Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year?

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

A crime against learning

"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?

Do we need libraries?

Back to work after my summer vacation which included a short break in Barcelona. It's a fascinating city and my partner and I enjoyed exploring its tourist sights, beaches and backstreets.
When I got back I discovered that a lively debate about public libraries had been going on in the Guardian Unlimited Arts blog. Starting with a posting by Louise Tucker "Do 'most people' really need libraries any more?" the blog demonstrates yet again that many people do still feel passionately about libraries. People get very angry when libraries are closed or the importance of the book stock is reduced. Unfortunately many of the comments reflect a traditional or even reactionary view of the role of libraries. Some people object to attempts to make libraries more accessible to the whole community or to provide access to electronic resources. Tim Coates makes a contribution but with the exception of Councillor Ken Thornber on behalf of Hampshire Libraries (which has been criticised on the basis of reported comments by Yinnon Ezra) I could see no contributions from chief librarians, MLA or CILIP putting forward the view of the library profession. It does seem a pity that we don't make use of this sort of forum to get our message over.

During the discussion Louise Tucker made the following comment:

"What is wrong with the word 'library'? Did your council pay a fortune for this rebranding? It reminds me of the University of Sheffield which has renamed its new library (yet more money spent on buildings not books) the 'Information Commons'. Apparently they called it this because 'commons' implied a shared resource; however, in what I think is a relatively unusual step, they have determined that only staff and students of the University can use it, and that temporary staff and visiting researchers cannot... (PEYE 1185). Orwell would really turn in his grave wouldn't he?"

Again it is perhaps a pity that the University did not defend itself against this comment. Through the SYALL scheme the University has been committed to public access to their library service for many years. The decision that the Information Commons should be restricted to undergraduates while external users are directed to the Western Bank library is a reasonable arrangement and puts no-one at a disadvantage.

I will be attending the Information Commons HEI Open Day tomorrow - my first opportunity to see inside the building - and I will report on my impressions.

DEL Information Unit, Sheffield.

Sheffield City Council has decided to close the Development, Environment & Leisure (DEL) Information Unit (Technical Library) which was based at Carbrook and Howden House. This was a specialised information service covering urban design, architecture, construction, highway maintenance and design etc., mainly used by the staff of DEL. It was a member of SINTO.
The press release says that "Following an extensive consultation and business review that found that colleagues are increasingly able to satisfy the majority of their own information needs using the intranet or Internet, the DEL Information Unit (Technical Library) will be closing on the 9th August."
If this is the case then I cannot argue with the decision but one is left wondering how fully staff are able to meet their own information needs in this specialist area from the intranet and Internet. Assuming that Sheffield City Council does not expect the information needs for, say, highway maintenance to be met by looking things up on Wikipedia, I assume that staff will have access to specialist information resources through the intranet and Internet. But who is now responsible for providing access to these resources for staff? One of the library's staff members is taking up a new "communications and information role in the Strategy Team and the press release says that "questions regarding future technical information provision should be addressed to line managers". This should mean that a new structure will be in place so that staff will have access to the information they need whether it is in print or electronic format. Given the importance of urban design etc to the development of Sheffield I certainly hope so.