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Under pressure

02.10.08 Caroline Horn

The National Year of Reading has provided a wonderful opportunity for children's books and reading. The focus on children's reading has attracted several millions of pounds in government funding for free books for children and much behind-the-scenes activity in support of reading. However, despite the high level of interest in children's reading, many authors and librarians believe that children's and school libraries are under threat like never before. Last month author Alan Gibbons launched Campaign for the Book to raise awareness of the ongoing difficulties facing children's and school libraries.

"There are some really good initiatives going on, but these are mainly through charitable and volunteer organisations," says Gibbons. "The actual structure of children's libraries is creaking." Last year some 71 English libraries closed and, according to Unison, the number of qualified librarians in public libraries fell by 13% between 1995 and 2005.

Book spend also continues to decline. According to Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA) figures, in 1996–97 the total book spend in libraries was £98.4m, or 11.6% of the total cost of the service (£845.9m). In 2006–07, the amount spent on books had fallen to £94.9m, amounting to 8.7% of the service's total cost of £1.238bn. Of that, the amount spent on children's books was £18.7m, or just 2.5% of the total. Regional differences abound, with 25 authorities spending less than 1% of their library budget on children's books, including major authorities such as Manchester, Bristol and Reading.
Tim Coates, who has long campaigned for library budgets to be spent on books, wonders whether children's services should be working harder to attract funding. "Children's librarians know exactly what they are doing, are highly skilled and motivated, yet they have seen their budgets cut. Do they need to argue their corner more forcibly? They should be telling their local councils that they can't do their job properly without the stock they need."

Coates also believes that children's public library services provide good value for money. A Library Information Statistics Unit (LISU) report, A Survey of Library Services to Schools and Children in the UK 2005–06, estimated the total expenditure on children's library services in 2006 was £50m, including £28m on specialist staff and £20m on books and other resources. In other words, some 40% of the children's budget is being spent on books.

LISU's figures also indicate that a very small portion of the total library budget is dedicated to children's services. Subesequent figures on children's library and school library spend are difficult to obtain since the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA) has cut the funding for LISU's reports.

The Campaign for the Book, Gibbons believes will, in the first instance, "alert people that there is a problem". He hopes to galvanise a network of local authors to campaign for local libraries if they are threatened with cuts in staffing, hours or threatened by closure. Authors would like to see a set of "national standards" for children's and school libraries. Yet it is unlikely that the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) will consider changing its policy on children's libraries until the 10-year "Framework for the Future" programme ends in four years' time.

Gibbons also hopes for more support from publishers for his campaign. His own publishers, Orion and Barrington Stoke, are lending their support but at this stage the PA and other publishers have not indicated if they will follow suit.

The rot stops here


Next year's Youth Libraries Group (YLG) conference will address the theme "Stop the Rot". Joy Court, the incoming chair of the YLG, says: "There is definitely a place for the campaign. I find it frustrating that the argument has been made by educationalists and at government level for the importance of reading for pleasure but what you see at local government level is cuts."

Budget cuts are the most pressing issue facing children's library services says Anne Marley, head of Children's, Youth & School Services in Hampshire. "The priorities on authorities' budgets are often elsewhere—school building programmes, adult services, special needs or old people's homes. Libraries come low down the pecking order, but libraries do so much for these groups, including children who are in need and adults, for whom home library services are a lifeline."

However, there are also more complex changes taking place that have had a significant impact on how children's library services are organised and funded. Regionally, local services have been reorganised to bring children's services together but, since there is no definitive place for library services, children's library services can as easily find themselves in the adult and community services directorate or the environmental services directorate as in the children's directorate. Being outside the children's directorate makes it harder for children's library services to forge cross-departmental links and to secure funding.

Changing skills
Local government reorganisation and the creation of Children's Trusts are changing the nature of librarianship, says Asociation of Senior Children's & Education Libriarians (ASCEL) chair Sharon Kirkpatrick. "We are in a period of change and the role of a children's librarian and the skills base required is evolving." Trained librarians no longer focus exclusively on book lending but on forging links with other services and agencies. "It is all about joined-up delivery to promote reading and that was not happening five or six years ago", adds Kirkpatrick.

Since every local authority has created a slightly different structure for its children's services and its library service, it is hard to see where the change is leading. Sue Jones, head of Young People, Schools & Equalities in Hertfordshire, argues that this has made it all the more important to recruit specialist children's librarians and sees the de-professionalisation of the service as the biggest threat to children's public library services. "Specialists provide a depth of service that non-specialists cannot, and they need to be there to consider how the library service fits into the wider world of a child and how to engage with other agencies in supporting the child."

There are also fewer professional staff working with children in school libraries and school library services (SLS). In 2006, LISU reported that the number of professional staff working in schools library services was down by 14% over five years to 330. LISU also reported the closure of 12 SLS out of 156 between 1999 and 2006. No figures are available since 2007, but it is understood that two more school library services are under threat this year.
Nick Fuller, SLS manager, Westminster says that school library services remain under threat because funding is devolved to schools and the SLS is a delegated service. "It's not about the level of service but the financial pressure. It's the same when it comes to school libraries. A lot of schools have libraries but no staff to support them."

A recent change in how staff positions in schools are defined is contributing to the loss of professional personnel says Sue Shaper, the chair of CILIP's School Libraries Group. Because librarians are neither teaching staff nor clerical staff, it is hard to define how to scale their remuneration, and schools may be using this process to reduce librarians' pay. One school librarian recently saw her pay cut by £7,000 as a result of the changes.

Credit crunch opportunity
There are other pressures on school libraries, says Fuller. "The emphasis on reading for pleasure has promoted the importance of library spaces in primary schools but in secondary schools, the pressures are much greater because they view curriculum support as greater and there, the computer is king."

It is hard to prevent library closures given the lack of statutory requirement to make reading books, never mind a library, available for children in schools. Author Linda Newbery, who is supporting Gibbons' campaign, says, "There should be a requirement for every school to have a well-stocked library. It shouldn't be left to chance and at the moment it is." One school Newbery visited last year has since lost its librarian and most of its library to make way for an Information & Comunication Technology (ICT)suite. "If the requirement for a library and librarian is not rigorous, it is the first area to be hit by budget cuts or other demands," she says.

Gibbons has called for a "national recommendation" that every school has a "healthy school library with a trained librarian". While no comment has been forthcoming from the Department for Children, Schools & Families in response to Gibbons' campaign, schools watchdog Ofsted's position on school libraries is clear. A spokeswoman said: "We do not have any specific recommendations for school libraries and there are no set expectations within the school inspection framework; if a school's library is a specific strength or weakness, this would tend to be reflected in the judgement on curriculum."

The credit crunch that is now upon us could also be viewed as bad news for library budgets, although Sue Jones in Hertfordshire believes libraries should use it to show what they are best at: "Funding is always an issue for libraries and we have lived with poor funding for a long time. But some people will join libraries as a result of the credit crunch and they will need support. If you want a stable community, put some money into the library service, let us provide services and access to ICT. Libraries need to seize the opportunity but we need to have the tools and services to do so."

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