booked your holidays

You stood there in a queue

Behind a family of five and a pensioner or two

And life seemed so much slower, somehow;

There was acres of last week and just half a glimpse of now;

Today you click

On a mouse

And you can shop till you drop without leaving the house

And now you send

Your blogs

Right across the globe and the photos of your dogs

Can appear on your site in the twinkling of an eye

And in a tick you get a picture back of Grandma saying Hi!

Framed against the backdrop of a California sky…

And it’s been fifteen years from before to this

And now we’re living in a universe of constant cyber bliss!

And like the first fire in the cave

Or the first turning of The Wheel

The internet is changing how we think and speak and feel

And in the next fifteen years the net will turn and twist again

And go down murky sidestreets far beyond this Barnsley brain

And one thing’s certain: the net is here forever,

Constant as taxes, unpredictable as weather…

And before I’m dragged right under in a growing tide of spam

I’ve time for just this one last post: I click therefore I am!

© Ian McMillan, for BBC R4 Today, 7.8.06

Sheffield Council bans Ian McMillan

2011-01-31T14:19:00.001Z

Sheffield City Council have informed Library Workers For A Brighter Future that a planned event at Upperthorpe Library, a children's creative writing workshop to be run by poet, broadcaster & comedian, Ian McMillan, will not be allowed to go ahead due to concerns over possible 'political comments'. The event, conceived as a fun and creative way of highlighting the value of public libraries, appears to have caused great concern for the council, with the decision over whether it should be allowed to go ahead passed all the way up to members of the senior management. We view this as a misguided and heavy-handed attempt to silence those of us who want to stand up for our library service and oppose the potentially devastating public sector cuts.
'Libraries are a vital and irreplaceable part of a cultured and civilised society, and one of the few public places left where you don't have to pay to get in...' Ian McMillan
In Sheffield it is being proposed that the present library budget of £8.5m should be cut by £2.5m by 2013/14, i.e. by £1.4m in 2011/12 and £550k in 2012/13 and 2013/14. There are no current plans to close libraries but cuts on this scale will inevitably have a major impact on the quality of the library service. As a campaigning organisation we are keen to work with the council wherever possible to highlight the good work that libraries do in our communities. This lack of cooperation on even such a simple thing as a children's creative writing workshop leaves us with little option but to pursue other ideas.
Saturday 5th of February is the national day of action for libraries and Library Workers For A Brighter Future would like to invite everybody to a mass 'Shhhh!'-in at 11am in the Sheffield Central Lending Library on Surrey Street.

Shhh-In rules...

Finger to lips.

At 11am say 'Shhhhh!'

Finish off with three cheers for the library!

Finally, borrow lots of books – lets empty those shelves. You're allowed up to 15 out on your library card, so bring a big bag!

We will be using the Twitter hashtag #shh4sheflib.
Library Workers For A Brighter Future

Facebook

Email: lwfabf@gmail.com

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lwfabf

Or call on: 07891442887

More with less

2011-01-27T12:10:00.000Z

A free seminar from Credo Reference

How to do more with less (or even nothing!)
Wednesday 23 February, 2.00 – 4.30-ish

Sheffield Central Library

Free of charge
Invitation open to non subscribers, too

In this climate of cuts and closures, it’s vital that libraries make the most of their online resources. Pete Ciuffetti, Credo’s Director of Library Solutions, will talk about some of Credo’s radical new ideas to help all libraries - his plans will benefit public libraries, schools, colleges and universities, too, whether Credo subscribers or not. Most of it is very down to earth, but he’ll also be talking about open source and cloud computing, so you might want to bring a technical colleague along (if you’re as non-technical as I am). And he wants to hear what you all need!

Thanks to Karen Wallace at Sheffield Libraries who has kindly offered to host this seminar.

Can you please RSVP to me, anne.kail@credoreference.com if you’d like to come along, and who you’d like to bring, or if you have any questions?

If 23rd Feb doesn’t suit, there’s another seminar in Oldham on 22nd Feb so contact me for details.

Pete’s also running a series of online seminars; please visit http://www.librariesthriving.org/
Credo Reference is proud to sponsor Voices for the Library

Pancakes & Mash

2011-01-27T11:41:00.000Z

Hello Carl,

You may have already spotted this on the wires... we're running a Mashed Library technology 'un-conference' in Lincoln on the 8th of March.

I'd be more than happy to waive the £12 admin fee for any SINTO members who would like to attend but who might have problems securing funding from their employer.

Paul

Announcing Mashed Library "Pancakes and Mash", a library technology 'un-conference' taking place at the University of Lincoln on 8 March 2011 (Shrove Tuesday). Booking is now open, costing only £12.
http://mashlib.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/

"Mashed Library is about 'bringing together interested people and doing interesting stuff with libraries and technology' - feel free to join if you have an interest in libraries, technology, or both." ~ taken from: http://mashedlibrary.com/

Pancakes and Mash will run between 10.00 - 16.30 in and around the EMMTEC building on the University of Lincoln's Brayford Pool campus in the centre of Lincoln. There will be social events the night before (and possibly the night after) the conference. A first draft of the programme - plus details of available options for travel and accommodation in Lincoln - will follow shortly.

Booking is now open to all, via: http://lncn.eu/gmx

There's a £12.00 (£10.00+VAT) administration charge for each booking.

If you have any questions, please email me.

I look forward to seeing you there,
Paul

Paul Stainthorp MSc
Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Lincoln
GCW University Library
Brayford Pool
LINCOLN
LN6 7TS

Library displays. Old-fashioned or the new Twitter?

2011-01-21T13:53:00.002Z

"'Public libraries' is a trusted and well loved brand but poor marketing means awareness of the offer is low."

"There is strong support for libraries to do more promotion and advertising about what they do."

What do the public want from libraries? MLA, 2010

That's easy then! Just increase your marketing budget and…..

… and that's the problem. Libraries have seldom had enough money to spend on marketing in the best of times. And now is not the best of times. We have to think carefully about our "marketing portfolio" and how to stretch our budget even further.

Marketing on Twitter, social networking sites and websites is a good way of reaching some sectors but we know that it does not get to everyone. Advertising in the local media or using posters can be effective but is expensive. So perhaps we should look at a traditional activity that has been neglected recently.

Displays on table tops, walls or in windows - either in the library or at external locations - might be regarded as old-fashioned but it is cheap, effective and is used by retail outlets. If it is done professionally it can be an important part of your marketing strategy (and you DO have a marketing strategy don't you!).

SINTO is offering a one day course designed to ensure that individual members of staff can achieve visually exciting, professional looking displays in minutes, with a minimum of pre-installation preparation and using a range of cheap and readily available material. The presenter, Pauline Carr, is a professional window dresser and since the 1990s she has been involved in training with libraries, public service organisations and the education sector.

Now, more than ever, we have to sell ourselves and our services. Full information at http://extra.shu.ac.uk/sinto/Events/events.html#display

Save Libraries is trending

2011-01-20T13:48:00.002Z

The news that the 'savelibraries' hash tag trended on Twitter may be gobbledygook to many people. Even if you understand that it means that the number of messages posted on the popular microblogging site which used the subject tag #savelibraries reached such a level recently that it featured on the Twitter list of most popular trends then you might not be very impressed. After all, if celebrity obsessed air-heads who have nothing better to do with their time then sending tweets suddenly become interested in saving libraries - so what?

That would be an unfair conclusion to reach. OK, Twitter is not the real world and should not be confused with stuff that is important but it is an indication that the sort of people who use Twitter are interested in libraries and that the sort of people who use libraries are interested in Twitter, and both of those statements should be of interest to librarians.

And it's not just Twitter. The bookseller reported that "Library campaigns are on the rise", the Independent on Sunday leader proclaimed "Overdue! The fight to save our libraries begins" and the Guardian has carried a series of articles and reports. But it is in the local press and radio that you can hear the real voice of people fighting to protect their local public libraries.

So what does this outburst of support for libraries mean for librarians? Most of us will be heartened by this confirmation that people love libraries. The library profession as a whole welcomes what is happening. But at the same time there are areas of disagreement and conflict. Being a supporter of libraries is not necessarily the same as being a supporter of those who run libraries (1).

This is illustrated by recent controversy around comments made by Roy Clare, Chief Executive of MLA (2).

Roy Clare is not a librarian or a library manager but his organisation exists to support local authorities in the running of public libraries and his comments reflect the views of many heads of library services.

"Public libraries will not be preserved by wishful thinking and aspic. Strive to thrive; recognise the width and breadth of the social opportunities and fight hard to nourish change and embrace development that can serve the whole community, not simply the privileged, mainly white, middle class. These are perspectives that too few commentators – whether journalists or campaigners – care to hear about, still less to understand."

Many have complained that Clare was dismissing library campaigners as "the privileged, mainly white, middle class" as a way of rubbishing their arguments - an accusation that he strongly refutes. Instead, like many librarians, he is warning against a too narrow vision of what libraries can and should be doing.

Campaigners have also objected to statements made by Clare that appear to show support for the decision of some library authorities to close branch libraries, e.g.

"… future services should be modelled around objective measures of local needs, where necessary adapting to trends (including changes in demographics, new housing, High Street re-development etc).

In some places (and there is no uniform template) that means some closures; some changes in style and approach; some new ways of thinking; and some thought to using alternatives to existing provision (for example, exploring the opportunities presented by other community spaces nearby, and considering the implications of new technologies); and focusing especially on maintaining or enabling access for a range of cultures and languages (in cities and many towns) and on the particular needs of rural communities, where too many people still have no library service at all and some innovation is needed (including hook-ups with supermarket delivery services, as some Councils are considering)."

These comments reflect a long standing view of many librarians that the library service as it exists now needs to be re-engineered to face the challenges we are facing. With additional cuts of around 30% to library budgets being proposed library managers have to consider the best way of maintaining a quality library service with less money. For many the answer is to focus on developing a quality service and then explore cost effective methods of making this service available to the community. Maintaining a large number of small library buildings with very limited opening hours is not always the most cost effective solution. The alternative of making cuts on this scale without closing branches is just death by a thousand cuts for the service as a whole.

Inevitably and understandably, campaigners see things in a different light. They reject or ignore the need for cuts. They argue that their local library service is essential for them and they are not responsible for the needs of the service as a whole. In most cases they are happy to campaign for the preservation of a local status quo rather than seeking to meet unmet needs elsewhere. None of this is necessarily wrong. Indeed it is supported by recent trends away from the "big state" towards localism. We live in a market economy and the views of the individual customer are supposed to be paramount.

All this leaves those who manage public libraries - especially the professional librarians - in a dilemma. They believe that cuts to library services are wrong but they have a choice of either resigning in protest or continuing to manage the service as best they can within the new budget. They might decide not to close branches to deflect the anger this would cause, but are aware that this might cause more damage to the service as a whole. They may be tempted to placate the articulate library users at the expense of excluded groups with less of a voice. Above all they feel that a gap is opening up between them and their users whose support they value and need. As one local librarian put it:

[Library campaigners] seem to be focusing on bricks and mortar and equating a library service only with a building. This negates a lot of good discussion about what a library service is … [and is] fundamental if you are actually trying to offer better value for money to the majority of your users and better access rather than seeing everything as a budget cut.

The SINTO executive briefing Library campaigns - Are we all inside the tent? (4) provides an opportunity to reflect on these issues. It will bring together various speakers to present the views of campaigners and the library profession with the opportunity for dialogue. The briefing itself may not provide a solution to the dilemma it will be an opportunity to gain more information and understanding of the issues.

(1) Libraries are run by senior professional librarians but they report to senior council officers and are ultimately responsible to the elected members.

(2) Much of this debate was inspired by an article in the Daily Mail. The MLA has made a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission that the Daily Mail piece was an "inaccurate, misleading, distorted and defamatory account of the views of Mr Clare". I will focus on what he actually said.

Libraries and the media

2011-01-11T13:16:00.001Z

Yesterday (10^th January) Lauren Smith was interviewed in Radio York by Elly Fiorentini about proposed cuts to library services in North Yorkshire. http://bbc.in/hDswPs (7 mins 5 seconds in.)

Lauren, a qualified librarian, has been closely involved with the Save Doncaster Libraries Campaign and is spokesperson for Voices for the Library.

Whenever someone puts themselves forward to be interviewed by the media on library issues they take on a large burden of responsibility. Get it wrong and at best you have missed an opportunity to get the message across; at worse you could damage the case for libraries and loose support. Good intentions are not enough. If you are a spokesperson you do have to perform well. Lauren as far as I know has not had formal training in dealing with the media but she has had experience and she is excellent in this role. It could be argued that media interviews on behalf of the library profession should only be given by trained and media-savvy experts - a library spin-doctor if you like. The problem is that there people do not exist. Even CILIP does not have such a person and has in the past struggled when asked to put forward a spokesperson by the national media. Further it could be argued that, especially when dealing with the local media, you don't want someone who is too slick and polished. A real person, albeit with rough edges, can be more convincing.

Lauren as I said, came over very well. Her voice is young and engaging and her style is relaxed but authoritative. I suspect that she felt less confident than she sounded but she has clearly prepared herself well for this role and she is to be congratulated.

What about the specific questions she was asked? These are the sort of things that library campaigners might be asked by other local media so it worth looking at the questions and answered.

Elly Fiorentini began by asking why Voices for the Library was so concerned about the situation in North Yorkshire, which is the local angle that the local media would want to focus on. Lauren made the strong point that North Yorkshire is the largest local authority so there was the danger that communities would be isolated by the closure of branches. We need to identify a local angle even if many of the issues are common to the whole country.

Lauren was then asked a leading question about the cuts not being just about libraries loaning books and was able to come back with comments on digital inclusion, literacy and other community services. The only problem with this sort of question is that a short concise answer is needed and we have a whole range of things we could talk about. We need to select a brief list. The interviewer then asked if a local pub couldn't do the same thing. In some ways this is an easy question and Lauren was able to mention things that a librarian can do that a pub landlord can't! However we must recognise that many people's perception of a library is a few shelves of books with a friendly person stamping them out.

Next came the killer question. "Now we know that North Yorkshire County Council has got to save £20m and every service has to take its fair share of that. Surely it's a question of prioritising services - people might rather loose their library than see adult care suffer?"

