SOS for the Public Library Service
David McMenemyTFAD is continuing its debate about spending cuts in the arts – and with public libraries continuing to have an uncertain future, we’re delighted to have a post about them by David McMenemy, who is Course Director for the MSc in Information and Library Studies at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, with over a decade of experience working in public libraries before moving to academic life. David is Editor of Library Review, and co-author of Librarianship: An Introduction. His most recent book, The Public Library, was published by Facet in December 2008. – Simon Mason
In the coming wave of cuts, likely to last several years, local councils will have some excruciating decisions to make to prioritise the services they provide for the public. A survey
early in 2010 by the BBC suggested that for a large number of local councils public libraries will be taking a significant hit when the cuts are implemented. While being eerily
predictable, we need more debate about what such cultural vandalism may do to our society.
Public libraries have stood for over 150 years as a high watermark of civilisation; their existence points to a society that aspires to better things for its citizens. They are not merely
window dressing for boom times when public spending is profligate; they are vital cogs in the wheels of societal development. They were conceived as the ultimate social leveller – no
person would be unable to access public knowledge while the collective community could afford to purchase it on behalf of everyone. This role has not diminished; in a digital world where
publishers can put up paywalls at the click of a mouse, our collective ability to facilitate access to knowledge for our fellow citizens has become even more important.
What, Public Libraries are Important?
Even in the most democratic of nations the public library is one of the few impartial public spaces that remain. Alongside museums, they remain public institutions that offer a place of quiet
consideration of knowledge and humanity, free from the pressure of day to day life.
The public library’s role in the promotion of reading and literacy is of vital importance to the cultural fabric of the nation. Through the myriad initiatives aimed at children and
young people public libraries help foster a love of reading and the book that will stand any future adult in good stead for the remainder of their life. With access to books through the joy
of reading children can open up their aspirations and their world view form their own surroundings. Reading about other cultures teaches children to empathise with them; it takes the child
outside of their own environment and considers people in other environments. This simply makes a child a more informed and better human being.
A school of thought suggests that the role of the public library in information provision is diminished as a result of the internet and World Wide Web. Yet the need for high quality and accurate information sources is as stark in the digital age as it was in the analogue, and the need for public libraries to ensure the public have access to definitive and well sourced reference works is not diminished in the Wikipedia world.
Notions of the public library as a street-corner university may be overstating things a little, but there is no doubt that for generations of people, since the inception of libraries freely
available to the public, that they have allowed for an informal educational experience to take place. Recent moves to build on this role have included attempts to formalise this role through
the teaching of qualifications such as the European Computer Driving Licence, and these offer library users a tangible end product for their efforts. However the importance of the library
building and its contents as an informal learning space cannot be overstated.
Are Libraries Now Out of Date?
Successive governments have encouraged public services to be more commercial in the way they conceptualise and deliver services, and public libraries have not been immune from this. Strangled by performance measurement regimes that emphasise the notion that services provided should be considered as mere transactions akin to buying a loaf at the supermarket, public libraries have courted populism at the expense of cultural merit. In doing so they have risked their cultural relevance unnecessarily.
In his excellent summary of the state of UK public libraries, Emeritus Professor of Librarianship at the University of Sheffield, Bob Usherwood, used the position of the BBC as a comparator to the public library (Usherwood, 2007). It is an apt one; both were created to add to the culture of the country, and both have been increasingly encouraged by successive neoliberal governments to be more populist in their aspirations, less elitist, and consider only the maximum number of people using the service as a measure of quality (for viewing figures for the BBC, read book issue figures for libraries). As a result, both have lost a little of their moral authority and justifications for claim on the public purse.
How Can Cuts Be Fought?
Perhaps the biggest strength public libraries have is that, even while they may be low down the priority list of some local authorities, many people actually care about their existence. In one opinion piece on the broader topic of library closures, Joan Bakewell made the important point that, ‘Councils too easily see the library service as a soft touch, with its statutory requirements vague; (Bakewell, 2009).
