Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 1

Memorandum submitted by Camden Public Library Users' Group (CPLUG)

INTRODUCTION

  Camden Public Library Users' Group (CPLUG) was formed in February 1998 as a federation of library users' and friends' groups in the borough of Camden. Its aim is to help maintain and improve the library service in Camden. CPLUG promotes the establishment of users' groups and supports their activities. It also carries out research into library matters. CPLUG follows standard democratic procedure and has a steering committee of officers. As a federation it represents members of the individual users' groups, who number some 3,000 library users.

1.  LIBRARIES AND THE COMMUNITY

  We see no compelling rational argument for closing small local libraries, nor for amalgamations which, on common sense grounds, seem more likely to end up as less cost effective than in situ improvements. CPLUG has consistently stressed the importance of local public libraries. Central libraries can hardly be "flagships" without "fleets" of branch libraries. We summarise our position as follows:

1.i  Public Spaces

  CPLUG argues that in a rapidly changing world subject to processes of globalisation, commoditisation, and individualism, public libraries offer safe spaces founded on considerations of the social: they are oases of public interest in cultural landscapes increasingly shaped by commercial and private interest.

1.ii  Social Inclusion

  There are a number of categories of persons for whom public libraries, especially branch libraries, are the only freely accessible places in which a good mix of people from all walks of life and backgrounds may be found: elderly people whose family members are not close at hand, newly arrived refugees, unemployed people, for example. There are few institutions better equipped to address questions of social exclusion than libraries. The basic argument here is that branch libraries contribute to social solidarity, being amongst the few places in which links can be made across generational, ethnic and/or gender boundaries. For these and other reasons they make vital contributions to community mental health, cultural vitality and the well being of civil society.

1.iii  A Sense of Locality and Identity

  Modern societies have increasing difficulty in providing people with a sense of belonging and attachment to locality. In our view it is such an awareness which gives rise to a sense of civic social responsibility and well being. Local libraries have a significant positive role to play here which the closure of branch libraries will help to undermine.

1.iv  Democratic Vitality

  The foundation of any democratic society requires an informed population. On this ground alone we should be pouring money into libraries rather than stifling them of funds.

2.  LIBRARIES AND EDUCATION

  In our view libraries have a central and distinctive role to play in education policy—especially when the particular and complementary roles of branch libraries, central libraries and the home are fully understood. We feel that well thought out national and local policies on public libraries are still regrettably underdeveloped.

2.i  Reader Development

  At CPLUG's seminar[1] McKerney described her work with various types of people—from the 14 year old school drop-out who became interested in the poetry of WH Auden to members of the University of the Third Age who enthusiastically attend courses run at local libraries—and put forward the idea of reader development. She argued that in addition to holding the public good in mind, we should understand the value of libraries to the development of individual readers. Sometimes such individuals may have missed out on other educational frameworks. For them the library acts as a sort of "educational safety net" along the lines publicised by the Secretary of State's remark about "Street Corner Universities".

2.ii  School Students

  Libraries have traditionally been sites for regular, supervised visits by parties of school children. We regard the abolition of this important initiation into library use as a scandal. It has a discriminatory impact on disadvantaged children, the effect of which is to discourage them from using libraries as they grow older, and so contributes to the figures of declining library use.

2.iii  Knowledge and Information

  We have drawn attention to the dangers of confusing knowledge with information. We suggest that public libraries are institutions which need to be guardians of this distinction, and places which offer the means to acquire knowledge as well as some information.

2.iv  Lifelong Community Learning

  Public libraries, especially branch libraries, are centres of community learning and culture in which the wisdom and experience of the community may be explored and shared. The sheer number and variety in the past year of public talks by local people, organised by friends' groups, attest to this.

3.  INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY3.i  Background

  In the welter of Government proposals for a People's Network, Lifelong Learning, Social Exclusion and Best Value etc the purpose and community role of our public libraries is in danger of being lost. There is an enormous amount of Internet activity amongst professional library organisations and funding for digital library research has been considerable. Conversely there is only a small amount of user-led online activity and little analysis as to which of the needs of library users can be met successfully by information technology and which cannot.

  CPLUG supports the introduction of some information technologies in an ordered and considered way. However, we ask the larger question, why are libraries becoming the dumping ground for these policies, and expected to provide computers, train their users, and lessen the divide between the information rich and information poor (terms which are much over-used and risk confusing a much more complex picture)?

