Rebuilding the public library service?

A recent article in the British satirical magazine, Private Eye, contains an attack on professional librarians generally, and public librarians in particular. The writer implies that they have lost their way and been seduced by new technology into abandoning their true mission of uniting books and readers.

Most modern, trained librarians hate books even more than they hate readers. Both are a nuisance. Librarians much prefer computers and microfilm readers - any gadget in fact, which separates literate human being from those old-fashioned things called books (‘Piloti’, 1996).

These comments came from a scathing piece attacking the technologically ambitious plans for the new Norwich Central Library which will replace the building that was burned down in the summer of 1994:

The result is “Technopolis” - an exciting scheme linked up to 14 “telecottages” and which will incorporate a “visitors’ centre” with a virtual reality time machine to explore Norwich’s past and future; “Digital City” - a high-tech business centre with a multi-media recording studio and 40 “workstations”; and - most important of all - the “agora”, a meeting place with shops and restaurants.”

The criticisms in this case were over-stated in the interests of producing lively copy, and the quotations highly selective. Nevertheless they do perhaps represent a view of libraries and their use of information technology that is held by numbers of our users, and indeed some of our colleagues and ought therefore to taken note of.

Other recent public criticisms of public librarians have rather focused upon the adoption of commercial and populist values in the provision of services. For five years or more the author and critic Richard Hoggart has been responsible for an eloquent campaign both in the printed and broadcast media and also in public lectures, in support of the traditional public library service that he knew during the 1930s-1960s. It was the local public library service in Leeds that did so much to help him, and many others like him, overcome the disadvantages of poor bookless homes, and acquire an education. This was a service that was based upon the provision of ‘great and good books’, which in many libraries today are said to ‘have shrunk to a small space in an obscure corner, to allow more room for cassettes, videos and records’ (Hoggart, 1991).

Yet there is just as vociferous a lobby, both inside and outside of the profession, that sees the traditional public library service as now catering only to a middle class and literate minority and having little impact with the younger generation who have been brought up in the age of television and video. They would argue that the last two or three decades have seen fundamental changes in our educational system, in our leisure pursuits, and information seeking habits, which the library service cannot afford to ignore. A wider and ever growing range of information formats in everyday use, continuing high levels of unemployment, earlier retirement, and an ageing population, have all created issues to be addressed by the providers of public library services. However, there have been clear increases in children’s issues and use of libraries in many parts of the country recently, both as users and exploiters of information technology and also of traditional printed resources.

Public librarians are also now called upon to devote more resources to serving specific groups within society or those with special needs - such as the visually impaired, the house-bound. Furthermore many public librarians are anxious not to be left behind in exploiting the as yet unproven opportunities and benefits afforded by the Internet. Linda Hopkins’ recent lament in the pages of this journal would be supported by many others charged with trying to run a public library service at a time of rapid technological and organisational change coupled with stringent economic restrictions.

I am rather tired of hearing that I don’t have the right vision, that I am not investing enough in the information superhighway, that my local libraries will become anachronisms fixated by the past instead of heading for the bright superhighway future, that the public sector will do it better - or at least cheaper, and that there is a private sector world out there just waiting to give me funding if only I had the right bright ideas (Hopkins, 1995).

Many of these changes can be related to the political environment within which public libraries, and indeed other local authority services, now operate. Over the last two or three years public librarians have had to expend a great deal of their energy in the debate over the contracting out of ancillary services which has diverted attention away from their core service outputs to questions of internal structures and client/contractor relationships. Likewise local authorities are now required to operate within a “challenge culture” where they have to bid for resources. Capital and revenue budgets are top-sliced to fund new and “sexy” projects, whilst the funding for core basic needs becomes ever smaller. Indeed the need for funding of core functions was one of the key messages of Linda Hopkins’s editorial.

So what ought to be the central functions of the public library service at the turn of the next century, and is the traditional role somehow being diluted by the adoption of new information formats and technologies, or by populist principles or management techniques? These questions have been asked many times over the last decade, and there is perhaps now a consensus within the profession as to the range of functions to be provided. However this concensus is not always shared by others outside. This is a great pity for unless public librarians are able to articulate the value of their mission, and indicate their services priorities in a way that will attract the support of those who control public expenditure and also the educated and literate members of the public they serve, than there needs are bound to be overlooked.

It was the 1991 Out of Hours study of town centre decline, commissioned by the Gulbenkian Foundation and undertaken by the Comedia consultancy, which perhaps first highlighted that the traditional role of many public libraries as a neutral, safe, and widely available community resource and learning environment was being eroded by branch closures, other reductions in service levels, shrinking bookfunds, and new charges imposed for ancillary services. The true value of the public library service, and the range of activities and potential uses, was no longer being taken as granted, or indeed recognised, by those responsible for funding.

Whereas other cultural institutions - theatres, opera houses, concert halls - had been seen as flagships for urban renewal in the 1980s, public libraries (which had a wider audience base than any of these) had been overlooked (Landry, 1993).