The reality is that once a public library is lost, it is unlikely to ever be replaced, and that has great potential to damage a community: ‘once we lose small but vital enclaves of civilised values, we will not easily get them back’ (Bakewell, 2009).
It is highly likely that your local council is planning on cutting the number of libraries in your area, and/or the book budget, and it is equally likely that in all the noise made as a result of cuts in other public areas that the public library cuts may drift under your radar. Do not let this irreparable cultural vandalism happen without a fight.
References
Bakewell, Joan (2009) ‘Resist the cultural vandalism – don’t let them close our precious libraries’ The Times. February 20th. Available here.
Usherwood, B. (2007) Equity and Excellence in the Public Library: Why Ignorance is Not our Heritage. Aldershot: Ashgate.
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Comments
August 3rd, 2010 9:57am
David Bouvier
The author seems to be deliberately confusing the public library (like public bar) open to the public rather than a private one only accessible to members of an institution, with one that is publically funded.
It was probably a terrible mistake for the great charitable libraries of the Victorian era to allow themselves to be subsumed by the state and some may now suffer the consequences.
If you care about libraries the first goal should be to get them out of "public" ownership and into the hands of the public.
PS - since when are libraries "Arts".
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August 3rd, 2010 12:01pm
Tim Coates
I agree with much that David Mcmenmy says but I think he (and Professor Usherwood) are on the wrong track when they say that performance measurement routines are 'commercial'. It is good management, not commerce, that is aided by analysis of performance and however imperfect those measures are, they do help to improve the service. I see no harm in using meausures of book loans and public visits to assess the quality of a library. If they are increasing, then the chances are that the library is a better one than those where the issues and visits are declining.
Service is always to individuals, so there has to be a realistic understanding of the requirements of managing and organising resources properly. Our army is not commercial but it has to be managed properly and its resources have to be used to best effect.
I do agree with the previous comment - there has to be a big question mark over the ability of local government to manage public libraries. The reality is there to be seen. They are not very good at it. We have other public services, run for public benefit, that are not in the hands of local government and we should explore other ways. It would save a huge amount of money, if nothing else.
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August 3rd, 2010 1:11pm
simon
David, thanks for this post, and for joining in the debate about public arts and culture funding in these tough times..
Why do we need physical libraries at all? Why not let the state handout iPad's to everyone, and we can download books, films and music from a central digital library.
The choice would be MUCH bigger, and cost MUCH less. I'm sure that the future of libraries is digital, rather than in keeping expensive buildings and staff.
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August 3rd, 2010 1:41pm
David McMenemy
Thanks for reading and commenting Tim. Performance measurement becomes a milstone if by its design it makes libraries spend more money on material that shifts rather than creating balanced collections that benefit the public. Dumbing down is not just something that has happened in public libraries. It might make libraries busier, but it makes their contribution to the culture of the country more questionable. culturally, and also makes them easy to dismiss as merely recreational facilities and as such ripe to be picked off in any cuts regime.
Simon: I have a lot of sympathy for what you're proposing re iPads and eBooks. I do feel there is immense social value in having a community facility like a public library, but the iPad especially is a game-changer re the popularisation of eBooks, and it may well see them becoming mainstream very soon.
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August 3rd, 2010 3:24pm
Brit
Surprisingly huge numbers of books are borrowed from public libraries every year, almost entirely by the two least fashionable strata of society: OAPs and mothers of young children.
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August 3rd, 2010 3:59pm
Shirley Burnham
It is dismaying to read a comment which advocates the closure of all libraries and suggests forcing people to accept an iPad instead. This smacks of the writer's contempt for everyone except himself. It is not very helpful.
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August 3rd, 2010 4:31pm
Tim Coates
Simon. What about the millions of people who use public libraries as a place to read or study. There are those who do not have a private place to do their homework or write their essays, or even just read in peace.
Many more millions of books are loaned from public libraries to read- we sell 260m books in book shops each year, but we lend 310m books from public libraries. And, as is said above, most of the borrowing is by the young, or by the elderly.
