Examination of witnesses (Questions 100
- 102)
THURSDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2000
MR ANDREW
COBURN, MS
JILL WIGHT,
MS KATHLEEN
FRENCHMAN, MR
TOM SELWYN
and MS CLAIRE
DREW
100. I am not saying there is not a place for
libraries, that would be wrong, I believe there is a place for
libraries. What I am saying is we cannot always be saying that
every library that exists in every building at the present time
must be forever conserved in its present form.
(Mr Selwyn) I think there are several things being
said at the same time. I would very much like to follow Jill's
point and say that I think a movement towards interacting with
books through the Internet, if you take it to its logical conclusion,
is certainly going to add to social exclusion rather than add
to social inclusion. I think the whole point that everybody is
saying all the time is that the local branch library has a lot
of different functions in the community and in the public space
that it is located. If you asked me whether we are reactionary
then the answer is definitely not. I think there is quite a lot
of evidence that we actually have members in our user group who
are actually much more knowledgeable about the use of information
technology than the authorities presently devising the library
plans. If the Committee would allow it, Claire Drew, my colleague,
is an expert in this field and maybe you would like to hear a
few words from her.
(Ms Drew) I think one of our major concerns is that
the introduction of information technology into the public library
service is seen as a solution to the problem. Experience in the
introduction of new technologies into organisations has shown
that it does not solve the problems, it merely highlights and
exacerbates existing problems. There are associated costs which
you very rarely see on the bottom line. For example, there is
the cost of staffing the IT. In local libraries at the moment,
as I am sure you know, staff have problems when they have to deal
with working on the counter, the photocopier goes wrong, the phone
is ringing and then someone cannot work the computer. Staff have
to be trained. I know there is money available from central government
for the training of staff. Another cost is security. Camden has
recently had computers put into their libraries. One library was
broken into three times and chips were taken. A second library
was broken into and only the boxes were taken. There are security
costs, upgrade costs, maintenance costs. None of these is actually
seen in council plans for the introduction of IT. I want to take
up the Chairman's point on serendipity. Libraries can be havens
for some children. Children do not just need computers in libraries,
they also need desk space and they need computers. They also need
quiet desk space which maybe they cannot get at home. I think
a certain amount of computer strategy coming from both government
and councils is actually rather short-term and I think this is
Mr Maxton's point. We do not know what the computer is going to
look like or what the interface between the user and the communications
network is going to be like in ten years' time. At a seminar that
C-PLUG (Camden Public Libraries Users' Group) had at the London
School of Economics in October Professor Frank Webster warned
us that libraries were in danger of being seduced by the industry.
After all, the banks of computers that you are seeing today in
libraries and in offices are in effect yesterday's technology.
We have to be careful that business and industry is not flogging
off the old stuff and then saying in five years' time, "That's
obsolete, why don't you try this?" We are not against computers.
I spend my life with computers. The fact that computers will be
in libraries is an absolute given. The word computer is a black
box. It is seen as something that is not to be unpicked. I think
that IT strategy in libraries needs to be unpicked a lot more.
We need very careful consideration of an information technology
strategy particularly regarding the amount of floor space in small
libraries. It needs to be done in consultation with the users
of those smaller libraries. The use of IT in libraries needs to
be monitored.
Mr Keen
101. I do not really understand why as the nation
gets more affluent we tend to be cutting public services, but
presumably government thinks that is what the public wants or
they would not do it. We have got to face reality. You heard me
ask the previous witnesses if it would be better if they have
got better total funding and they answered that they have not
got a very good youth service and I accept that. Should we look
at libraries differently? Should we use the libraries to target
the areas that really need them and leave the areas where people
can afford to look after themselves and buy their own books? Should
we look at funding differently? Have you other ideas on funding
and targeting?
(Ms Frenchman) Are you talking about geographical
areas?
102. No, social exclusion.
(Mr Coburn) There is a very careful balancing act
to be done. I think library authorities and library managers are
finding ways in which they can somehow do both. One of the things
about the book part of what libraries do is that you can move
a book from here to there without too much difficulty. You can
make the book more widely available. The technology helps in that
as well. The answers to the questions about how a library service
is delivered to those groups which are socially excluded such
that they get them at all are the difficult questions and those
are the ones about how staff are deployed and how resources are
deployed. There it may be possible if the staff have the time
to get them to focus on the areas of social exclusion while still
providing the service that is desired and taken up by people in
the other areas. The issue about staff time particularly as it
relates to the technology but just generally is another one that
does come back to resources. We have made the point that in order
to train the staff to use the technology and to develop these
new skills somehow the money has to be there as well to run the
service in the meantime.
(Mr Selwyn) I think there are several issues here.
One has to do with overheads. In many boroughs the leisure and
community services departments are much smaller than the education
departments but their overheads in terms of the directorate that
oversees them are probably around the same. That in itself would
be a powerful argument for moving the library service and other
services into a larger department. On the other hand, as somebody
has already said, the problem with moving library services and
the education service is that they would be open to cuts in a
way that schools' budgets would not be. I think the third point
to say is that one of the remarkable points about libraries is
that their education function, which is very important, stems
partly from the very fact that they are not in the education department.
I think lots of people who have missed out on schooling find the
library an alternative route and that might be rather more difficult
if they were all under one roof. Finally, I think it is very important
that people in the leisure department speak to people in the education
department and that we all understand the complexities of modern
life.
(Ms Frenchman) I shall be able to answer this question
very soon because in my borough libraries have just been moved
from a rather nondescript department into education and we do
not yet know what is going to happen. Since the boroughs have
not had a libraries department and the chief librarian has not
been a chief officer it has been very haphazard. They have been
in something called information and customer services and now
they are going into education. If I may say something to Mr Maxton
about a question he asked last week. I rather disagreed with Bob
McKee when he was talking about the library users and the new
technology and saying that once people got to their fifties they
found it very difficult to use. My problem is not I cannot use
it, it is that I cannot find enough money to pay for the hardware
and software and the telephone bill. So it is not going to be
the case that everybody will have one in their home for quite
a long time and I think you were rather assuming that everybody
could tune in—
Chairman: We have got to the end of the
time. It has been an extremely good session. Mr Maxton, I know
you have been provoked, but you are just going to have to contain
yourself. There is a very interesting article in the Times
today about how the take-up of new technology is less in this
country than in the United States but that one of the reasons
for that is call costs. Thank you very much indeed.
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