It is inevitable that we will get this "what would you cut instead?" question and we have to have a good answer. We could take the line that the government has got it wrong and that cuts in public expenditure are not the answer (http://falseeconomy.org.uk/). However this moves the debate away from public libraries and into a more complex economic debate. We could argue that Eric Pickles has told councils that cuts should not be made to frontline services but it might not be a good idea to rely on Eric as an ally in this debate and some campaigners feel that libraries are guilty on spending too much money on staff and administration and savings could be achieved here. Lauren's response was to point out that libraries are being asked to make a disproportionately large percentage cut in their budget and that branches closures are unlikely to be reversed when the economy improves. A good case can be made that the amount that can be saved by cutting libraries is relatively small compared with the damage caused and that the need for libraries is greater at a time of economic cuts. Libraries help people in care, and there carers, and are part of the solution - not the problem.

Elly Fiorentini then returned to the issue of the local community taking over library services. Again Lauren stressed the quality of service that could be provided. We do have to be careful when arguing that only librarians can be trusted to run libraries in case we sound arrogant and elitist - or come over as only interested in protecting our own jobs. We must not alienate library supporters who may feel that more community involvement is a good thing. However the quality of service argument is a good one to stress.

Finally Elly again asked Lauren "What is your solution then? It's very difficult because give the cuts they have got to happen somewhere". Of course, library campaigners must avoid the temptation to suggest cuts in other areas. There does need to be a debate about how we achieve a more cost effective library service with less emphasis on the bricks and mortar of traditional branch libraries and more on the delivery of services to communities through a range of access points but this does not make for a good sound bite. Lauren's point about the unfairness of the percentage cut applied to libraries was probably the best answer.

Librarians as teachers

2011-01-10T09:55:00.002Z

I'm forwarding this information on behalf of Andrew Walsh at Huddersfield University.

We’re holding a Librarian “TeachMeet” (idea from http://latnetwork.spruz.com/) in Huddersfield on 9th Feb 2011.

This will be a really informal opportunity for librarians who teach to get together to share tips and experiences.

If you come, be prepared to give a short (5 min at most) talk to share an aspect of your teaching. There will be “speed dating” to share tips and a lucky dip of teaching goodies to rummage through for inspiration.

The free event will be held at the University of Huddersfield from 14:00 to 16:30 on Wednesday 9th Feb. More details will appear on http://hudteachmeet.blogspot.com/ and http://bit.ly/eN32GF as we decide them.

Please email library.learn@hud.ac.uk if you’d like to attend. Places are limited, so book now to avoid disappointment.

Thanks,

Andrew

Training budgets are so 2010

2011-01-04T14:36:00.003Z

There has been a great deal of speculation about what effect cuts to library services will have on training budgets. Many people think that it will range from bad to catastrophic - but I see no point in being so optimistic.

The point is that training budgets are so last year darling! The idea that there is a certain sum of money set aside by libraries to provide for the training needs of staff is not only outmoded it is positively dangerous.

For too many librarians, training is seen as part of something called Continuing Professional Development. The idea is that each year you have an appraisal interview with your staff so see how they are doing. As part of this you ask them to identify their training needs - hat they would like to do to develop their skills and knowledge. You then make a list of these needs and see how much can be covered from the training budget. You then go shopping to see which of these needs can be met from the programmes offered by training providers.

The trouble now is that library budgets are being slashed and anything left in a "training budget" is likely to be minute. However, this misses the point. Training budgets are a waste of time. They should be abolished and the money moved to a central library budget. CPD is dead.

What libraries need to do is to ask themselves what their core role is. They need to decide what it is they should be doing and how they can deliver this. In many cases this will involve doing different things, doing them in different ways and doing them with different people.

To achieve this libraries must ensure that they have in place staff with the skills that are needed to deliver these new things. Replacing old staff who don't have the required skills with new staff who do have these skills is one option - but not a very cost effective one. A better approach is workforce development - ensuring that your staff are given the skills and knowledge that you as a library service need. This is not about providing training from a separate training budget it is about providing core skills from the core library budget. After all there is no point in spending any money at all on books, buildings or equipment if your workforce does not have the skills to deliver the service.

Of course, the skills you want to provide your workforce with might be exactly the skills that they want to gain as part of their own CPD - but that is beside the point.

A final point is that you can no longer afford to go shopping for courses that are being offered by training providers. You have to work with providers to deliver exactly the skills that you need. Its a buyer's market by the way. Squeeze them on price as much as you like but remember if they starve to death then you won't have a provider at all.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year?

2010-12-17T10:11:00.007Z

Photo. Sheffield Botanic Gardens in the snow by Jean Morton. I would like to wish all SINTO members and other friends of SINTO a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. The first part of this objective is achievable. It's the holiday season and I hope that most of you have a good time. The second part is more problematic and I suspect that few librarians are anticipating a prosperous or particularly happy time in 2011 especially in the public library sector.

As it is Xmas, let's open some presents. This Dickensian pastiche A Library Christmas Carol from the Wikiman is amusing with an optimistic message - "The only way to predict the future is to make it happen, Scrooge".

A less welcome present is the Public Library News blog - a survey of public libraries under threat in the UK compiled by Ian Anstice. It may not be what you want to find in your stocking but we have to have the big picture and stay connected.

My third present is newly elected CILIP Vice President Phil Bradley. Again, he may not be what you want to find under the tree on Christmas morning but read his blog Librarians: a thought experiment. This gives a vision of a professional body that fights for libraries and librarians but (like the Wikimans's story) warns against adopting a "victim mentality". It is all about librarians doing something positive for themselves.

And my final gift is SINTO itself. Let's make it clear, I am not suggesting that SINTO can solve your problems. The only person who can do that is you, together with your colleagues. What SINTO can do is to bring you all together and give you the skills and knowledge to deal with the challenges we will all face.

To welcome you into the New Year the SINTO gift pack contains the following events:

Sources of health information. Key information skills to enable your library service meet the information needs of your community
Display techniques for libraries. Selling your services with eye-catching displays
Delivering a proactive library service. Get staff out from behind the desk to interact with users.
Library Campaigns. An executive briefing taking a realistic look at our relationship with campaigners.
Next Generation 12. A year long management development course for only £500.

I don't know if 2011 will be a happy year for SINTO. We will have to share the pain experienced by our membership but while we survive we will fight.

With warmest regards

Carl Clayton
Director SINTO

Fighting cuts in your own library

2010-12-06T15:23:00.003Z

With more and more cuts in public library services being announced Save our Libraries campaigns are springing up. In this blog I want to look at practical and ethical issues around the question of whether it is right for librarians to actively campaign against cuts to the library services which employs them. I am not looking at librarians fighting directly to protect their own job (which they are entitled to do) but campaigning to protect library services in general. Please note that I am not an expert on employment law - nor on professional ethics for the matter. These are notes for discussion.

The main practical issue is whether your contract of employments restricts your ability to campaign against the policies of your employer. The ethical issues are a) whether it is right for 'professionals' to act against the policies of your employer and b) whether a professional librarian is empowered by the CILIP Code of Ethics to campaign against library cuts.

Most people working for a local authority will have a code of conduct which sets out the minimum standards of behaviour expected of Council employees and which forms part of your contract of employment. Aspects of this code may affect you if you are planning to campaign against any aspect of Council policy. For example:
· Restrictions on using Council property for official council business only.
· Limitations on contacting the media
· Not wearing badges etc to indicate support for a political party or pressure group.

As well as these specific restrictions there will probably be a general statement on the line of "Your duty as an employee and any interest outside your job must not conflict". Does this mean that the code can be used by your employer to prevent you taking part in campaigns against council policy?

The first response is that the code only applies while you are at work and not when you are off duty. However although this may be true of things like wearing badges, the code of conduct as a whole does regulate your private life as well because this is exactly where conflicts of interest can arise. Membership of certain organisations such as the Masons may be regulated by the code on the grounds that it creates a potential conflict of interest. It is hard to draw a clear line and a Council may try to use such a code to restrict campaigning by their staff but this does not mean they would be justified in doing so in all cases. One can argue that as long as your private activities are not harming the interests of the people that the Council serves, then you are entitled to express your own views in your own time. Taking action in work time would be in breach of your contract - although you may still choose to do this as a form of industrial action.

But is it ethical to campaign against your Council's policies? If you were head of library services and you were instructed to reduce your budget then you have a choice of carrying out your instructions or resigning. If you decide to continue you may well propose closing some branches in order to protect the overall quality of the service. In this situation it can be argued that you have a responsibility to your employer not to campaign against these cuts, even when off duty. Does this extend to the other library staff? Is there a general ethical responsibility to support the policy of your employer if you don't agree with it? Most people would regard a generalized loyalty to an employer as rather sinister - we are not corporate clones! But local authorities are democratically accountable bodies and they act in the interest of their communities. Many people choose to work in the public rather than the private sector because they believe in the idea of public services. Shouldn't this involve a sense of loyalty to the Council even if you disagree with a specific policy? The argument here is likely to be that the interests of the Council are not always the same as the interests of the community. Council policy may reflect narrow political interests rather than wider public benefits.

In most cases don't we all expect a certain level of corporate loyalty? If as library managers we introduce a new procedure, such as self-issue or an improvement to social inclusion, and explain the reasons behind it to our staff, we would expect that they would do their best to implement and even promote it to library users. Wouldn't we feel aggrieved if we discovered that one of them was actively undermining the new policy with users and stirring up complaints? The issue here is whether your staff have been fully consulted and given the opportunity to express their views. Corporate loyalty is a valid concept but it depends on a level of involvement that is not always extended to staff.

A final consideration is the CILIP Code of professional conduct. CILIP states that "One of the hallmarks of a profession is the framework of values that underpin the work of practitioners in the sector". To this end it has published a Code of professional practice. Section D (Responsibilities to society) states:

"One of the distinguishing features of professions is that their knowledge and skills are at the service of society at large, and do not simply serve the interests of the immediate customer. Members should therefore: 1. Consider the public good, both in general and as it refers to particular vulnerable groups, as well as the immediate claims arising from their employment and their professional duties…"

Section E (Responsibilities as Employees) states:
"Members who are employed have duties that go beyond the immediate terms of their employment contract. On occasion these may conflict with the immediate demands of their employer but be in the broader interest of the public and possibly the employer themselves."

A footnote to this last paragraph says:
"It is recognised that sometimes Members, acting as a representative of employers, have to make decisions that may impact adversely on levels of service or the employment of staff. This is not in itself unethical behaviour but there might be circumstances in which it could be – the lawfulness of the action or the way it is managed, for instance".

Both of these extracts suggest that there is a professional duty on librarians to act in the interests of society at large even if this conflicts with the interests of their employers. You could argue that your duty to your profession balances or even overrides your duty to your employer.

You must not expect your employer to accept the validity of this argument. If your employer insisted on Chartered status for its professional library staff you might argue that the CILIP code of practice was an implied part of your contract - but this is seldom the case today. In principle this code applies to all librarians and not just members of CILIP but I can't imagine any employer taking any reference to the code seriously if you were not a member and in any case they would argue that it is not binding as they have not signed up to it. However if you were seeking to justify your actions in campaigning against library cuts on ethical grounds then this code could form part of your case. Just because the local councils is your employer does not remove your professional responsibility to act in the interests of your users and society in general. If library cuts are against the public interest than as a librarian your duty is to campaign against them.

Ultimately you have to make up your own mind about campaigning against library cuts and accept the consequences of your decision. Using the staff photocopier to print "Save our Library" posters may be a short-cut to disciplinary action but if you feel you are right to speak out don't let anyone bully you into keeping quiet.

Twitter elections

2010-10-25T16:27:00.007+01:00

Is this the first Twitter CILIP election?
The campaign to elect the next Vice-president of CILIP (who will automatically become President the following year) is underway with two candidates - Phil Bradley and Edwina Smart. 5 candidates are also competing for 4 places on CILIP Council.
To my knowledge this is the first time that social media has played an important part in the hustings. Social media - in particular CILIP Communities but also independent blogs and Twitter - have emerged as a forum for members to question the candidates and for candidates to explain their views and plans for CILIP. But there is more to it than that. Social media has become a hot topic of debate in itself. The view has been expressed that CILIP is too London-centric and inward looking. Social media is seen as a way of overcoming this, of taking CILIP out to the wider membership. There is even a suggestion that users of social media are a new generation of library professionals in contrast to the traditional old guard and that the adoption of social media by CILIP will change the way in which the professional body operates.
One of the presidential candidates Phil Bradley, has criticised the fact that the CILIP AGM was not live streamed and that it was not in a venue where people could send tweets. Another blogger has started a lively debate about CILIP being a London clique with an anti-technology bias.

But is this a new wave of connected librarians or simply a different clique. Is it a small gang of techies in an echo chamber talking to themselves and to no one else? How large and representative is this library social media community? One proxy measure is the number of Twitter followers for library organisations and leading librarians. CILIPinfo has 1700 followers. The CILIP Chief Executive Annie Mauger has 333 followers. CILIP President Biddy Fisher has 447. Many of the librarians I follow have around 300-400 followers. I would put the number of library Tweeters at no more than 1000 maximum. Other librarians may use social networking tools other than Twitter but clearly this is a very small percentage of library professionals. Those who argue that CILIP should use these tools to communicate with members and to deliver training are ignoring the fact the vast majority of the profession does not use these tools. Overreliance on social networking at this point in time would not make CILIP more responsive to its membership.

That is not to say that CILIP should turn its back on social networking- far from it. Use of these tools is growing and in particular is popular with new professionals. If CILIP were to make more use of these tools for communicating with members then more members would use them and discover the wider benefits. CILIP has to lead by example and out new Chief Executive and soon to be elected president in waiting are in a strong position to do that.