The concerns of the profession were specifically highlighted in the Library Association’s ‘Save our Libraries’ publicity campaign of 1992, which perhaps had a limited amount of success in raising public awareness, so that the subsequent rate of decline has not been so marked as prior to 1991. Nevertheless throughout the last four years of economic recession, there has been a remorseless chipping away at the fabric of the library service.

It was the disturbing findings of the Out of Hours study that led to the launch of the Comedia study on the future of public library services in the UK, again funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation. The series of working papers issued during 1992 and 1993 together with the final report Borrowed time? (Comedia, 1993) did much to air many of the fundamental issues relating to the core and peripheral activities of the service, and its various educational, recreational, and economic roles within society. This in turn has lead to the recent official Review of the public library service in England and Wales conducted for the Department of National Heritage by the Aslib Consultancy (Department of National Heritage, 1995).

Before there was any response by the Department of National Heritage (DNH) to the Public Libraries Review, many members of the profession were becoming increasingly concerned that the interests of the service would be damaged still further, perhaps irretrievably, by the imminent restructuring of local government. In October 1995, the Department did at least issue guidance notes to the new local authorities due to take up office in 1996 and 1997, stressing that the provision of the public library service was a compulsory requirement, recognising its important role in maintaining and improving literacy, and encouraging those responsible to maintain existing standards (Department of National Heritage, 1995), although without specifying service levels or identifying sanctions on those who failed to do so.

The first formal reaction to the Review however came in December 1995 in a statement to Parliament, by Virginia Bottomley, the National Heritage Secretary. She described the public library sevices as:

a great British success story. Its quality and professionalism is admired world-wide. The local public library is freely available to everyone and is used by a wide cross-section of society (Department of National Heritage, 1995).

She also identified for the first time what the Government expected public libraries to deliver to their users. These were:

providing reading for pleasure,
developing lifelong reading skills and habits,
encouraging lifelong learning and study,
providing reference material and public information, and
providing materials for the study of local history and the local environment.

These are highly laudable aims and few in the public library service would take serious issue with any of them, but mission statements are really only of any value if they can be translated into specific strategies. Yet in spite of the fine sentiments and the generally positive message, public librarians have noted that they still have not been offered any firm proposals for developing the service or any means of ensuring that adequate funding would be made available to ensure the continuance of these functions by ever more pressurised local authorities. It may be that such proposals will come in a promised ‘wide-ranging policy paper on the public library service’ to be published in 1996 as part of the Government’s continuing response, although by then a general election will be imminent, together with the likelihood of a change of government may well give rise to yet further delay and excuse for inaction. Unfortunately the political climate is such that neither of the political parties which might conceivably form the next government can afford to risk making promises which involve significant increases in public expenditure. Any additional resources granted to one service will therefore be taken from an ever shrinking pool for all services.

Of course, the public library service is not the only feature of our social fabric to have been subjected to neglect over the last decade. The financial and organisational problems of the educational, environmental, health, and social services are on a far larger scale and have rightly received far more media attention, but they will also involve far more public finance to put right. If the current period of economic recession does end soon, as promised, then there will inevitably be an enormous struggle among all of these services to secure increases in expenditure. It is particularly important for smaller services such as public libraries, that their voices are also heard in this struggle. When making decisions relating to the allocation of resources, politicians will often be swayed more by the perceived opinions of their electorates than the opinions of those they have employed to offer advice.

An essential precursor to the making up of the lost ground must be a concerted period of discussion within the profession followed by a public relations exercise to try and secure and mobilise public support. We must be able to speak with one voice identifying what it is we are seeking to achieve and why, and our strategies for achieving it.

Together, the Public Libraries Review and the Comedia study have given us all the evidence we require to demonstrate the value and significance of our work. The reports have also opened up a reasoned debate into the role and nature of public libraries in the decades to come. It is now up to the library profession generally to make use of that evidence to convince others of its importance.

David Stoker

April 1996

With many thanks to Linda Hopkins of Gloucestershire Library, Arts & Museums Service

References

1. Borrowed time? : the future of public libraries in the UK, (1993). Comedia, 1993.

2. Department of National Heritage (1995). Public libraries in the 1990’s, Iain Sproat urges new local authorities to look to the future, DNH News Release 187/95.

3. Department of National Heritage (1995). The Public Library Service, Virginia Bottomley sets out libraries key functions, DNH News Release 255/95.

4. Department of National Heritage (1995) Review of the public library service in England and Wales for the Department of National Heritage: final Report. London : Aslib

5. Charles Landry, (1993). The future of public library services Working paper 4: Fundamental dilemmas for public libraries, Comedia Working Papers, 1.

6. ‘Piloti’ (1996). Nooks and corners, Private Eye, 893, 8 March 1996. 7.

7. Richard Hoggart, (1991). A public library is not a burger bar The Independent on Sunday, 30 June 1991.

8. Linda Hopkins, (1995). Reviewing the Public Libraries Review Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 27 (1995) 187.