  Prior to the expansion of computers, libraries were expected to provide books but not to teach literacy. Whereas now they are being asked to provide computers and de facto computer support. The question arises why are libraries being targeted as the major access point to computers for schoolchildren and students outside school hours. It seems that with the demise of affordable Adult Education there is an obvious need for cheap, available computer training facilities beyond what libraries can provide. CPLUG has in the past made various proposals for the constructive use of the time libraries are closed and we would like to see this extended to schools' computer resources when schools are closed.

  Thus, whilst we favour IT provision where a demonstrable demand exists, this has to be on a carefully monitored basis, especially in view of central government moves to make domestic computers widely available. Whether or not this will have any other than rhetorical effect on the exclusion of the so-called information poor except, of course, in rendering them more vulnerable to the exploitation of the market remains to be seen.

  It is further, a sad commentary on contemporary cultural values that planners need to be reminded that libraries exist primarily to provide reading material, only a fraction of which is for information in the narrow sense. The idea of transforming libraries into cyber cafes is misplaced and pandering to ill-informed, trendy market-led forces.

3.ii.i  IT Strategy

  In its haste to introduce computers into public libraries, Government is in danger of being led by the technology market rather than following a well-researched and considered information strategy. In our seminar, Frank Webster warned that:

    The market model of information dissemination is increasingly that of the Blockbuster video chain . . . (and) . . . in the ascendant. If libraries don't ask what it is they are about, then they meet the challenges of commercialisation unprepared and incapable of doing more than adapting to a business agenda.

  We believe the DCMS is making two serious errors in its approach to information and information technology, short-termism and a confusion between an information strategy and a new media strategy.

3.ii.ii  Short-Termism

  Within 10 years, public access to computers will have grown enormously. Many if not most of the population will either have a computer at home or have access to the Internet through their TV set. Indeed the Government has plans to give away thousands of computers in the immediate future. We consider it short-sighted to install whole suites of 10 or more computers in libraries which are already far too small and victims of years of neglect. This short-termist strategy is typical of the approach that sees technology as an answer to all existing problems. Unfortunately, experience has shown that the introduction of technology into any organisation changes its structure and creates more problems than it was designed to solve.

  Furthermore, at the moment library staff bear the brunt of trouble-shooting and assisting the public with the new technologies. They are being forced to learn themselves how to use the new technologies at the same time as having to help the public. This is enormously demoralising to staff and frustrating for users.

3.ii.iii  Separating Information and Media Strategies

  There is danger of confusing information strategy with new media strategy. The former covers Internet access, e-mail charging, information retrieval and information resources that can be offered to users. The DCMS needs to be aware of the increasing commercialisation of information, and remind itself, as Webster argued, to hold hard to the ideal of information as a public good.

  On the other hand, a new media strategy should evaluate the new electronic forms of media such as video conferencing and Digital Visual Disks to see if they are (a) appropriate for library hire, (b) mature and stable enough to buy into, (c) whether the returns generated justify their introduction, (d) to whom they are targeted and whether this reinforces inequality?

3.ii.iv  Computers and Library Space

  In Camden, for example, there are current proposals for the development of learning centres in six out of 13 libraries. These developments are effectively threatening to invade a disproportionate amount of library floor space. In Regents Park library, for example, the learning centre computer suite has removed over one third of space previously devoted to bookcases, tables and chairs. In Camden Town, the children's library has been squeezed into a corner the size of a large playpen.

  In its eagerness to embrace suites of computers, the Library Service is thus missing a crucial point: schoolchildren doing homework or research need desk space as well as a computer. For many, the desk space is more important than access to a computer, especially if they share a bedroom or find it difficult to study at home. If there is no room to study quietly, we are denying schoolchildren a vital resource, contributing to the very inequality the Library Service proposed to ameliorate, and alienating schoolchildren and thus preventing them from getting the library habit.

  We strongly believe that the number of computers in any public library should be limited to a reasonable proportion of floor space, agreed with users and appropriate to the overall size of the library concerned. Moreover current partnerships with schools be extended to examine the possibility of the computing resources of schools being used outside school hours. These could be used for Adult Education and the general training needs of local members of the public.

  The CPLUG Committee are Tom Selwyn (Chair), Ioan Lewis (Vice-Chair), Clair Drew (Secretary), Alan Templeton (Treasurer), Caroline Read and Enid Evans (Archivists).

January 2000


1   A public seminar was organised by CPLUG at the London School of Economics, on 23 October 1999 under the heading "Do Public Libraries have a future?" Speakers also included Professor Frank Webster and Richard Proctor. Back


 
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