Library Alliance

2010-10-14T11:50:00.000+01:00

Tim Coates, Burlington House, Oct 14 2010
Conference: “Libraries in the Digital Age”

In this speech I am going to announce the formation of a new ‘not-for-profit’, non-governmental body which is being launched specifically with the aim of helping to bring improvement to the public library service. If you will allow me to explain some of my own views about the state of the service then I shall describe what the new body is intended to do.
We are often asked to imagine what public libraries will be like in the future. Sometimes, as today, when the topic is about libraries in the digital age, changes in technical methods are under discussion, sometimes it is just the march of time and the changing nature of our society. Often, at the moment, we are asked whether libraries can survive in a time of public austerity.
I think that the right way to address these questions is to understand the different reasons why people use public libraries and try to look at each of them separately. In doing that we begin to see how extraordinarily important libraries are and how change can be used to improve them and keep them up to date and how priorities can be identified that make it possible to do that.
Changing technology is not the only influence that will make a difference. The economy, education, the increasingly fascinating international origin of our population are all key, but so, too are changing standards of design and people’s expectation and more than anything what is being written and being published and is available to read.
Of course public libraries are not just about providing current fiction or non fiction, of the kind that grabs headlines when editions are printed as ebooks. That is a small part of the role they play. Families with small children not only borrow books, but for them the buildings, their design and their accessibility, their collections of stories and picture books are essential issues. So are the story times and playtime readings. These are not matters of electronics.
For schoolchildren who have nowhere to go when they come out of school, the library is an essential place to do homework and to work with books and with friends. The issue here is not about digital provision but about opening hours, space and basic dignity, cleanliness and privacy, all of which are just as important as any technical advances. They are matters of high standards of interior design.
For older people who read voraciously all those books for which their working life left insufficient time, it is not only the stock, but also the proximity and neighbourliness of a library that means they do not have to make a bus or car trip to the shopping centre. For them, location, opening hours and comfort are essential ingredients, many of which need improving.
The stock of back list fiction and non fiction and of reference and local history mean that a project to digitise and offer ebooks in public libraries has to encompass a vast service of reproducing the writing that is already sitting on library shelves, or, less satisfactorily, in stacks hidden away from the public. If digitisation only covers a small percentage of what is to be read, it will have been a waste of time and money.
So when the headline in the national paper is that ‘ebooks are the future’, I am more likely to find myself worrying about whether libraries are spending enough on the window cleaning budget. I sometimes feel that the technical advance that has made leather sofas ubiquitous in coffee shops is more important than 24 hour internet access to public libraries and that the question about whether libraries should participate in the digital age, is only the same as asking whether libraries should have installed electricity in the 1920’s. Of course they should and of course these things are important. But they are not overwhelming and do not mean either that we should change everything or that the nature of a library is something different because we have learned how to scan and that we can see digital copies of printed pages. That kind of change, the introduction of the internet, the improvement of library web services, are, for me, no more than the adoption of obvious improvement, they are just part of what we do. A lot of the time libraries will be quite fine if they just copy what other people do. There will be no shame in waiting to see how the progress of digitisation all develops in the commercial world.
Libraries are buildings with things to read. Things that people have written. That is the service we should always be constantly trying to improve, for all the different groups of people, the individual people, who use libraries. Making the service better, providing better access, is that for which we should obviously constantly strive. Increasing opening hours and having bright clean light fittings are just as important as having PC’s that are fast and that work and that connect to essential works of reference. Some things are less glamorous or intellectual, but they are just as necessary. So my answer to the question posed is that libraries in the digital age will be better than in a previous age, if and only if that new technology is used to provide access to more material and also if the libraries themselves are actively and visibly improved
Don’t be obsessed with digitisation
I am saying these things because it is the failure to make obvious improvement that has drawn the attention of critics to the library service. With regret one has to observe what the market research constantly says and newspaper commentators frequently observe, which is that people who don’t use libraries say that it is because they are in out of date buildings, they are not open when needed and they don’t have what people want to read.
For decades we have known that these problems exist and for some reason we are unable to solve them. At the same time we know that money is not and, up until now, has not been the problem. The library service has been criticised endlessly for its inefficiencies and its inability to tackle fundamental structural operational problems in which money is needlessly and wastefully spent on out of date methods- which all seem to be problems of a kind that ought to be and are easily put right.

I recognise that there are those who believe that the public library service has no problems and the good work which is done far outweighs any criticisms, but even to those people, with whom I disagree, I would say that we should nevertheless seek constant improvement as effectively as we can. That is an obligation any public service has to the public who pay for it. If technology does anything, it should improve efficiency and managers should make sure that is true. In the past ten years there have been at least thirty government initiatives for improvement most of which have made little impact that the public would notice and that alone is cause for concern.
That is what the library service doesn’t do – it doesn’t do what the public ask of it, as well as they would like.
On the other hand what the public library does do – and proudly – is to endeavour to make a contribution to the social agenda of local government. It addresses questions of health care; it provides accommodation for job centres; it attempts to make its libraries youth and community centres, not by its provision of reading material, but by going out of its way to offer other entertainments that it perceives might be more attractive. It participates actively in immigrant wellbeing programmes. How well it does all these things is for the various audiences and the audience development officers to assess, but that it does them at all allows the service to claim that it plays a role in the priorities of local government and from the impact that these things make it justifies its role and its funding. Whether actual use of the service goes up or down, or whether books are borrowed and read, is said to be irrelevant if one only could measure the impact the service has on the economy and the well being of the local community and the councils local area agenda.
I don’t deny that a local council is entitled to set priorities for what it must do; of course it must; but I do disagree with the idea that all the public services it offers have to contribute actively to those priorities if they are not particularly relevant. Just because you want to care for single parents doesn’t mean you shouldn’t mend the roads. I disagree with those who give resource and priority to social agendas for libraries if what is needed to make those public libraries better requires other priorities and actions. A council may reasonably seek to improve health care in its area – but I think that the role of the library in such a cause is to be a good library to the people, not to be a place that offers health advice, as many libraries currently claim to do. A council may reasonably seek to care for the young unemployed, but that does not mean turning the library into a youth job centre that may easily make the library less attractive and even actually frightening to other library users. Use of the library building for any purpose is not the same as making it into a really good library. Diverting management attention onto outreach schemes of this kind, means that there is insufficient time and money to devote to the core of the service
Co-location of public libraries with other services, which is at present much applauded by government agencies and professional bodies, will not on its own make a library a better library – any more than putting a library into job centre will make it a better job centre. Putting a library in a council one stop shop saves nothing because librarians are no better at answering difficult questions about care of an elderly relative than council workers are able to recommend the reading age of the Gruffalo. What makes a library better are improved stock, better designed buildings, longer hours, or more helpful and knowledgeable staff. Large modern futuristic central libraries are not necessarily more useful than small community libraries. If efficiency is measured in terms of the cost of travelling by individual people (as supermarket chains have now realised it should be) then large and urban may well be less efficient than a library which small and neighbourly.
These views I am expressing are quite controversial in government circles, in fact they are almost treasonable, but to an ordinary member of the public they are obvious. They are so clearly the reasons that people protest when small libraries are threatened with closure one wonders why officials find it hard to understand them. But the reason is that government departments are so big and intertwined that they get themselves fixed on agendas which become remote from what the public actually want—that is a problem of the big government we have. It becomes impossible for middle managers to argue common sense.
A good library makes an enormous contribution to the community in which it stands by virtue of what it does for each individual and what they need, rather than by acting as a social service. What we need are better libraries- measured against the requirements that the public has –rather than by assessing their contribution to council priorities. Those are two very different things.
The danger in our society that I have seen is that those who work in government circles, as I call them, have come to believe that only they can devise the agenda for what people should do or how they should care. They believe that it is their right to determine the role of a public library- and I say they should not. What makes a public library good, is its own essence and what it does for individual people- not whether it adds or claims to contribute to employment, wellbeing or a reduction in crime or its social impact in any sense. It will do those things in its own way by making us all more civilised and educated.
The library service would be miles better and more useful to us all if it was not linked to government priorities, because we understand that it is writing, and reading what has been written, actually, that makes us civilised and not a library service without books.
I want today therefore to suggest a radical way forward . I want to suggest that the whole landscape within which the public library service operates is changed and not only that I want to propose a new structure and to tell of what I and others have done to put one in place. I am calling for a new order for public libraries and have taken the steps to set it up
Everything I say and propose is within not only the words but also the intentions and meaning of the 1964 Public Libraries Act. I believe that what has been done in the last 20 years has moved us away from what the writers of that document wanted to achieve. I want to return to the meaning of the Act. It is neither out of date nor irrelevant.
In fact I have always been surprised at the extent to which those who run the library service have attempted to avoid the responsibilities of the 1964 Act and, for example, the recommendations of the Kaufman Select Committee of 2005. There was an outcry last year from local government when the Inquiry into the Wirral library service reminded councillors and council officers of what their duties are. That was astonishing, but it is obvious those people feel able and entitled to disregard the law and parliament if they disagree with it. And that is simply wrong – whoever they are and whatever positions they occupy.
Councillors are the key. For the past few years, in each council there is a senior councillor who carries the responsibility for the library service. When they are put in that post they generally come with their own instincts and experience and are surrounded by the advice of officers in the council to whom they must listen and upon whom they depend. This could be a good arrangement but at present it doesn’t work properly. You wouldn’t appoint an executive Chair of a large company (and these are quite large operations) with so little experience and with so little understanding of his shareholders and the market in which he is operating. Nor should or would you allow a structure in which there is no independent accounting for how his management team perform – and only their own say so for how good they are. If councillors are to be in charge they need serious training for the job which is important, rewarding and fascinating... but running public services is an onerous responsibility for which one needs preparation. We need library councillors who are ambitious for improvement, not for closing things or getting away with the minimum they can

For example, in a council where the annual library budget is £5.6 m and there is currently a proposal to close half the libraries for financial reasons the council have said the saving will be just £300,000 per annum. Given that that statement simply cannot make sense, a resident wrote and asked how the current budget of £5.6m for the 12 existing libraries was spent. After some weeks the answer came back on one sheet which had five headings that did indeed add up to £5.6m. The heading were for staff costs, without distinguishing how much went on each library, property , stock and other miscellaneous items. However the final item in the column said ‘Uncontrollable expenditure £1.3m’ Management and management information like that being given to the taxpayers and to the councillors, so far into a plan to close half the service down, demonstrates the woeful state of financial management in the library service and makes one fearful. In my experience that kind of misinformation is totally normal and common. What was meant was that the overhead cost in the council recharged for other services, is £1.3m. No properly managed body can report that nearly a quarter of its expenditure cannot be controlled. None of it can be controlled by the public, all of it must be controlled by the council- by someone- but whoever compiled that sheet to send to electors did not know what that money was spent on and did not see the responsibility to find out.

As Sir Philip Green has said this week- no one should or could run a business like operation with confusion like that, and no one should tolerate it. Councils wonder why well informed citizens get cross with them and as the digital age means citizens are better informed than ever before, councils need to address these inefficiencies or accept that their citizens will get crosser still.
Not only are the simplest management budgeting procedures unclear, but the link from public to councillor is also lacking and ill informed. Councillors, if they are to be responsible need to know much more about the public need and the mechanisms of good practice for public libraries than they have.
Running good libraries is actually not very difficult, but we have made it too complicated. Somebody should have seen through that – that is the great missing leadership of which people write at length
One is surprised at the waves of ill advised initiatives which sweep across the service. At the moment every council seems to think that outsourcing services to contracted suppliers operating trusts is the universal answer. The truth is that there is no evidence and they are wrong and mad to be fooled by such fashions. In the same way the idea that the library service can be staffed by untrained, unmanaged volunteers is poor thinking that needs to be challenged.
The second important change to make is that if we are going to make local councillors responsible, as the law says that they are, then we should stop all the national attempts to run the service and determine its policies. Instead we should only be trying to help those councillors manage better for the benefit of the only stakeholder that matters - the public.
Before I come finally to the proposals I want to make I need to talk more about funding of the public library service.
Libraries in England cost us £1,000m each year. We have 150 management structures each of which places a burden of cost upon and removes the opportunity for high aspiration for quality in the actual libraries themselves. There is too much management and too much expenditure on activity not directly related to the simple library service that the public want to receive. If you go back to my original wish list for libraries of books, for different age groups, for learning and reading, in buildings which are smart clean and open - then the expenditure on other activities that are not these, is vast. I have never seen a council in which a third of the cost could not be removed and no one would notice. The arrangement is one that allows little and aspiration for energy and excellence.
So in these times of public spending cuts, what I say is that, in terms of the library service, they should have happened a long time ago. There is no reason why the service should not take a swingeing cut in its budget and still provide a wonderful library service – with proper management and good buying it really is possible to get more for less.
To be able to take the necessary decisions councillors need to be better informed about their customers and how libraries can be run- and the information needs to come to them not through their own officers, but through a neutral reliable independent source acting on behalf of the public, if one can be found. At the moment there is a gap in the provision of the proper information.
As a start in filling this gap earlier this year a number of library users came together and drafted a Charter which expresses simply the need for more books, longer hours and better buildings and called for a reduction in management structures to save money and liberate individual library managers from the burden of bureaucracy and authority that libraries carry. But we need more than that.
There is, I believe a need for a ‘Consumers Association’ for public libraries which researches, publishes, disseminates information about the use of libraries and actively shares and explains it to councillors and the public. Of course there is a role in that for the professional managers of the service to participate—but the professional role is in helping councillors and the public provide what the public need. I am known for my belief that the so-called library profession, for public libraries, is not sufficiently responsive to the public and too committed to the state. Their role needs to change and it should be to carry out policy not to create it.
This new body which has been formed in the past few months, which I am announcing today is indeed a Consumers’ Association for libraries. This ‘Library Alliance’, as I anticipate it will be called, is an independent not-for-profit body funded by charitable donation and it will be launched publicly shortly. It will be led by experienced national figures and I hope to play a supporting role. It will take the Charter published earlier this year as its basic belief and then It will conduct research and offer its information service freely to the public and to councils and councillors and its overall and sole aim will be to inform, support and improve the public library service throughout the country from the public point of view. It will do that by improving understanding and the efficiency and effectiveness of library management. It will offer councils the opportunity to participate in major transformation programmes which will reduce cost and improve service and it will help to set these up.
For example I foresee that one of the first projects this body undertakes will be a research into the library needs and provision in a region such as SE London. The researchers will be asked to identify by market research, the different kinds of needs for public libraries for people living and studying in that area and then to research how effectively the 100 or so libraries that are there now actually meet the requirement. It will be able to identify the strengths and the weaknesses of current provision and share that information in full detail both with the public and with the councillors in the London boroughs who are responsible. It will be entirely neutral in the sense that it will have no other interest to proclaim what libraries are achieving apart from what the public wants them to do. It will hold the mirror up to the service plainly and obviously. There will be none of this ‘well the public doesn‘t understand what libraries do these days’ of the kind we hear constantly at present. It will be a force for improvement.
This is, I believe, exactly what is meant by The Big Society, as the Government calls it. It will be an open, transparently funded, endeavour of people who use a public service to identify the ways that it can be improved and encourage them to take place. It will not in any sense be part of Government- but a responsible, properly informed body, borne out of the public need, acting in the general interest in an absolutely essential national service. It will open up the closed channels of communication between those who need libraries and those who operate them. Its success will be measured in the strength of the service in the long term future, whether that be digital or of any other kind.
Senior people in Government and officials in local Government often say that ‘Libraries are Changing’ and they cite electronic and digital developments as means by which those changes have and will come about. But my friends who are library campaigners sharply point to that expression as the dividing line. They say that it has allowed those to abdicate their much more important responsibility to make libraries improve. We want to see a regime in which libraries are not changing but improving.
Today is the first time that I have been able to talk openly about this project which is making good progress and I am grateful to Martyn and to you all for giving me the opportunity to make the news public. Thank you

Professionalism

2010-10-12T12:32:00.002+01:00

SINTO is running a seminar on personal and professional development in November. It is aimed at front line library staff. But what exactly do we mean by "professional" in this context and why is it relevant to libraries?

