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Desmond Clarke

Desmond Clarke is a former director of Faber and former president and c.e.o. of International Thomson Publishing Services Group. He is a library campaigner and former chairman of libraries charity Libri.

Libraries: beware of aggregation

20.05.08

Roy Clare, c.e.o. of the MLA in his recent Bookseller interview talks about the need for “aggregation” of public libraries to help improve the service.

He also appears unsympathetic to the concerns of local (and often rural) communities when their libraries are threatened with closure, even when these concerns are taken up by elected Members.

The public is often wary of bureaucrats promoting “aggregation” as a means to improve public services. We have heard similar arguments from NHS managers and the board of the Post Office as hospital services are re-structured and local post offices are closed. The public march and shout because they don’t believe aggregation actually leads to an improvement in service but is used as an excuse for cost cutting. Suggest aggregation to hard pressed councils and many will see an opportunity to reduce library budgets.

Roy Clare is fortunate to live in Essex, a county with a well managed service. However, any analysis of the annual CIPFA data, does show that there are marked differences in performance between individual authorities. Whether you assess individual authorities in terms of community usage, quality of resources or efficiency, the MLA’s own analysis points to a number of poor or under performing authorities. That should be unacceptable to anyone responsible for delivering a public service.

Roy Clare is correct to suggest that leadership is an issue, but to provide leadership you need a vision for public libraries in the 21st Century which is understood and supported by Government, local politicians, the profession and the public. That vision must recognise that libraries are a community resource to encourage reading, learning and the acquisition of information and knowledge.

Replacing local libraries with super libraries, two bus trips away, is not acceptable, even if you can persuade Councils officers not to grab the savings.

Unlike Roy, I live in a village with no mobile library service, a local library, three miles away, which is long overdue for improvement and a good library eight miles distant. We have also lost our post office and various hospital services are under threat.

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By Nora

Essex CC is in love with RFID - a sure sign they have no regard for books, service or information. Using Essex's libraries you get the impression the stock is dispensible - what ever is in print at the moment will be stocked and then thrown away as soon as it falls apart after being dumped in the returns bin a few times. Want a book of local relevance - forget it - it might as well be written on papyrus and stowed away in a safe on Jupiter. need to speak to a knowledgeable information/librarian person - forget that as well - you can write an e-mail to some oik who fails to understand the importance of your question. Aggregation - aggravation you mean?

20 May 08 12:38

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By Amanda

If Roy Clare wants to improve the library service, all he has to do is make sure libraries are where people want them, open when they want to visit them, and have a good bookstock. It's hardly rocket-science. And Desmond Clarke is right: super-libraries sound more like cost-cutting than a strategic vision to improve the service. If super-libraries were really going to be 'super', there might be some flicker of interest from the public: if the MLA's idea of a super-library, however, is like the Gosport Discovery Centre, then we all lose out.

21 May 08 08:41

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By Judith Deschamps

I agree completely with the above comments, I am also concerned at the possibility of the control of public libraries by the local "community". Libraries should be proactive rather than responding to the wishes of certain people. Dumbing-down may well occur as a result.

21 May 08 10:21

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By Cllr Henry Higgins

Public libraries are an essential Community resource and the focus must be placed on giving every community the best possible service. In Hillingdon, we plan a continuous programme to improve each of our libraries to the benefit of our diverse local communities. Aggregation should be considered for quangos, not community services.

21 May 08 12:24

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By Tim Coates

Roy Clare often cites Essex public library service as a model of excellence. He hasn't looked at the figures. In the past year of published data book lending in Essex fell by 7%; over the past 6 years book lending has fallen by 34%. The network of 3,500 public libraries and their book collections in England were built up over 150 years of hard and clever community work and honest service. Public libraries in small local communities have been one of the great civilising and educational features of English life. They embody all to which we aspire for young and old, advantaged and excluded.

21 May 08 14:07

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By Christopher Hawtree

Here in Hove we had a considerable battle to prevent the Council from shunting the esteemed, Grade ll-listed Library into an unsuitable room or two at the Town Hall. It became clear that this was a tactic intended to force readers to go to a new library opened in Brighton, which continues to bring much comment about the paltry number of books, on low shelves, in a barn-like space whose first floor - not fully separated - receives much noise from below. Readers have successfully campaigned for Sunday opening there, with hopes that it will follow in Hove. Time and again, unsurprisingly, readers' surveys show that the key demands are more hours and more stock. It is tragic that so many good books have been thrown out. Notoriously, some ended up in a skip, from which they were rescued by a heroic builder who took them to a charity shop, where the terrible story duly emerged. There are no copies of Jeff Torrington's blisteringly funny, Whitbread-winning novel Swing Hammer Swing (1992) in any Sussex library. What a terrible tribute on his recent death, but typical of library services run down across the country.

22 May 08 20:08

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By Lulu

Library relocations/closures are sometimes a good idea, sometimes bad. What's always bad is announcing plans with no (or token) prior consultation – and then characterising any comment or criticism as automatically old-fashioned, 'middle class' or whatever. Local people are quite capable of understanding a reasoned explanation, or even coming up with alternative ideas and support. They seldom get the chance. But they do understand that small local libraries often have more chance of achieving today's required 'community engagement' than fantasy mega-centres nowhere near their homes & schools.

27 May 08 17:40

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