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Martin Latham

Martin Latham is manager of Waterstone's Canterbury.

Saving our libraries

31.07.08

Margaret Hodge, Minister of State for Culture, Media & Sport, commenting on declining library usage, has lectured librarians on how they can increase visitors by getting in with the young generation. And what does this hip, war-mongering granny suggest? She wants the library to be a “leisure and recreation hub”—sounds like a futuristic Japanese knocking-shop. “Leisure”: what is it about that Orwellian word that makes one reach for one’s service revolver?

This week, one of the first of these hubs, Margate library—sorry, “Thanet Gateway”—hit Private Eye. It seems visitor numbers have not risen according to the Hodgeian plan. A Ramsgate councillor, threatened with the next hub, has called Margate’s Gateway “a disaster”.

Libraries have tried DVDs—but now DVD borrowing is outmoded and plummeting. They have tried internet terminals: another dead end, as every schmo now has the web at home. They tried de-stocking, disgracefully flogging off collections donated lovingly for the public good, in perpetuity. A west London library recently sold a great ornithology collection off cheap to a back-street dealer. I gave my father’s old books to a dusty university because I could not trust the public library to keep them. Rather than applying crude algorithms to reserve collections, selling them if they haven’t been borrowed in a certain period, all reserve stock should be orderable via the internet.

Worst of all, recruitment guidelines now prioritise customer skills; book knowledge is inessential. Consequently, staff turnover has shot up. Local councils have shed veteran librarians by the hundred so that they can ­delegate book-buying to the book ­supply companies.

Let’s remember the ideal: the librarian at the centre of the British Museum Reading Room. For 200 years this post was held by various extraordinary polymaths. Customers, from Dickens to Lenin, could ask the librarian about, well, anything.

There is a future for libraries. Norwich library, Britain’s busiest, focuses on local studies (a national growth area), and staff are infused with pride in their job. New York Public Library, the world’s best, has always been part-financed by entrepreneurs. NYPL’s full collection can be searched worldwide, it never sells off stock, it has a good café, a library shop, NYPL-branded book accessories, inventive author talks and debates, Friends of the Library and an e-newsletter covering acquisitions of both new and old books.

Britain invented public libraries; now we need to re-invent them.
 

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By Tim Coates

Spot on, Martin, well said. Tim. We need industry experts to say this. Surprising to us, as it is, there are many many people in both local and national government who truly believe that the age of the book has finished. Publishers and booksellers must express their belief in the values of what we do-- as effectively as Bill Gates does for his creations. His advocacy of computers in libraries (which is fine) has drowned out the sound of those who believe that libraries should have books. too.

31 Jul 08 10:56

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By Emma Harrison

Good advice from the commercial sector, we in the Library service can indeed take a leaf from the 'selling' book in order to attract borrowers and consider fresh ideas to revitalise the service. I must disagree with recruitment though, booksellers in libraries are ideal and plentiful as well known high street chains become run by accountants who recruit 'hours to suit business' as opposed to stock knowledge, customer care or even the ability to 'affirm the buying decision'..

04 Aug 08 12:43

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By Caroline

"They have tried internet terminals: another dead end, as every schmo now has the web at home." Try telling that to the hundreds of people who use the computers in my (admittedly large) local library every day. Perhaps every schmo in your social circle has internet access at home, but the digital divide is alive and well in this northern city. Please check your facts before writing off a service that benefits some of the most excluded people in society.

05 Aug 08 13:06

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By Sue

Well said Caroline! I work in an area of severe deprivation - which is why the computers at the local public library are in use all day, every day. The rush to appoint ‘people people’ to front-line posts, plus the culture of ‘management efficiency’ in a wild effort to be all things to all people, are what has led to the disgraceful selling-off of valuable collections and the fact that many people no longer find it useful to go to their local library – because the materials that they once went there to browse have been junked (and no, they are not all available online..!)

05 Aug 08 13:30

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By Mel

Absolutely right, Martin. As for Caroline’s comment on the heavy use of computer terminals in libraries, perhaps we need a proper study on what they are used for. Anecdotal evidence from library staff will tell you they are used for email, games and social networking. Why should libraries be providing these services free of charge? They don’t provide free telephones. Of course we need public terminals for information searching and legitimate educational use. Computers have vastly improved information searching. But the leisure use of computers masks what is happening in libraries – the visitor statistics may look OK, but few people are using the library as a library. And indeed why should they? The knowledgeable staff are few and far between. Books are no longer selected, but bought en bloc from suppliers like tins of beans. While we continue to have managers rather than librarians, I see little hope for the future.