Tim Coates in his Good Library Blog takes issue with the MLA over the following statement:

"Change to the library service has to be part of a broader agenda of change and the service has to be seen as part of the whole – integral to delivering the wider ambitions of the (local) authority"

Coates (or his cat Perkins) says that "this is in contradiction to the law which says that 'public libraries are for the benefit of those people who wish to use them' - not for the benefit of the agenda or ambitions of local councils, which are, quite naturally, entirely different to those people who simply want to use libraries". He continues:

"The constant, but silly and illogical, attempts to shoe-horn public libraries into the social service agendas of both local and national government have been what has reduced its qualities to a low level".

The idea that 'public libraries are for the benefit of those people who wish to use them' needs to be treated with care as it might suggest that libraries should focus on the type of person who already uses libraries rather than trying to reach out to excluded groups. However I agree that public libraries should have their own agenda and that this is not just about delivering the aims of local councils. As Bob Usherwood makes clear, this agenda should include developing people's potential through education and the promotion of good literature. It would be hard to imagine that this could be in opposition to the wider ambitions of the council but it is not necessarily integral to its agenda.

I understand why senior library managers want to promote the role of libraries in delivering the council's agenda. For a start they are employees of the council and their job description probably makes specific reference to this role. Also "he who pays the piper calls the tune". When chief librarians are fighting with other departmental heads for limited funds the game rules make clear that the goal is to contribute directly to the councils agenda. There is no National Information Policy or overarching idea that librarians can cite to promote an independent mission for libraries. I don't think that many chief librarians (sorry, Assistant Deputy Directors, Culture and Communities (Library & Information Services)), would stand up in a departmental budget meeting and proclaim that "The purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization" as a way of getting a bigger share of the budget.

Finally we know that libraries can contribute to all these other aspects of the council's agenda - but there has to be more to it than that.

One aspect of this is the way in which front line library staff are seen by the council, library managers and themselves. They are often perceived as "customer care officers" or some such term and not as librarians. Of course there have always been library assistants (sometimes called paraprofessionals or even non-professionals) but they used to work under the direction of professional staff. Today few libraries require or even expect professional qualifications for their staff and many people working in libraries do not accept that membership of a professional body or even qualifications in librarianship are essential. Many librarians (and very good librarians at that) question the relevance of professionalism.

I believe that there is a concept of professionalism that is of value in libraries (of value to the individual, to the library users and to the organisation). This concept does not depend on qualifications or membership of a professional body (although both are ways of achieving professionalism). Rather it is an understanding of what libraries are about and a commitment to personal and professional development in order to deliver this. "What libraries are about" is of course the key issue and one that must be constantly reviewed. It must be approached from a core of understanding and values. Customer care does not provide that core - professionalism does.

Save our libraries campaigns

2010-10-08T11:27:00.001+01:00

Here are some links to groups that can help with local library campaigns.

Library campaign www.librarycampaign.com
CILIP www.cilip.org.uk In particular the campaign toolkit http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/campaigning-toolkit/pages/default.aspx
Voices for the library http://www.voicesforthelibrary.org.uk/wordpress/
Centre for the Public Library and Information in Society http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/research/centres/cplis/
Save Doncaster Libraries campaign http://flavors.me/walkyouhome#761/wordpress

Future of Business Support

2010-09-28T15:58:00.003+01:00

Business information and advice: back to the library

I recently produced a report for SINTO on business information provision in Yorkshire. It is a review of the current landscape and a vision of what might be. Now it appears that the whole landscape may change.

According to Real Business, small business minister Mark Prisk (Minister of State for Business and Enterprise) has announced that the Business Link Network is to be closed down. This follows on from the news that the Regional Development Agencies are to be replaced by Local Enterprise Partnerships. This news is not confirmed on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website so it is not clear how reliable this is but it may be a leak to gauge public opinion on the matter.
It appears that Prisk is influenced by a report Small Business and Government produced a couple of years ago by Doug Richard for the then Conservative Shadow Cabinet . Richard claimed that the current system was overly complex, ineffective and undirected. He was particularly scathing about Business Links.

Richard went on to propose:

business support policy needs to clearly reflect the difference between providing information and expert advice or support.
the whole regional business support apparatus of RDAs and Business Links should be replaced by a single, web-based Business Information Service.
The in-depth information system behind the BIS should be modelled on the successful British Library Business and IP Centre, which is a substantive service provided by an institution with proven competence. Similar centres should be rolled out across the country, delivered by major libraries and leading universities: they are accessible organisations that have the proven competence to deliver expert information services, providing depth behind the web-based service.

Prisk has certainly seized on the last of these suggestions. Speaking at the launch of the "Inventing the 21st century" exhibition at the British Library he announced that a memorandum of understanding had been signed between Newcastle City Library, the British Library and NESTA (National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) to investigate the feasibility of a Business and IP Centre Newcastle as a pilot for rolling out a new business support service.

Richard's ideas for a web-based Business Information Service sound very close to the idea put forward in the JISC Grant Funding invitation 1/10 Access to Resources and Open Innovation (which in turn followed on from the Business Information Resources: Landscape & Feasibility Study (BIR) written by Nigel Spencer of the British Library) for a one-stop-shop portal which would provide access to free and priced information. JISC is currently funding eight projects around the country which are piloting this concept.

Richard's separation between information and expert advice is interesting. In his report he said:

"… we believe that a Conservative Government should focus its efforts on enabling the provision of information, not advice. There is no need for Government advisors to try and compete with private and third sector agencies. Government should instead work through business experts, existing institutions and current programmes that could be reinforced rather than being reinvented".

Information is not just data, it can include "how to" texts which offer advice and help on setting up and running a business - the sort of thing that most public libraries and Business Link web sites provide. Richard argues that this is different to expert business advice delivered on a one-to-one basis. The later can be provided by independent paid for advisors operating in a free market and evaluated through web-based customer rating services similar to e-bay.

This model of business support is closer to the core purpose of library services. So far so good but there are obvious gaps. Who is running this national Business Information Service and how will it be funded. And who is funding the local B&IP centres. The "major libraries and leading universities" that are "accessible organisations that have the proven competence to deliver expert information services, providing depth behind the web-based service" need some incentive and support to take on this role. If Business Links are abolished will some of their funding be directed towards public libraries? One problem is that the "proven competence" of public libraries is being rapidly eroded at the present and so far there has been little evidence of the Government wanting to reverse this. It is ironic for Mark Prisk to be promoting a dynamic role for public libraries while his colleagues are handing the service over to volunteers.

A crime against learning

2010-08-19T10:30:00.004+01:00

"Shutting libraries is a crime against learning" said the Mirror in a short but sweet editorial. "Jeanette Winterson hits out at threats to libraries" said the Guardian.

There was however a significant difference between the two. The Mirror editorial was an attack on Government policy. Ms Winterson's comments in part were an attack on libraries. She warned that libraries which replace classic literature with DVDs risk failing the children of today.

"[I would] start at A and read Jane Austen and move to B and read the Brontës and go on from there," she told her audience, but on a recent visit to her old library she found that DVDs had replaced many of the books, which led her to become concerned about the formative reading experiences of children with little other access to books than through a library.

"What worries me is that a load of shite has been talked about digitisation as being the new Gutenberg, but the fact is that Gutenberg led to books being put in shelves, and digitisation is taking books off shelves," said Winterson.
"If you start taking books off shelves then you are only going to find what you are looking for, which does not help those who do not know what they are looking for."

Meanwhile our very own (until she left!) Lauren Smith has Comment is Free piece on Doncaster library cuts published in the Guardian. As usual this has attracted a large number of on-line comments and many of these are very supportive of libraries. However two of the first postings were:

"Most libraries are now book free zones. Utterly dumbed-down centres of political correctness - a cafe & creche with a dvd browsing service tagged on."

"If they hadn't tried so hard to compete with internet cafes then they might be in a stronger position. Looking at my local library it would seem those using the computers are a generation or so younger than the book or music borrowers. Libraries would again be in a stronger position if they could alter the demographics of lending."

This is very much what Bob Usherwood was warning us about in his book Equity and Excellence in the Public Library; why ignorance is not our heritage. We have to defend public libraries and ask the public to defend them - but we also have to think hard about what libraries should be. In an attempt to keep issue and usage figures up; to make libraries popular, accessible and "non-elitist" have we gone too far? Have we dumbed-down and lost sight of the role of libraries as providers of quality reading and education? Should we be more aspirational on behalf of our communities? Should our motto be that we won't give people what they want because they deserve better than that?

Where the debate is

2010-07-15T12:01:00.005+01:00

In my last blog I looked at how social networking had the potential of changing the relationship between librarians and their professional body. I will now look at how social networking is affecting the relationship between the public at large and the library profession.

Debates about libraries on social networking sites are quite common and I have mentioned some in the past. Two recent examples are of interest.

The Government launched their Spending Challenge website asking people to post suggestions on "how we can re-think government to deliver more for less" The site was unmoderated and soon attracted some very offensive comments but it also had a number of posts relating to libraries. Many of these suggested getting rid of libraries:

Using the Library as a source of knowledge is outdated. The internet has taken over. They are outdated institutions. Why should the state fund peoples reading habits. The usually occupy prime city/town locations and must cost a fortune to run and staff just so that a small minority of die hards can borrow books at the states expense.

Others suggested introducing charges, using volunteers and other cost-saving suggestions. A few argued for expanding the role of libraries.

On 13th July the Guardian published a piece in its Comment is Free column by Ian Clark, a university librarian. "We still need libraries in the digital age" argued that Public libraries have a vital role bridging the digital divide and teaching people how to get reliable information from the internet. The online version of this article had attracted over 100 comments by this morning. These responses were from "typical Guardian readers" and included several from librarians. They too ranged from getting rid of libraries because the Internet has made them obsolete to passionate support.

Libraries are a bit like the Gurkhas - the public goes a bit mushy and woolly headed over them. So doubtless we'll continue to see councils blowing our taxes on large buildings full of books that no one reads....
Libraries, like post offices, served a valuable function in the past. That past valuable function is fast expiring and the vested interests in both are casting around for new reasons to justify their existence. We should be looking for the most economical ways to phase both out.
Free access to information whether it be the net or good old fashioned books is a mark of a civilized nation. Long may libraries continue.
Libraries have never been perfect, but there is proportionately more 'wisdom' that can be sourced from within them. Sadly few people ever trouble to seek out 'wisdom' nor even 'knowledge'. However, via the media they are fed a lot of 'information' that contributes to their confusion.
So for me, I still use my various laptops, iPad, BB etc to find information and for general reading. Maybe it's time to focus libraries on the young and leave the rest of us to our own devices
Perhaps those scoffing at libraries, in their well paid jobs from the comfort of their homes, should consider this. Even if they do not use libraries there are many of us who see them as lifelines and this should be protected.

We shouldn't go overboard in our response to these views, especially the anti-libraries ones, but at the same time we need to be aware that some people hold these views and the profession should be responding. I was alerted to both discussions by posts on Twitter but there is a digital divide in the profession and I wonder how many senior librarians have picked up on these discussions while they are going on. Several librarians did respond in the Guardian thread but from what I saw the only response from a head of service was from Canada. I know many might say that it is not worth getting involved in this type of debate, and it often does descend to the level of trading insults, but I think it is dangerous to turn our back on a discussion like this. A final comment from the Guardian thread shows that even friends of libraries sometimes despair of our response.

Fact is, you are doing a very bad job of explaining yourself here. If libraries are set up by people like you as glorified 'information'-harvesting points they will close, pretty swiftly. My advice, for what it is worth, is that you might try focusing on the glories of a free public space - a physical space as opposed to the privatised non-space offered by the web - offering free access to pretty much any book ever published, and a bit of other good stuff on the side - DVDs, CDs, information technology. Hell, you could even try promoting the experience of reading books to a generation increasingly unfamiliar with them. All this, free at the point of use in a public space which is also often a community hub. Sounds pretty good to me. You could also try speaking about this with passion, like a person, rather than a consultant who uses dead and depressing phrases like 'facilitating access to information technology' and 'delivers on aspects of its core services.' It might not work, but I reckon it would be worth a try.

Social networking and CILIP

2010-07-06T14:00:00.002+01:00

Biddy Fisher is speaking to SINTO tomorrow on the subject of Our Professional Journey. She will be speaking about CILIP and its future - indeed the future of the profession as a whole - and the Defining our professional future programme.

This will be a traditional face to face meeting. People will take time off, travel to a fixed location, and gather in a room with other librarians to hear directly what Biddy has to say and ask her questions. Such meetings are I believe, of value and enable participants to interact with the speaker in a way no other format can match. However it is for many an old-fashioned format. Why get together in person when you can achieve the same results in a virtual world.

For many people the Defining our professional future debate has been carried on through the medium of social networking.
An interesting example of this is the short podcast on the blog of Nicola McNee in which she gives 5 ideas on the future of CILIP. Now Nicola strikes me as the sort of person who is not seduced by technology for technology's sake. She is not interested in the latest gadget or gimmick just as something new. She uses social networking tools such as blogs and podcasts because she finds them to be useful for professional development and discussion.

What interests me is how CILIP in particular and the profession at large is responding to these new tools. In his book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, Clay Shirky argues that just as the printing press transformed society, the internet has 'removed the barrier to universal participation and revealed that human beings would rather be creating and sharing than passively consuming what a privileged elite think they should watch. Instead of lamenting the silliness of a lot of social online media, we should be thrilled by the spontaneous collective campaigns and social activism also emerging.'

How does this impact on CILIP? Does the fact that librarians such as Nicola and many others are now comfortable with social media mean that the whole structure and process of CILIP can and should change? Should decisions be made not by a Council but by the direct input of individuals? Can we envisage a Wikiorganisation?

These are not rhetorical questions. Perhaps the answers should be no! What would the profession loose if we moved to a new model? Would the old privileged elite be replaced by a new privileged elite. What about the digital divide in the profession? Will the professional silliness of a lot of professional social media swamp the voices of reason and intelligence? If we replace face-to-face debate with a babble of individual voices speaking in isolation don't we loose something of value?