The public library service has been a victim of social planning by those who do not use it, for far too long.
And, David, good management is also wise- increased lending comes from improving collections. We must trust library managers not to be so foolish as to pursue targets by just lending popular books-- have more faith in the qualities of your colleagues- let them do their job. But the public, who pay, are entitled to know, somehow, that their money is being spent properly. Libraries are a service of choice; it is important that they are managed sufficiently well that people choose to use them, and that will show in the performance measures.
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August 3rd, 2010 5:11pm
Briony Birdi
Perhaps I am a little naive, but I was surprised to read some of the previous comments made in response to David McMenemy’s post. Surely we can appreciate what the ‘physical library’ gives to those who would not otherwise be able to afford to buy books/CDs/MP3/eBooks; who do not have access to the Internet at home (30% of UK households were without Internet access in 2009, according to the most recent ONS figures) and would not know how to use it anyway; who would not know where else to go for a particular piece of information; for whom the weekly visit to (or at-home visit from) the library makes a tangible difference to their quality of life? Performance measurement indicators can certainly help to improve a service, but the danger, as David says, lies in how the results are often interpreted. In constantly looking for the ‘highest score’ rather than evaluating their overall impact, we run the risk of removing services which could benefit us all, at some point in our lives.
And have we really reached the point at which we regard all public library services as collectively worth no more than the latest Apple panacea? The iPad may well have a massive and liberating effect on eBook reading, but will soon be replaced by something equally essential - a new version, at least, will probably be released before this post is removed from the Internet. Not even Messrs Jobs or Gates have been able to come up with a piece of technology to replace the incredible breadth of library services currently available to almost all of us, whether or not we choose to use them.
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August 3rd, 2010 8:13pm
David McMenemy
Tim: like it or not, performance measurement under neoliberal frameworks become an end, not the means to an end. Your worth as an organisation becomes all about the stats. If not, then why do library services in Scotland want to be in the top 10 of each of their relatively meaningless statutory performance indicators?
Of course the public should know how their money is spent, but they should also know their money is having an impact on society, otherwise what exactly is the investment for? Issue figures do not tell you that.
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August 3rd, 2010 9:12pm
simon
Guys don't bite my head off I was only adding my two pence to the debate.
We all know that in a few years we'll be getting all entertainment over the web.. I already do most of my reading on my iPad, and my 13 yr old daughter who is a voracious reader does all her reading on it.
And with the massive choice of the web and ease of use Ipad type devices, and with cities increasingly providing wifi FOC (Swindon), I doubt that physical public libraries will exist in the medium future.. Who is going to pay for a few old people to sit and read the Daily Mail (newspapers will only be online soon anyway) in a very expensive empty building, the rest of us will be in Costa and the parks with our Ipads, downloading stuff from the central digital library.. Libraries will be coming into a golden digital age, with all the knowledge of the world at the touch of a screen.
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August 4th, 2010 3:33pm
AndyinBrum
Simon's just rubbing it in that he has an iPad (or two)', the git
Although I use iBooks on my iPhone, & it's pretty handy
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August 5th, 2010 11:52am
mac
Interesting that no one has mentioned that several libraries offer free ebooks and eaudio already. Download from home, using your library card and read or listen on your ipads, ipods, mobiles, ereaders and so on.
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August 11th, 2010 8:59pm
Andrew Preston
Ipads', iPhones aren't game-changers... they're just the latest gadgets. Playthings for the affluent, and those who can afford to pay £30-£50 a month for the privilege of watching them devalue.
I had a few strokes of the iPad at a PC World today. Ho hum, very pretty... The thought that hovered at the back of my mind was that the average anount of time that a downloaded app gets used ..., is about 2.75 minutes I think.
Simon. Should be yummy for you, your daughter , and your iPad in Swindon. Not so Yummy for loads of other people there. Unhappy voters, with the latest proposals to close , 5 , libraries I think.
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