05 Aug 08 17:02

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By David

"Books are no longer selected, but bought en bloc from suppliers like tins of beans" "...few people are using the library as a library" Mel, your comments are so full of vague generalisations I've just picked out the above to focus on some facts. Some libraries do use suppliers to select books... to a highly detailed specification that usually involves more thought than was ever put into buying books from suppliers lists, fact. Issues in my library authority are rising, fact, on the back of revamped buildings, computer terminals, coffee machines and yes, more money spent on books! We have also seen a noticable change in the "mix" of people using our libraries, addressing the issues of social inclusion head on. If they "only" use us for internet access, so what? Our surveys have shown that over 50% of users have no internet at home and we are the only affordable option. We don't resrict what sort of books people take out to only educative tomes and literary novels, why should we restrict internet usage?

06 Aug 08 09:41

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By Philip Murphy

While the services change, the role of the library will remain the same. As one of the social hubs of a community, the services it provides should of course be determined by local needs.

06 Aug 08 10:03

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By Paige Turner

Oh dear Martin. Public libraries stuffed with dusty old books and Waterstones stuffed with shiny new ones? Libraries staffed by "veteran librarians" for whom "customer skills" are not a priority? Presume all stock selection in Waterstones carried out by qualified librarians? Don't think so. You can have good customer service and book knowledge. You can be customer focused and stock range and quality without dumbing down. You can keep managed back stocks without holding on to every book ever written or accepting everyone's personal libraries - and believe me there are 3 or 4 people a week in my authority offering them. For more... http://swansealibraries.blogspot.com/ Paige (ex-bookseller, now librarian)

08 Aug 08 12:49

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By AliMac

Having worked in public libraries for 9 years, I have seen increased use of the internet facilities in the boroughs that I have worked in. Having worked in rural Yorkshire and inner city London I find the comments made by Latham to be uninformed. As for Mels comment about what a customer uses the a computer for, that is up to them. Just as you would not expect a library worker to judge the type of books a user borrows or the time they spend looking at magazines or newspapers.

08 Aug 08 14:40

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By Perkins

Of course the local needs of the library should be determined locally-- but it should still be a library. Nobody ever intended that we should turn our public library service into a chain of internet cafes with short opening hours, which are not the same thing as a library, at all. Just because in an area people are less likely to have internet access is not a reason to ruin the public library collection to address that. We have not, as a country, granted licence to local authorities to decide what a library is. And it should be said that most 'stock selection' programmes are for filtering new, front list titles. The management of the back list collections, which in both libraries and bookshops are 90% of what readers want to read, still lies in the hands of those who manage local services. Good management of these depends on what is already in stock- -and is inevitably individual to each site. 'Stock selection' is a misunderstood idea, in the sense that people believe it does more than it intends, and public libraries still need to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the backlist they have on offer (as do book shops!)

10 Aug 08 09:08

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By LC

Libraries are already social centres for the young; on a winter’s evening in many towns we’re the only place that is open, warm, free and friendly. Most library users still come to us for books and yes, we do have regular stock replacement; it’s the only way to keep the single-genre readers. Many withdrawn books go into the county store and these can all be requested online or over the counter. And I’ll overlook the suggestion that library assistants have no expertise with books. We could reorganise the Inter Library Loan system, making it fast enough to supply the short-module assignments now popular in Universities. We could promote our underused teenage collections in local schools, as we do with the summer Reading Challenges. We could offer parking; my library has a free car-park and attracts borrowers from across the nearby county boundary, where charges have been introduced. There is reluctance to pay, however indirectly, to go into a library. But this is window-dressing. British free public libraries are now over 150 years old and the social and political circumstances of their creation long gone. But they are still needed, 250 people a day pass through the doors of our small-town library. The fact that we continue shows how much we are getting right. Little else from the mid C19th is still so popular.

13 Aug 08 17:55

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By Paul

Well one of the things they seem to be doing is selling off or otherwise disposing of,rare books or at least books that are difficult to obtain as this link shows.I would question whether this is the best way to go http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/default.stm

03 Sep 08 12:44

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