These issues have to be considered. The recent speech by the Culture Minister Ed Vaisy on Re-modelling public libraries was made available by DCMS on the Write-to-reply website with an invitation for public comments. Is this a forum that CILIP and the profession should be using to get their message across to the Government or is it just for uninformed chit-chat? There may be other and better ways of lobbying the Government that CILIP can use. Could individual comments by librarians on Write-to-reply actually harm our case or is this the model for the future?

I seem to have used a lot of question marks! My point is that social media is not just a new way of communicating. It has the potential to change the way in which organisations operate and we need to be aware of that.

A light when all others fail

2010-06-18T13:18:00.002+01:00

Sheffield is reeling today from the news that three major projects have been cancelled by the Government.

Although Paul Scriven has pointed out that these cuts do not in themselves cause any job losses the view of many in Sheffield is that the city has been let down by the Government.

We are facing hard times and many people will be hit by unemployment. It is at times like this that public libraries should be seen as a light when all others have failed. They provide information and support for those looking for work. They support small business start-ups. They are a welcoming and inclusive community centre. They provide free Internet access. They support learning. They provide access to books for leisure reading. A community like Sheffield needs its libraries. The trouble is that libraries themselves are threatened by cuts. Next Friday Rachel Cooke is speaking at the SINTO Members' Day on The Threat to Our Libraries - and What We Can Do To Save Them. It is an event that should be supported by librarians in our region.

Bad times just around the corner

2010-06-14T15:12:00.005+01:00

My inspiration for my annual report to SINTO this year will be Noel Coward:

There are bad times just around the corner
There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky.
And it's no good whining
About a silver lining
For we know from experience that they won't roll by.

As he says (and you really must try to do the voice as you read this):
From Colwyn Bay to Kettering
They're sobbing themselves to sleep
The shrieks and wails
In the Yorkshire dales
Have even depressed the sheep

One thing we must face up to as a profession is that there are people who think that cuts to library funding are not only inevitable they are desirable. Many genuinely believe that libraries no longer have a function in today's world.

Not enough library services and librarians have adopted Web 2.0 technology and therefore they don't understand the true nature of the change that has happened - either the positive or the negative aspects. The profession as a whole also has difficulty in articulating its own case succinctly or forcefully.

Two SINTO events are designed to give librarians the chance to step back from crisis management and take a longer term view. At the SINTO Members' Day on Friday 25th June Observer journalist Rachel Cooke is giving the keynote speech The Threat to Our Libraries - And What We Can Do To Save Them. This is an "outsiders" view - albeit a friendly outsider - and it will be valuable to hear her analysis of the problems we face.

Then on the 7th July Biddy Fisher, CILIP President is giving a talk on Our Professional Journey. Biddy is heading up CILIP's Defining Our Professional Future programme. Many librarians will be turning to CILIP for support in the coming months - and many will also use them as a scapegoat. This is an opportunity to hear what she has to say.

Trading cards

2010-05-06T14:29:00.004+01:00

Bored with World Cup trading cards! Try the new craze that is sweeping libraryland - librarian trading cards are here! Collect the full set of series 1 (academic librarians) and series 2 (public librarians) and stick them in the special albums available from SINTO. Swop them with your friends and play exciting games like Librarian Top Trumps!

Look out for rare editions and printing errors being traded on E-bay - such as the Martin Lewis inverted.

Start collecting today - available at all good libraries.

Leadership development

2010-05-05T15:16:00.001+01:00

Leadership development into practice - the Apprentice for librarians!

Do you have staff who have the potential to be the senior managers and leaders of tomorrow?
Do you want to develop their skills and confidence to prepare them for this role in the future?
Would you like to develop a framework to improve customer service?

Elenore Fisher (Rotherham Library Museums & Arts) and I have developed an innovative proposal to help library services achieve these goals. Using elements of "The Apprentice" (but without Sir Allen), this project will develop planning, team working and leadership skills through participation in a practical project.

Libraries would be invited to nominate staff members to take part in a cross-SINTO project group. The group would be set the task of producing a workable "mystery shopper" programme for libraries. This could incorporate a number of elements, from setting the remit/outcomes of the project, to working on specifications for mystery shopping templates, training of staff to take part, organising and evaluating the "visits" and coming up with proposals for actions.

Project members would attend a series of meetings and set up on-line facilities for communication and project development. They would be given a deadline to produce a final report.
This is a development exercise and project members would be encouraged to use self-evaluation and reflective learning techniques. At the same time their work would be monitored by an external observer. Feedback and mentoring would be provided during and after the exercise.

This project is currently in development but I am inviting expressions of interest from SINTO member organisations. Let me know if:
a) You are interested in the project as described
b) You are not interested in mystery shopping but would like to use this format for another project.

Depending on the feedback we will work this proposal up into a project that could be run early next year.

Challenges for libraries in difficult economic times

2010-04-15T11:52:00.002+01:00

The slim booklet Challenges for academic libraries in difficult economic times published by the Research Information Network in March 2010 has probably been read and digested by senior managers in university libraries. It is, unfortunately, likely to be of equal relevance to librarians in other sectors.

Over the last 10 years UK universities' net expenditure on libraries has grown from £322m to £550m, although as a percentage of total university expenditure it has fallen from 3.0% to 2.1%. Universities have also expanded the volume and range of their services and made efficiency savings in this period. Now, 52% of university librarians are expecting budget cuts of around 10% in the next two years.

The scope for further efficiency savings is small so universities have to think strategically about:

The balance between expenditure on information resources and staffing
A greater focus on user-facing functions
A move to E-books to save costs on core texts combined with negotiating better deals with publishers
A major renegotiation with publishers over the price of electronic journal subscription deals.
Income generation

Other aspects include the need to find ways to demonstrate and communicate the value of library services in achieving institutional goals. Deeper co-operation with libraries across the sector is also being investigated. All this is set against the background of the continuing digital revolution and the growing power of students as consumers.

Most of this will be familiar to public librarians and to those in the commercial sector. The need for strategic thinking, reengineering of services and successful change management is common to all. The RIN report concludes:

"Co-operation and partnership - with other libraries; with other information service providers; and with the staff, students and senior managers of their host universities - will be watchwords for libraries as they develop their strategies for the future."

Managing Change

2010-03-25T12:28:00.001Z

Yesterday SINTO ran a seminar on Managing Change. The course looked at the nature of change and how people react to it, definitions of change management and the skills required to manage change, models and theories of change in organisations, tools for planning the process of change, understanding how people respond to change and how to decrease resistance to change.
The fifteen delegates from libraries of all types across the SINTO region gave a very high rating to the course and the trainer Peter Lumley. But the information received was only part of the benefit of the course. For almost all the delegates this was not an academic learning exercise. They were faced by real change that they were having to manage. The course gave them knowledge and tools but it also provided an opportunity away from the workplace to think about the issues. One delegates described this as "headspace". It also gave them the opportunity to meet librarians from other organisations who were dealing with similar issues.
What impressed me about the delegates was the very professional way in which they as middle managers were dealing with a difficult situation. Most of the change they are facing results from an underlying financial imperative - they have to make "efficiency savings" or cuts by another name. The changes that arise from this may have real benefits for their users but because of this context front line staff are likely to be very cynical of claims that this change is a good thing and therefore very resistant to it. The middle managers may well share this cynicism but they are the filling in the sandwich. They are responsible to their senior managers for implementing the change and have a responsibility to their staff to convince them that the change is beneficial. All the delegates wanted to do the best for their users, their libraries and their staff while at the same time fighting against the cuts.
I am always interested in what happens when the delegates get back to their workplaces. Most organisations have a formal report back for staff who have been on a course as part of their CPD process but does the line manager take time to discuss the issues raised on the course? Is the organisation prepared to learn any lessons itself? Somehow I doubt it!

Three of a kind

2010-03-19T13:02:00.003Z

You wait ages for a document about libraries to arrive… and then three turn up at once (with another one on the horizon)!
Today I have been looking at three reports relevant to libraries in different sectors:

Challenges for academic libraries in difficult economic times Research Information Network
Sharper Investment for Changing Times MLA
The Library and Information manifesto CILIP

The Library and Information Manifesto: 6 priorities for the next government is presented as a document for using with candidates in the next election as a way of influencing the next Government. How achievable this is in terms of the realities of an election campaign is debatable but CILIP intends that the document can be used as an agenda for discussion at local level as well. The focus on six specific priorities means that many librarians may well disagree with what is and is not included (I personally lobbied for a reference to the needs of businesses for focused information provision) but this should not prevent everyone using this as a useful tool. What is significant is that CILIP has upped its game in providing guidance to the profession on how the manifesto can be used effectively. From the YouTube video of Peter Beauchamp to the Use the Manifesto page on the website there are clear guidelines on how we can get the maximum impact from this. Librarians can often be heard complaining that CILIP "is not doing enough" but now the ball is clearly in our court and we must show what we can do.

Sharper Investment begins with the assertion that “Cuts to museums, libraries and other cultural services are unpalatable – we must resist them in favour of imaginative alternative solutions. Our call, to government and councils, is to recognise that cultural services can help communities recover from the impact of the recession." It then calls for calls for more creative planning to ensure the public get the most out of the £2bn-plus that national and local government invest in museums, libraries and archives.
It proposes solutions, based on long-term partnership between local government, central government, and museums, libraries and archives themselves, each responsible for their side of a bargain. Museums, libraries and archives are asked to make a wider public impact concentrating "less on sustaining costly buildings and storing unseen objects, and more on opening up fantastic collections of books, records and iconic artefacts for learning and enjoyment". Local government is asked to utilise the value of museum, library and archive services for wider purposes and central government is asked to ensure the longer term funding and statutory framework in which councils, museums, libraries and archives can have the freedom, flexibility and stability to plan for far reaching change.

The report concludes "In this economic climate, no change is not an option. If we do nothing, change will happen, but through closures and reductions. The public will notice reduced service, worse service and poorer, less accessible collections. Through the suggestions in this prospectus, we hope for cleverer investment in museums, libraries and archives that will get the most out of them, and deliver long term benefits for all".

Challenges for academic libraries in difficult economic times is described as a guide for senior institutional managers and policy managers. It has four core messages:

HE librarians are expecting budget cuts over the next three years.
The scale of the cuts means that libraries must rethink the kinds and levels of service they provide in support of their universities’ missions. The scope for further simple efficiency savings is small, and so librarians are having to think more strategically.
Library directors from across the sector are keen to use the current financial difficulties as an opportunity to rethink what the library does, and to do things differently. But they have as yet few concrete proposals that will transform services or yield large-scale savings.
Libraries and their directors have a critical role to play, but they cannot do it all themselves. Leadership and partnership with champions from across the HE and information sectors will be critical to sustaining the outstanding position of UK universities.

The CILIP Manifesto is intended to be used by all librarians to influence election candidates and local policy makers. The other two documents are aimed at heads of services to use as an agenda in discussions with senior managers. However all three should be promoted within the relevant libraries to library staff at all levels for the following reasons:

All library staff should be aware of and committed to the strategic goals of the library. This means more than the ability to parrot the library's mission statement. It means being aware of what the library is trying to achieve and the problems it is facing.
Change management is not just about convincing staff to accept change when it is being forced upon them. It should be about raising awareness of what change may happen and why.
Library staff should be advocates for the library service both within and outside the workplace. The idea that library staff should be neutral and not speak up in support of their own library service is wrong - as long as they are not party political.
The front line staff of today are the library managers of tomorrow. They must be given an understanding of the big strategic issues that the profession is facing.

These documents should not be hidden on a shelf in the chief librarians office. They must be made avilable and promoted to all library staff.

Two futures

2010-03-16T11:25:00.002Z

Yesterday I studied two pieces on the future of libraries. The first was an article in The New Republic magazine Towards a New Alexandria: imagining the future of libraries by Lisbet Rausing. The second was the Newsnight report on public libraries.

In many ways these two pieces are looking at entirely different things. Rausing's article looks at the potential offered by digitalization and the rise of the universal electronic library. Referring to the Swedish term "folkbildningsidealet, that profoundly democratic vision of universal learning and education.", she speculates on the impact of not only digitalizing the contents of our great national and academic libraries but also of including grey literature and ephemera. "What do we do" she asks "when we have not only the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptures and Architects but also Vasari's blog, wiki, twitter, texts, emails, chatroom, Facebook, radio interviews, TV appearances and electronic notebooks?

Rausing then warns of the dangers involved - how the migration into electronic formats can restrict access to information. She points out that some intermediaries - publishers, academics and [academic] librarians - are preventing free, universal access to material because of "Cultural agoraphobia" - fear of open networks. "… obstacles are imagined—and created. University libraries are closed shops, JSTOR remains blocked, theses are inaccessible, and academic monographs are available, if at all, only on paper and at prohibitive prices". She makes the possibly naïf but valid point that "… the public has set itself the task to rewrite knowledge for the public domain through Wikipedia and the like. Should not these sites be hyperlinked with JSTOR? By excluding the public from their scholarly literature, academics make it impossible for amateurs to use sound research methodologies, critically examining evidence by cross-referencing and source analysis. Scholars then critique the public’s output for not being sufficiently academic".

All this seems a long way from the debate on Newsnight. That was all about declining borrowing and visit figures for public libraries. A comparison was made between public baths and libraries. When most people did not have running water in the house they needed a public place to have a bath. Now most people have plumbing we don’t need municipal washhouses. Now most people have the Internet and can get books from Amazon and information from Google so why do we need public libraries? What the defenders of libraries failed to get over was than Internet access in the home does not deliver folkbildningsidealet. Much of the discussion was about public libraries as social spaces and the need to make them more attractive to attract more users. That is undoubtedly true but we must maintain this link between the friendly branch library as a place to choose some books and meet friends and the wider world of information and learning with the librarian as a positive intermediary. My local bank is little more than a room full of cash dispensers, but it does have a free telephone link to central office. Sometimes when I visit branch libraries I feel I am in a cul-de-sac; very pleasant and welcoming but with little sense that I am at a portal to something larger. That is our USP and we must hold on to it.

Declining bookstock.

2010-03-11T13:49:00.002Z

Tim Coates' Good Library Blog has posted a list of library authorities that have reduced the stock of books available for lending over the past 10 years - based on the CIPFA statistics.
He (or rather Perkins the cat) claims that nationally the stock of books available for lending has fallen by 17million.
In his list of shame no SINTO authorities are mentioned. Indeed Sheffield and Derbyshire appear in a shorter list of libraries that have increased their stock of lending books in this period.
It's probably a case of lies, damn lies and statistics. If you don't throw out any old books and add a small number of new titles then you total stock will increase but the quality of the collection has decreased. A smaller number of new titles (with duplicates of the most popular titles) would probably increase issue figures - but is that a better service or not?
It sometimes seems that our critics are better at using statistics to make a point than we are.

Access to Business Information 2

2010-03-08T11:20:00.004Z

I recently blogged about the Business Information Resources Report funded by JISC as part of its Business and Community Engagement programme.

I mentioned that JISC has issued a call for projects which will demonstrate good practice in access to information resources for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs, and also other individuals and organisations.

One concern I have is that the Business Information Resources report by Nigel Spencer points out that "The business information landscape is confusing and it is not clear where a business can find information." Public Libraries and business support agencies are already important sources of information and although I welcome the efforts of JISC to improve services to SMEs from higher education bodies I was worried that this might just increase the fragmentation. Simon Whittemore, Programme Manager, Business and Community Engagement at JISC has reassured me on this point. Pointing out that JISC of course can only directly fund HE/FE institutions he says:

'[W]e wouldn't have invested in this had we not believed that there are wider benefits in HE having a leading - or better termed 'facilitating' role in this joined up provision'

He continues:
"As you will have noted, the Access to Resources bids need to be collaborative, and need to put forward credible functional balanced partnerships which will deliver defined info and knowledge services in a controlled context. So we do expect public libraries and business support agencies to be strongly reflected in these partnerships, and certainly in the actual provision (potentially a 3 level model along the lines the Report suggested.)"

In our region we are fortunate that we have a local partnership in place that can respond to this sort of initiative. I have been in touch with the three Founding members of SINTO, (Sheffield Libraries, the University of Sheffield Library and Sheffield Hallam University Learning Centre) - and also the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, to suggest that we consider putting in a bid under this call. Obviously SINTO already exists but I think there is great scope for expanding what we do and presenting this as an exemplar project. I have not had a response yet but I do feel we are in a strong position to develop a service locally that could act as a guide nationally.

If any other SINTO members are also interested in this call please contact me.

The library as a concept album

2010-03-05T11:05:00.001Z

When I am in the car with my step-son and I put on a CD (which has to be something he is prepared to tolerate), I am always slightly annoyed by the way he will skip some tracks and only listen to the ones he really likes - or in some cases only the parts of tracks he likes. As an oldie who can remember Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band being released in 1967 I regard the album, as a collection of tracks played in a set order, as being more than the sum of its individual parts. In particular I think you can develop a liking for tracks on repeated listening even if they don't appeal on the first play.
My step-son of course is more use to listening to individual tracks on his i-pod and I think the concept of an album as whole is disappearing.

The same applies to library collections. Today libraries are seen as, at best, an access point to a world of resources, most of which are available electronically. The idea that a collection of items on the shelves can have a value greater than the sum of its parts is being lost.

The library collection at the Department of Children, Schools and Families here in Sheffield is closing down. Most of it is moving to London but apparently they do not want the historical collection. This collection documents the development of theories and practice of education from the 17th Century to the present day. It includes works by Joseph Priestley (An essay on a course of liberal education…), Erasmus Darwin, Jeremy Bentham (Chrestomathia), George Bernard Shaw and the delightful pseudonym Prudentia Homespun (Jane West).
None of these items are of monetary value or particularly rare. Apparently the collection has been offered to national libraries and second-hand book dealers with no interest. It is now being offered to any library in the SINTO region. Although the individual items are not unique I feel that the collection as a whole must have value. Not only does it present a picture of the development of theories and practice of education in the UK over time but it also indicates what the Government department responsible for education felt was important. It would be a great shame if this collection were split up or even worse ended up as landfill!

If any library is interested in this collection please contact the SINTO office.

Access to Business Information

2010-02-26T14:53:00.004Z

From its very earliest days SINTO has been involved with the information needs of industry and business. In the 1930s SINTO was a partnership between Sheffield Libraries and the specialist library and information services of local steel and engineering companies enabling the loan of books and journals. Since then much has changed, but not always for the better. Small and medium enterprises today often face barriers in obtaining the information they need.

In 2000 SINTO produced an Objective 1 funding proposal for a South Yorkshire Business Information Library but it was not taken up. SINTO was involved in the Yorkshire MLA project Libraries are Good for Business which mapped business information provision in our region and looked at how it could be improved. I recently wrote to CILIP Update about the report Access by UK small and medium-sized enterprises to professional and academic information pointing out that public libraries were less able to provide for the needs of SMEs today than they were in the 1930s. This month I Tweeted on the report Business Information Resources: Landscape & Feasibility by Nigel Spencer which pointed out the fragmented nature of the information landscape This report stated that many obstacles exist to prevent businesses from finding and using business information and cited a lack of understanding of business needs by staff providing services. The report went on to identify key roles for public libraries, Business Links and the higher education institutions and recommended the creation of a national integrated service for information provision.

I was very interested therefore in the funding call from JISC to universities for projects that will demonstrate good practice in access to information resources for external parties, particularly small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs, but also other individuals and organisations. The call is part of the JISC Business and Community Engagement (BCE) programme designed to encourage partnerships between universities and the wider community to share knowledge and expertise for mutual benefit. Funds are available to support demonstrator projects in which higher or further education institutions take a leading role in facilitating an integrated information and knowledge service model, in partnership with other key agencies such as public libraries, publishers and business support agencies. The vision behind the business information resources work was for institutions to offer business information resources coupled with tailored advice and guidance from institutional experts. This would be provided both on-site and via remote access, by regional hubs in partnership with public libraries, with the support of local and regional bodies such as Regional Development Agencies. The intention now is that the resources are broadened beyond business information to include serviceable knowledge (i.e. institutional knowledge which is applied to solve external problems or create opportunities) and joined-up services.

Funding of £450,000 for up to 5 projects is available under the access to resources theme. The deadline for application is the 19th April 2010.
This project is to be welcomed as information provision for this sector has been neglected. My only reservation is that the current fragmented nature of the information landscape arose because over the years different organisations have been given a lead role in providing business information. It used to be the public libraries in our larger cities. Then Business Links were formed. The British Library Business and IP Centre was set up. Now universities are being encouraged to take on the role. I understand that collaboration and partnership are at the heart of this call but I wish there could be even more joined up thinking at the start.

Legal information

2010-02-15T11:23:00.003Z

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."

Librarians tend to be aware of the importance of these lines by Pope. We may not know a lot about the subjects we deal with but we do know that there is a lot to know. That's one reason why we tend to be cynical about about tools such as Wikipedia. It's not that it is wrong, it's just that it is a very shallow draught.

This applies especially to subjects such as medicine and law. It could be dangerous (or at least expensive) to become intoxicated by a shallow understanding of these subjects. As a result librarians tend to be wary about providing this information. On the other hand there is clearly an obligation on public libraries to provide users with access to good quality sources of information. Citizens have a right to the information they need to make informed decisions.

In an article in Legal Information Management in 2007 (1) I pointed out that that although there is no shortage of on-line legal information resources it can still be difficult for many people to get access to the information they need through public libraries. This is the topic that will be addressed by the SINTO training day Sources of legal information and advice for a general reference library. Librarians from the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University will be providing a guide to sources of information with a focus on free and on-line resources. The day will begin with an introduction to the English legal system so that delegates can understand the context and will finish with a presentation from the Sheffield Law Centre about legal advice services. The day will also be useful to librarians in academic and other specialist libraries who want a general introduction to the subject. More information can be fond here.

Reference librarians in public libraries have always needed to be generalists but they do need to have specialist knowlege as well. This SINTO course will enable them to drink deep from the Pierian spring.

1. Clayton, C. Too much information... nor any drop to drink. Legal Information Management 7(2007) pp101-103 Link

Training in Leeds

2010-02-12T13:51:00.003Z

A few years ago there existed a group called the Consortium which was organised by Sally Gibbs, then of Leeds Metropolitan University. It organised training events for library staff. Sally left Leeds Met and the Consortium ceased to operate.
I am keen to resurect the Consortium under the aegis of SINTO. The idea is that librarians in Leeds should get together and plan training events which would then be administered by SINTO. What I need from Leeds librarians is:

Ideas for events to meet the needs of librarians in Leeds
Help with providing venues
Help in identifying speakers, especially local experts

SINTO would book the rooms and speakers, circulate publicity and take the bookings.

I have written to my contacts at Leeds University, Leeds Metropolitan University and Leeds Public Libraries and am looking forward to their response. If there is anyone else in the Leeds area who would like to get involved, get in touch.

Grading of SINTO staff

2010-02-10T10:02:00.004Z

I have always used the SINTO Blog to write about maters of general professional interest or for news of what SINTO is doing. This blog is on a personal issue but does raise issues that will be of concern to SINTO members.

SINTO is an independent body set up and run by its members. It is administered by Sheffield City Council, and the SINTO staff - myself as Director and the SINTO Assistant - are employed by SCC. However all the costs of SINTO, including staff costs, are covered by the income raised by SINTO from subscriptions, donations and charges for events.

Last year SCC carried out a Pay and Grading review (later renamed the Equal Pay Review). This proposed that the grades of the SINTO Director and SINTO Assistant should be reduced. I am facing a reduction of c£1,500 pa and the Assistant post 0f c£910 pa (FTE).

So far I have regarded this as an internal matter. I have discussed it with the SINTO Executive Board and have been preparing an appeal against the regrading. However the review process has been delayed and I feel that the issue should be brought to the attention of SINTO members. To explain my position I am reproducing the text of an e-mail I have sent to Cllr Sylvia Dunkerly who is the SCC cabinet member with responsibility for libraries.

Dear Sylvia
I should apologise for the timing of my lobbying you over the Pay and Gradings review. Yesterday's evening at the Central Library was a celebration of the library service and your speech was very well received. However I do not apologise for what I said and I believe that this is an urgent issue that Sheffield City Council needs to deal with and that members should be aware of how staff feel.I believe that the review has become a debacle. My anger is mainly because of the delays in the appeal procedure. I am of course aggrieved by the decision to downgrade my post as SINTO Director and the post of SINTO Assistant. SINTO as you know is an independent organisation administered by Sheffield City Council. It is self-funding and the income I generate covers all our costs including staff costs. There will be no cost saving to SCC from the downgrading. The Council claims that the downgrading is not to save costs but reflects the duties and responsibilities of the post. I reject this argument and do not believe that the Council has any evidence to justify this decision. In my post as Director of SINTO, which I have held for 12 years, I am directly responsible to our member organisations - library and information services throughout the region. If I did not provide the level of service that these organisations require I would have been dismissed from my post by the SINTO Executive or the libraries would have withdrawn from SINTO membership. They are clearly satisfied with my performance at the salary that was originally decided by SINTO. What grounds does the Council have for overturning the decision of the SINTO members?

Having said that, I accept that the Council was entitled to go through this process and make a decision as long as it enabled an equitable review process. We were promised in a letter of 19th November 2009 that a review meeting "will be arranged and the date confirmed to you in writing within 4 weeks of the final date for receipt of all Appeal Request Forms. This will be in January 2010". It is now February. No further correspondence has been received about the reviews. The latest update on the SCC intranet is dated 7 December.Justice delayed is justice denied. My strong sense of grievance about the original decision has been exacerbated by the delay in holding the appeal meetings. The inability of the Council to organise the process on time undermines my confidence in its fairness. As I said to you yesterday, if I ran SINTO as badly as Sheffield City Council is running the Pay and Grading review I would expect to be sacked!

Potentially dangerous waffle

2010-02-04T13:20:00.004Z

Bob Usherwood (Chair of SINTO, but writing in a personal capacity) has given his views of the Empower, Inform, Enrich report in a letter to Library & Information Update (Jan/Feb 2010 p29).

Bob was not impressed. Describing it as potentially dangerour waffle he says "For the product of a government that advocates 'evidence based policy' the collection of 'essays'... contains precious little by way of evidence". Asking if the professional librarians involved might now regret that they contributed to this report he warns that "... there is a fear that they reflect a profession that no longer challenges the establishment and is afraid to argue against the conventional wisdom".

He points out that past research using contingent valuation and social auditing has demonstrated the value of libraries to individuals and communities, but that the government has ignored this work, allowing those such as Cllr Foulkes to argue that the only people who support libraries are those with a direct self interest.

Bob then makes a strong defence of the statutory basis of the library service.

We may get a policy statement from Margaret Hodge "in the spring". No doubt it will form a central plank of Gordon Brown's election manifesto (insert sarcasm mark here). It is probable that the battle ground for the future of public libraries will be at local rather than national level as local authorities seek to implement cuts. Evidence of the value of libraries to their communities will be a central weapon and the ability of professional librarians to articulate their arguments to the likes of Cllr Foulkes will be critical.

Career progression for library assistants

2010-01-27T16:09:00.003Z

I received an interesting and I suspect typical query this week. A library assistant in a local college wanted some advice on how to progress their career in librarianship. Steve has several years experience in various libraries and last year he obtained an NVQ3 in Information & Library Services. He was now wondering about his next step. Should he take a distance learning degree in librarianship with Northumbria or Aberystwyth Universities, or should he go for CILIP Certification (ACLIP) followed by Chartered membership (MCLIP)? Anyone with two years experience of library and information work can submit a portfolio for ACLIP and then with a further two years experience you can apply for Chartered status.

I issued a health warning that I was in no way qualified to give career advice but was happy to share some ideas with him. I pointed out that the ACLIP route was designed with people like him in mind and provided a logical route to accredit the knowledge and skills he had built up and provide a pathway to gaining professional qualifications. A distance learning degree was a step up to another level but would teach him a body of professional knowledge and give him a degree level qualification which could help when seeking jobs in the future.

I suspect that the key factors in his decision will be cost, time and the amount of commitment to formal study he is able to give. It may also depend on whether Steve sees his career as a steady progression through different levels of the profession or if he wants to jump to a new career path. In either case I wish him well.

One strong piece of advice I did give was to consider CILIP membership. CILIP provides a wide range of information, advice and support to anyone who wants to progress their career in librarianship. It a 'chicken and egg' situation - if you don't see yourself as having a library career then you are unlikely to think about the 'professional association', but you then miss out on the support that CILIP can provide (at a price, but nothing is for nothing!) There is a perception among some people that CILIP is a club for the established members of the profession and does not support 'new professionals'. This came out recently when CILIP advertised for librarians to join the project board to run a major consultation exercise. CILIP said it was looking for people with considerable experience of running projects and some people objected that this meant that younger members of the profession were excluded. CILIP President Biddy Fisher (who until recently ran the learning centres at Sheffield Hallam University) defended this, saying that the consultation exercise would welcome input from everyone but the project board must consist of people who could show that they could run projects. (SINTO is planning to get Biddy to give a talk to SINTO in which she will explore the contribution of new and old professionals).

What do other SINTO members think? Would you have given Steve the same advice? Are there any other routes Steve could follow? Have you had a similar experience? Let me know and I will share them with him.

Change is the law of life.

2010-01-18T15:19:00.002Z

The Managing Change seminar that we were planning to run last year and then had to postpone has now been rescheduled. It will be held on Wednesday 24th March 2010. This is a repeat of the blog posted last year.

Change is the law of life". This quote by JF Kennedy was used by Camila Alire, President of ALA, to introduce her talk to SINTO last year. Whether it is taking advantage of new opportunities or responding to cuts, all organisations have to deal with change, and deal with it in a positive manner.I don't suppose that one could find many information managers today who are not expecting some sort of change, for better or for worse, in their organisation. To help them SINTO is putting on a seminar on the topic of change management.Managing Change is a seminar presented by Peter Lumley, Personnel and Training Consultant, who has led several workshops on the Next Generation management development programme. Change Management is a structured and systematic approach to achieving a sustainable change in human behaviour within an organisation. (Copyright © 2007 Realising Change)There are three different aspects to change management: adapting to change, controlling change and effecting change. This seminar covers all three aspects. It is aimed at staff who are being affected by change, are having to manage change and who are, or will be, leading change. It will look at how we plan, initiate, realize, control and finally stabilize change within our organisations.The objective of the course is to provide an introduction to the principles and processes of managing change and to apply them to some of the changes faced by delegates.This course is offered at the special low price of £70 to SINTO members (£100 non-members). This is an opportunity to provide yourself and your organisation with the skills needed in a changing world.For a booking fom go to the SINTO website or email Sintoenquiry@shu.ac.uk

Empower, Inform, Enrich 3

2010-01-07T12:03:00.002Z

CILIP is asking for input for its response to the DCMS Modernisation Review - Empower, Inform, Enrich. An online questionnaire is available at http://tinyurl.com/yefdxql until Tuesday 12th January 2010.

Wirral - a costly victory

2009-12-07T16:23:00.005Z

Elspeth Hyams in her Library & Information Update blog predicted that Wirral (i.e. the Council) would "wriggle with embarrassment" when they read Sue Charteris' report on the proposed library closures. Elspeth cannot be very familiar with the sort of people who run northern metropolitan councils if she thinks that wriggling or embarrassment are things that come easily to them.
The response from Steve Foulkes, leader of Wirral MDC to the decision of the enquiry was blunt:

"I want to do some very straight talking here. I know a lot of people won’t want to hear what I have to say, but I believe it needs to be said… I am disappointed not because it is critical of the decision, but because it is fundamentally flawed in its logic, and in many places it is just plain wrong."

Cllr Foulkes' first point is that if Wirral were to be in breach of its statutory duty then so would any number of other local authorities. It is undoubtedly true that other authorities have made or are planning cuts in library services at a similar level but have simply not triggered the review process that resulted in the Wirral report. We can argue that that is a condemnation of those other authorities rather than a justification for Wirral's actions but it does suggest that the lesson that will be drawn is not "don't cut libraries" but rather "don't get caught cutting too many libraries at one go".

Cllr Foulkes then argues that the report confused theory with reality:
"In theory, we could keep all our libraries open, improve our services and repair our buildings for no additional cost, just by introducing some minor changes like self service systems. In reality, the decision not to close some libraries and invest in Neighbourhood Centres will cost £2.3m next year, which is the equivalent of a 2% increase in Council Tax. Over the next three years we will also need to find another £2.4 million from revenue budgets for major repairs which will mean either increased council tax levels or cuts in services elsewhere."

He continues:
"There are winners and losers in this situation. Those who lobbied to keep their local library open have what they wanted. But the silent majority who do not use their library, who do not want to see their council tax increase, and who might have used one of the new neighbourhood centres because they were more attractive, more conveniently located and open longer hours are definitely the losers".

Given that the main criticism in the report was that Wirral failed to make an assessment of local needs in respect of its Library Services, Cllr Foulkes' claim that he has a special insight into the opinions of the majority should be taken with a pinch of salt. However, we would be naïve to imaging that he is completely wrong. Council leaders don't get to where they are without a fairly good idea of what it is that people (or at least voters) want. The strong expressions of support for libraries that we heard when these cuts were proposed were very gratifying but the fact is that at least as many people don't care that much about libraries or care more for other services and/or cuts in council tax.

Cllr Foulkes then becomes apocalyptic:
"The people of Wirral need to understand very clearly what is coming. Between 2011 and 2014, this Council is going to need to save over £67 million, and that is a minimum estimate. We will have to change or go under.
"If we continue to hang on to what we know, and reject that change, and if the silent majority continues to remain silent, Wirral will become an impoverished backwater with failing services, crumbling buildings and a mass exit of any investors who could help us weather the storm and allow us to become the attractive and prosperous region we deserve to be".

Not much sign of wriggling with embarrassment here! This is strong stuff and to suggest that keeping a few libraries open will cause this much damage is over-the-top. However Cllr Foulkes makes the point that "We can’t just look at one service in isolation from every other service we provide. There is a limited amount of money that has to be shared out to meet a whole host of demands, some of which are literally matters of life or death".

As Council leader it is Foulkes' role to see the big picture. Our role as librarians is to deliver a service within that big picture.

The report by Sue Charteris can be seen as a victory for public libraries as it resulted in Wirral withdrawing its proposals. But if it is a victory, it is one we can ill afford. How can we possibly celebrate the fact that we have won one over on Wirral council and other councils in a similar position? What sort of victory is it that results in a Council leader believing (albeit it with a touch of political hyperbole) that the decision could lead to the impoverishment of his local community?

And this is not just the view of one individual. The Act underpinning this report has been condemned by the Local Government Association as "fit for nothing but the archives" (Nice of them to fit in an insult to archives as well as libraries). The LGA wants councils to be "freed up to make decisions on how best to provide information services to local people without being judged according to laws drawn up half a century ago, before the arrival of the internet and digital media". What is frightening about this is that it makes the LGA sound forward looking while public libraries are relying on the technicalities of ministerial intervention contained in an outmoded act of parliament.

What Cllr Foulkes' rhetoric - and our own response to that - should not mask is that what Sue Charteris' report actually says is 'If you are going to make drastic changes to people's services (1) FIND OUT ABOUT THEM and (2) CONSIDER THE PEOPLE AFFECTED (3) ASK THEM WHAT THEY THINK'. (To quote Elspeth Hyams). This might not be totally comfortable for librarians as the people affected are those who have to pay for the service, and those who might benefit if the money was spent on something else, as well as those who use the service - but this is evidence based librarianship. Of course, as librarians, we should be giving people the information they need to make decisions. Cllr Foulkes' decision was based on the belief that librarians are part of the problem, rather than part of the solution. Why does he believe that? The strategic goals of Wirral Council are:

To create more jobs, achieve a prosperous economy and regenerate Wirral.
To create a clean, pleasant, safe and sustainable environment.
To improve health and well being for all, ensuring people who require support are full participants in mainstream society.
To raise the aspirations of young people.
To create an excellent Council.

Did the Head of Libraries for Wirral ever sit down with Cllr Foulkes and go through these points explaining how the libraries can and do help to achieve these goals? Has anyone pointed out to him that libraries could help prevent Wirall from becoming an impoverished backwater? Did anyone provide him with a vision for public libraries in Wirral - a vision that did not rely on the status quo, a vision that took account of the bigger picture, a vision that recognized that the enthusiasm of library users for their own local library building was not the be-all and end-all of the argument?

Perhaps he is not the sort of Council leader that you can sit down with and talk to. Unfortunately there are many in local government who will not listen - and that is why libraries regard the powers of intervention under the 1964 Act as still being of value in the last resort. We must fight for the principle of a free public library service accessible to all, but I pray that we are spared any more victories like this one.

Empower, Inform, Enrich 2

2009-12-02T12:21:00.002Z

Not surprisingly, many of the contributions to EIE said that library buildings should be improved. They should have longer and more flexible open hours which meet the needs of their local communities (combined with 24/7 access to on-line services). They should be welcoming and attractive community spaces - a third place, neither home or work, but one where people feel comfortable. They should provide "good coffee" (according to the managing Director of Starbucks (natch); a good range of books; access to the Internet, digital resources and a virtual learning environment; be "havens for debate and the simple, basic pleasures of social networking"; provide access to a range of information services from various agencies and enable "facetime" - interaction with trained library staff.

Some essayists suggested that improving the users' experience of libraries might require fewer but better libraries - but that goes against the strong desire of communities for local, easily accessible service points. The extreme of this position is the case of the library in a phone box.

The combination of financial cuts and the need to dramatically improve the users' experience may lead some library authorities to consider closing some branches. In that case they need to be aware of another recent report - the report of the Wirral enquiry. Bob McKee says of this report "Sue Charteris has produced the best in-depth case study I have ever read of the issues faced by Public Library Authorities in the present climate, trying to meet the needs of local communities and comply with legislation in hugely challenging circumstances"

The report was commissioned by the Secretary of State to investigate if the decision of Wirral MBC to close several branch libraries was consistent with their statutory responsibility under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. Wirral reversed their decision on closure before the report was published and as a result the Secretary of State decided that no formal ruling was necessary. However the report does find that Wirral was in breach of its statutory duties. In brief the report says that Wirral was at fault not because they wanted to close branches per se, but because the Council failed to make an assessment of local needs (or alternatively to evidence knowledge of verifiable local needs) in respect of its Library Services.

The Council's plan was to set up 13 Neighbourhood Centres, each with a library at its heart, effectively replacing a service comprising 24 libraries. The Centres would house multiple Council functions and, wherever possible, be co-located with one or more of the Council’s key partners, including the Police, Fire Authority and Health Service. This would have allowed for improved opening hours and more than 99% of people would be within a two mile radius of a library. They argued that the plethora of small, outdated libraries would deter potential users. In many ways this is pattern suggested by the EIE report. However, Sue Charteris pointed out that:

"The Council took the decision to close 11 of its libraries in the absence of a strategic plan for or review of the Library Service. As such, I believe that the Council’s approach to re-visioning the service was fundamentally flawed, because their approach focused specifically on the issue of asset management and cost savings".

So "fewer but better" may be a way forward but only if this is part of a strategic plan based on an assesment of local needs which must include consultation with the community.

Empower, Inform, Enrich 1

2009-12-02T12:16:00.003Z

In this blog I will continue looking at the common themes that emerge from the essays in the EIE report.

A National offer
Lynne Brindley (British Library) mentions the National Library of China with local cultural centres, regional centres and a national centre. No one suggests that this model should be adopted here but several aspects of a national service are discussed . These include
· A national library card
· A national catalogue of all library books (combined with postal delivery of requested books).
· A national Libraries Development Agency
· National marketing of library services
· A national digital network delivery electronic resources and a virtual learning environment.

Governance and leadership
· The need to change or replace the legislative framework for public libraries
· New government department with responsibility for libraries
· A reduction in the number of separate library services with library authorities joining together to deliver a regional service.
· Different models for library services such as trusts, corporations, partnerships with private sector etc

Service points
· Better (possibly fewer) service points
· Improved opening hours
· Co-location and integration of different services in a single venue
· Services offered through non-traditional outlets

Digital services
· Development of e-books and digital resources
· Improving digital literacy
· Deeper understanding of needs and behaviours of digital information customers

Staffing
· Improved leadership and management
· New skills with a focus on customer services and digital literacy
· Partnership working

Public Library consultation

2009-12-01T15:30:00.004Z

The Government’s consultation report on Public Libraries - Empower, Inform, Enrich - has been published by the DCMS. This was to have been a review of the public library service but Margaret Hodge decided to turn it into a consultation exercise. Sir Humphrey would, no doubt, explain that this is the best way for a government to get rid of something they are not very interested in.

Its an odd document in many ways. It begins with 29 individual essays by authors, from Dame Lynne Brindley of the British Library to Darcy Willson-Rymer of Starbucks UK. Each author gives their own view of the future for public libraries so it is a diverse picture - but one that gives plenty of opportunity for debate. This is followed by a set of 23 consultation questions. The deadline for responses is the 26th January.

Some common themes do emerge. One, highlighted by Margaret Hodge, is the need to look at the governance of libraries. It could be argued that what is wrong with public libraries is not how they are run but what they do (or don't do) but the two are entwined. One idea is that some library authorities should combine to deliver library services in certain areas. The model of the five Library and Education Boards in Northern Ireland combining to form a single NI Library service is mentioned. John Hicks says that Councils should be encouraged to form joint services, to create joint trusts and to invite joint bids from the private sector. He suggests that the metropolitan areas have too many small services. "For example, London could be reduced to five services (inner and four outer London services) jointly provided by boroughs working together". Bob McKee says "A system delivered by 151 separate Public Library Authorities in England is inherently inefficient".

Equal attention is given to the need for public libraries to respond to the new digital environment. Professor David Nicholas is quite pessimistic:
"For a much-loved information institution, public libraries, to face possible melt-down in an information age, when information has never ever been so important, is unpardonable and something we should all be ashamed of. Yet it will happen because nobody seems to understand the need to look at the big picture and that the tail (the digital) now wags the dog".

Public librarians, especially the leaders of the profession, come in for criticism. Nicky Parker asks "What about the library leaders? Have we taken our eye off the ball? Have we slipped back into Lazy Town? Is our management style more David Brent than Alan Sugar?" and adds "Are we Tomorrow’s World or Antique’s Roadshow? "

Anyone can respond to this report. I hope that people don't get distracted by responding directly to the views expressed in the essays (even that libraries would be better if they served Starbucks coffee). That is not the point. This could be, should be, an opportunity to shape the public library service for the future. The Government might fail to take this forward but we must not fail to articulate our vision and listen to the needs of our users.

The Manchester Manifesto

2009-11-27T11:49:00.003Z

Who Owns Science? The Manchester Manifesto (http://www.isei.manchester.ac.uk/TheManchesterManifesto.pdf) examines the relationship between the dissemination of scientific information and intellectual property. The report points out the benefits to society from scientific research and innovation both in terms of increasing knowledge and understanding of the world and in the development of drugs, technology etc which are of direct benefit to people. Science and innovation depends on the free exchange of information between scientists and also on the flow of information to society to enable the public understanding and therefore support of science.
Science is also a rapidly growing industry. An important component of the innovation process has been the idea of “ownership” in science and technology. Ideas and innovations have to be protected by licences, patents and copyright so that those who generate these ideas can gain benefit for their work, which in turn encourages others to invest in research and development.
However, ownership of ideas can also result in barriers to the dissemination of information and new products. For example, the use of new drugs in developing countries may be restricted by licence and patent restrictions. Companies may use their Intellectual Property rights to restrict the development of new products if they fear this might affect their profitability.
The Manchester Manifesto makes a strong statement on this issue.

"We recognise that innovation has an essential role in economic development, but its use for the pursuit of profit should not override, and ideally should not conflict with, achievement of welfare goals and scientific progress. Scientific information, freely and openly communicated, adds to the body of knowledge and understanding upon which the progress of humanity depends. Information must remain available to science and this depends on open communication and dissemination of information, including that used in innovation.
"It is clear that the dominant existing model of innovation, while serving some necessary purposes for the current operation of innovation, also impedes achievement of core scientific goals in a number of ways. In many cases it restricts access to scientific knowledge and products, thereby limiting the public benefits of science; it can restrict the flow of information, thereby inhibiting the progress of science; and it may hinder innovation through the costly and complicated nature of the system. Limited improvements may be achieved through modification of the current IP system, but consideration of alternative models is urgently required."

Librarians have long been the champions of the legitimate rights of users in the world of intellectual property. We should welcome this manifesto and support the Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation in their campaign.

Hillsborough archives

2009-11-26T09:53:00.003Z

In April I blogged about the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster and the guide published by Sheffield Libraries. Today the Guardian reports that three professional archivists are to be appointed by Sheffield City Council to catalogue the official documents relating to the disaster which are being released by the agencies concerned. This shows the importance of archivists and cataloguers in providing access to information. A spokesperson for the Hillsborough Family Support Group said "... we want the full truth to come out". Truth is a complex concept but without preserved and catalogued documents there can be no information, and without information there can be no truth.

A vision for public libraries

2009-11-18T15:35:00.003Z

Public libraries and the people who run them, are sometimes accused of lacking a clear vision for the future. The accusation is that the public library service is facing a crisis - declining issues, competition from the Internet and bookshops, budget cuts and a genera loss of direction. The only way to counter this is to have a clear vision of the future and a strategy for achieving a new model for libraries yet we appear to have difficulty in articulating what these should be.
Library managers may feel that are already under enormous pressure to simply deliver a service - a service which is diverse and produced a high level of customer satisfaction within a very modest budget - and that this limits their ability to deliver new exciting and achievable visions at the drop of a hat. In spite of this they are mainly up to the challenge, however they may feel that they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Libraries are faced with conflicting demands. They need to attract a new generation of younger readers by being exciting places to go but they must not alienate the existing clientele who prefer a more traditional approach. They must provide access to electronic material, the Internet and social networking but must not abandon the book. They must be popular and socially inclusive but must promote quality reading. They must save on staff overheads so that money can be spent on stock but must maintain the personal contact with users. You can't please all of the people all of the time.

A recent attempt by the London Borough of Camden to produce a vision for the future illustrates this. The report Growing Your Library was produced at a cost of £47,000 by council staff and consultants. The plan is intended to transform the service and make it more cost efficient and customer focused.

The plan has attracted criticism (here and here) for the jargon it uses, for the proposal to make a £2m cut to the library budget through staff cuts and introducing self service machines, and because of the techniques used by the consultants in developing the report. These included visits to a series of businesses, including the glamorous Apple Store in Regent Street, to see what ideas could be transferred to council-run libraries.

Trying to produce a vision of the future while at the same time making substantial cuts was bound to create hostility from both staff and existing users. If there is anything positive in the Growing Your Library report it has been lost in the controversy. Incidentally, Camden libraries' own webpage makes absolutely no mention of the report - a lost opportunity to have a meaningful debate.

While I was researching into Growing Your Library I stumbled across another strategic plan for Camden libraries - Vibrant Places - People Spaces. However this was from Camden New South Wales, Australia and was produced in 2005. Another time, another place; and yet there is much in this report that is worth reading. The language is clear and direct. The report is aspirational and forward looking and yet rooted in the tradition of libraries. Here are some quotes:

Camden libraries are a focal point, a centre of activity and natural meeting place. They provide a focal point for the community, in the same way that the village square provided a focal point in the 18th century.

To achieve these outcomes our libraries will be wonderful interesting places that continually capture people's interest through architecture, art works created by professionals and community, programs, collections and activities that continually evolve.

Our libraries are modern libraries, connecting tradition with technology, reflecting the best of both worlds. Our libraries will become libraries without walls, extending our services through web based technology to meet the needs of our community.

Our libraries will retain the traditional core library services however, will have a place based focus that reflects the location of the library and the people within that community. Each library service will have its own personality and identity, rather than a franchise approach where one size fits all, there is an approach of tailoring the environment, services and programs provided to reflect the community in which it is located.

Libraries are more than books - they enrich people’s lives. Libraries are places where you can come to read, learn, connect and belong. Our libraries provide a common ground – a place in our community where individuals can be connected. They foster a passion for reading, spark intellectual curiosity and support lifelong learning.

Perhaps much of this vision is impossible to achieve here and now. Public libraries will have to follow academic libraries along the path of self-service issue and 24/7 on-line information provision. But libraries as a "common ground" is still a powerful concept and should form part of our vision and our goal.

Change is the law of life.

2009-11-16T11:57:00.003Z

"Change is the law of life". This quote by JF Kennedy was used by Camila Alire, President of ALA, to introduce her talk to SINTO last month. Whether it is taking advantage of new opportunities or responding to cuts, all organisations have to deal with change, and deal with it in a positive manner.

I don't suppose that one could find many information managers today who are not expecting some sort of change, for better or for worse, in their organisation. To help them SINTO is putting on a seminar on the topic of change management.

Managing Change is a seminar presented by Peter Lumley, Personnel and Training Consultant, who has led several workshops on the Next Generation management development programme. Change Management is a structured and systematic approach to achieving a sustainable change in human behaviour within an organisation. (Copyright © 2007 Realising Change)

There are three different aspects to change management: adapting to change, controlling change and effecting change. This seminar covers all three aspects. It is aimed at staff who are being affected by change, are having to manage change and who are, or will be, leading change. It will look at how we plan, initiate, realize, control and finally stabilize change within our organisations.The objective of the course is to provide an introduction to the principles and processes of managing change and to apply them to some of the changes faced by delegates.

This course is offered at the special low price of £70 to SINTO members (£90 non-members). This is an opportunity to provide yourself and your organisation with the skills needed in a changing world.

For a booking fom go to the SINTO website or email Sintoenquiry@shu.ac.uk

A free public library?

2009-11-10T10:23:00.004Z

I recently posted a message on JISC LIS-Pub-Libs in reply to a query about policy on handling requests for items not in stock in an authority. Several libraries had indicated that they have a two-tier charging policy: a basic fee for making a reservation for an item and an additional fee for obtaining an item on inter-library loan. This is my message:

Here is a little cat among the ILL request pigeons! Under the Public Library Act 1964 , the local authority is obliged to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service Authorities can fulfil this obligation by "the keeping of adequate stocks, by arrangements with other library authorities, and by any other appropriate means" ILLs are presumably an "other appropriate means". 2a The act says that "Except as provided by this section, no charge shall be made by a library authority (otherwise than to another library authority) for library facilities made available by the authority". 8(1) An exemption is given i.e. "but this subsection shall not prevent any regulations under this section from authorising the making of charges in respect of the use of any facility for the reservation of written materials" 8 (3d). However, it is clear that many library authorities not only make a "charge in respect of the use of any facility for the reservation of written materials" but also make a separate charge as a contribution to the cost of obtaining an ILL loan. Is this later charge justified under the 1964 act? Could it not be argued that the charge for reservation should be a single flat charge and that there is nothing in the act to allow a variable charge related to the cost of obtaining that reservation? In other words you can charge for a reservation, but the provision of written materials has to be free irrespective of the means you use to provide that material. I don't pretend that this is helpful!! I just wondered if it had been considered.

The point I am making is that public libraries are rightly proud of providing a "free" service but in many instances the service is not free. If the wanted item is on the shelves (assuming it is written material and not another format) then it is free. If it is in stock but not on the shelves there is a small reservation fee which is reasonable. However if the item has to be obtained on ILL there can be a considerable charge. The JISC correspondence on this issue mentioned charges from £2 to £5 per item. This is significant because of the nature of the material that is likely to be in stock. Public libraries inevitably will stock material that will be in demand i.e. "popular" and not stock more "specialized" material. I don't want to get into the argument here about if libraries are dumbing down (see my previous postings on Excellence and equity) but the fact is that a library user in, say, Rotherham would be able to read the works of Jeremy Clarkson or Dan Brown free of charge but might have to pay £4 to read The Savage Mind by Claude Lévi-Strauss. (To be fair, Rotherham libraries does stock some titles by Claude Lévi-Strauss and could probably borrow a copy from Sheffield Libraries free of charge via the SINTO ILL scheme).

I am not particularly concerned as to whether the Public Libraries Act of 1964 does or does not permit charging for ILLs (as opposed to charging for reservations in general). I am sure that if you paid some lawyers enough money they could make a very convincing case either way. I accept that it would be very difficult for public libraries to take on the costs of providing ILLs free of charge. Even the current charges seldom cover the cost of obtaining a book from the British Library for example. I am concerned that public libraries seem to accept this two tier charging without question especially as the dividing line between free and charged for can be presented as an issue of quality.

The recent CILIP guidelines "What makes a good library service" makes a strong case for the value of public libraries without talking about a free service. Should we not be a bit more honest with ourselves that the library service is not completely free at point of use and that the dividing line between free and paid for can be arbitrary and possible unfair?

Bob Brighton

2009-11-05T09:46:00.005Z

Bob Brighton is a British contemporary artist who specialises in brightly coloured abstract works of art. Brighton's paintings are typically unstretched pieces of raw hessian, cotton and flax - sandwiched together, soaked in colour and pinned directly to the gallery wall.

What makes Bob stand out is that he does not sell his pictures, instead he gives them away to public institutions including libraries.

Bob donated a substantial number of pictures to the University of Sheffield Information Commons in 2007 and now he has given a collection to hang in the Computer and Internet Centre in the Sheffield Central Library. Bob can be contacted via his website.

Copyright

2009-11-03T14:19:00.003Z

"Copyright is out of control. It is being manipulated for profit at everyone's expense. This is a global issue". This quote by film maker Brett Gaylor in The Guardian Media supplement 2nd November is taken out of context (See http://www.ripremix.com/) but it does reflect a growing belief that copyright = copywrong and that changes are needed.

FreePint has asked information professionals to contribute to a survey of copyright compliance, asking "What are the copyright guidelines -- and how can information centres manage them -- for web 2.0 content or free resources accessed via the web?"

The British Library has welcomed initiatives to make copyright fit for the digital age, announced by Lord Mandelson and IP Minister David Lammy.

The SABIP study Strategic priorities for copyright looks at how copyright contributes or acts as a barrier to creativity. A SABIP study on the relationship between copyright and contract law will be published at the end of 2009.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. They provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

Copyright expert Graham Cornish will be presenting a half day seminar on recent developments in Copyright for SINTO on the 20th November. See the SINTO website for details.

Twitter

2009-10-27T09:45:00.002Z

I have carried out a quick survey of my followers on Twitter to see if I am reaching my target audience. My core purpose in using Twitter is to communicate with Library and Information workers and organisations in the SINTO region, which is Yorkshire and the East Midlands. Beyond that I am happy to be followed by any LIS workers and organisations wherever they are.

The breakdown is as follows.:
Individual LIS workers in the SINTO region = 33
LIS organisations in the SINTO region = 8
Individual LIS workers not in the SINTO region = 62
LIS organisations not in the SINTO region = 30

On the whole I am happy with this. Obviously there are many more individual LIS workers and organisations in the SINTO region who are not following me on Twitter but presumably the vast majority of these are not Twitter users. I hope that I am communicating with these non-users through other means and if they feel that they are not getting the information about SINTO that they need then Twitter is there as an option for them. I am gratified that so many people not in the SINTO area are interested enough to follow me (or should that be not bothered enough not to follow me!)

SINTO can always add you to one of our direct mailing lists if you would prefer to receive information by e-mail rather than Twitter.

Emotional Intelligence

2009-10-14T12:24:00.003+01:00

Camila Alire, president of the American Library Association, yesterday gave a talk to SINTO on Leadership and Emotional Intelligence.

Camila began by quoting President JF Kennedy: "Change is the law of life". Her presentation would be in the context of Transformational Leadership - a leadership style that creates valuable and positive change in the followers.
Camila pointed out that "change happens". Both the USA and the UK are facing an economic downturn. Budget cuts will inevitably have an effect on people and services and leaders have to be able to manage this process.
The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) was developed in the mid 1990's with the publication of Daniel Goleman's book Emotional intelligence (1995). When Camila read this she recognised that the book reflected her own style of leadership. EI suggests that leaders can deal with emotions. This involves both understanding and managing your own emotions and being mindful of other people's emotions.

Camila illustrated this with an example from her own career. She was appointed as Library Dean in a US university. A few days later community was hit by severe flooding and library was under water for several days. The library staff, who had built up the collection over many years, were badly affected and they looked to her for a lead. Camila recognised that she had not only to sort out the practical issues of a flooded library but also to recognise and manage the emotional response of her staff. Every morning on her drive to work she had to deal with her own emotions and then provide a positive role model for her staff. The essence of EI is to recognise emotions in others and to have the ability to use emotions effectively in reasoning and problem solving.

The following traits of EI can be recognised:
· Knowing when to show or suppress emotion as appropriate
· Knowing how to read emotions
· Knowing when to deal with emotions - at once or later
· Taking time to deal with issues

An EI leader will show the following abilities:
· Ability to perceive emotions in facial expressions and in music & art
· Ability to understand & reason about emotions
· Ability to manage emotions

At a practical level this meant that in a meeting where change was being proposed the leader should position him or herself so that they can observe everyone around the table and asses their moods. Feedback should be invited but staff expressing negative emotions should be followed up after the meeting as they may not respond in public.
Camila emphasised that individual staff members can develop and use EI with their co-workers and clients. EI staff should be able to deal with their own emotions and help their colleagues cope in periods of change.

Camila ended with another case study where she was recruited by a university to transform a library service perceived as not customer orientated. She developed a plan for major change in close consultation with library staff at all levels. Despite this she experienced extreme hostility from one individual aimed at herself. Her response was to be cognizant of this emotion but not to regard it as a personal affront and not to react in a vindictive way. Eventually the member of staff came to recognise that the changes had been necessary.

Camila made reference to a recent book Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion byRichard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. She finished with a quote from Winston Churchill:
"Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe."