APPENDIX 2
Memorandum submitted by East Sussex Libraries,
Information and Arts
This evidence from East Sussex Libraries, Information
and Arts relates to the headings given in the outline of interests
of the short inquiry. We would be happy to extend on it if required.
ACCESS TO
LIBRARIES
The role of libraries in combating social exclusion
Public libraries are a prime local government
service for combating social exclusion—both through its
more traditional methods of service delivery and the role which
they play in the Government's modernisation programme.
Widespread service points; service free at point
of use; provision of materials to people in minority groups and
with disabilities; delivery of services to people unable to visit
libraries—all these traditionally inclusive factors are
a part of a well resourced library service. As resources have
declined, so have these services; some smaller service points
and village centres are being closed, often because of maintenance
issues, or because of changing patterns of population; some services
now fall into the "charged for" bracket—East Sussex
began a programme of exemptions in 1993 which we are struggling
to maintain—for example for the unemployed, and no specific
exemptions are offered to elderly people. The viability of mobile
library services, which may only be used by two or three families
at any one stopping point are being reviewed.
However, the way in which these services are
being delivered is changing, influenced by the introduction of
Information Communications Technology and partnerships.
Social inclusion is one of the six priority
areas in East Sussex, and every effort is being made to ensure
that the potential for library and information services to underpin
any social inclusion policy should be recognised as a part of
corporate policies. There is potential for a corporate rather
than a departmental or service approach to delivering services
to combat social exclusion—for example mobile "one
stop" or advice units which include library services—but
resources need to be flexible enough to support such projects.
The bidding culture is an effective way of supporting
new projects, but it is always disappointing when a successful
project—for example a network of rural information points—cannot
be rolled out because of lack of funds. The issue of sustainability
is one of concern, since it should not prevent projects being
initiated.
We have similar concerns over the use of volunteers.
We are happy to welcome and work with volunteers in new ways—for
example to support learning centres and to provide "double
staffing" in very small service points in order to keep them
open—but, even in East Sussex, which could be said to have
more than its fair share of "active elderly" people
who are traditionally seen as prospective volunteers, suitable
volunteers are hard to come by.
The role of libraries in combating social exclusion
underlies other issues on which the Committee is collecting evidence—opening
times, library closures, the promotion of education and lifelong
learning and the promotion of access to and awareness of new technology.
If we look at the issue from the service user rather than the
service delivery point of view, we may well decide to deliver
services differently—as we have done in East Sussex at Seaside,
where we have closed a library but are delivering a service from
five community venues in the neighbourhood.
Changes to the way in which we deliver services
will be necessary to support social inclusion, but they will need
to be a part of a planned strategy of service delivery to be implemented
and resourced as a result of consultation over a period of time.
If no specific budget is allocated, either nationally or locally
to support social inclusion, it is difficult to see how one socially
inclusive project can be implemented without making another group
of people or geographical area socially excluded.
Opening times
Appropriate opening times which meet community
needs may not always be able to enable access to the full range
of library services. While ICT developments enable the library
service to make some services—for example, community information,
access to the catalogue, information on opening times and reservations
available 24 hours a day through the Internet—the basic
access to borrowing books, reading newspapers and some study facilities
requires the library to be open.
The way in which opening hours are represented
in the CIPFA statistics, and possibly in the proposed new library
standards are not helpful since they do not include service points
which are open for less than 10 hours a week.
Current opening hours in East Sussex relate
to the size of the populations serviced and use of the service
and all changes are consulted on to ensure that they reflect community
needs. However, the hours are set in the context of declining
library budgets. The one example which we have of additional funding
to meet additional opening hours is in Mayfield, where the Parish
Council is paying for an additional six hours a week at the new
community library, housed and used jointly with the local primary
school.
Changes in retail and leisure services with
evening and Sunday opening now being the norm means that there
is difficulty in responding to the public's changed needs and
expectations in one location without severely reducing opening
times in another unless additional funding is available. Some
library authorities have managed to finance this improvement in
opening hours, but this can be difficult, given the many competing
demands for budgets for the range of County Council services.
It would be helpful for the library standards
to indicate that late evening and Sunday opening where appropriate
to the needs of the local community is a desirable objective.
Mobile libraries
Mobile libraries are the traditional face of
library outreach services with the library van parked alongside
a picture postcard village green. They need to be reviewed in
the light of the changing patterns of rural communities—the
lifestyles of new and old inhabitants and transport patterns.
Where villages predominantly house commuters or holiday visitors,
they may be empty when the mobile library calls, or their inhabitants
gone by bus or car to the nearest town to shop. However, even
in such places there may be pockets of disadvantage.
Library services should not add to the social
exclusion of people in rural areas, often doubly deprived by the
closure of the village shop or withdrawal of the country bus.
On the other hand they may not be a cost effective way of providing
library and information services. Using ICT for self reservation
coupled with a delivery van may be preferable in some communities,
or the joint use of mobile vehicles or community venues alongside
other services.
Changes can only be taken as a result of a comprehensive
review of the service coupled with consultation and we are just
beginning that process in East Sussex.
Library closures
Library closures are an emotive experience—communities
which lose their libraries feel deprived whether they used them
or not. To close a small library may only save relatively small
amounts of money and cause much public, professional and political
anguish. To close a larger library is to withdraw a major well-used
service and is counter-productive.
We have just closed a library in East Sussex
whose use had dropped by 30 per cent in the last 10 years; the
maintenance costs of the building were escalating, and to sell
the building would boost library capital resources, which were
much needed. The closure has come at the end of two years' consultation,
involving several public meetings, an unsuccessful joint proposal
for a Healthy Living Centre, made with the borough council and
other local agencies and, finally, the implementation of alternative
proposals to continue to provide a service, but not through a
building which belonged to the library service, with attendant
costs. The result is a service delivered through five service
points, all within the same community, but targeting different
community groups—teenagers at the video shop, elderly people
at a room which is a part of a care home, children (including
a toy library) and adults at the local church and general readers
at the pub. This allows resources to be spent on books and on
employing a Community Development assistant to oversee the collections—a
saving of £18,000 a year and a substantial capital receipt.
The whole process has been extremely slow and
time consuming, but does not appear to have been professionally
or politically damaging because the County Council has not turned
its back on service provision in the community—just done
things differently.
Facilities for the Disabled
Physical access to all services in library buildings
is often limited in East Sussex owing to the age and site of service
points—some of which are located in listed buildings. Obviously
these issues will have to be addressed in the near future with
the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act. Access
to services is made as simple as possible for all. One highly
recommended example of good practice is that Libraries, Information
and Arts pays the subscription to The Royal National Institute
for the Blind Talking Books service for all people who are blind
within the county. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult
to sustain this service at the cost of £54 per person annually.
Volunteers provide access to services for those who are housebound,
on the whole. All services are monitored regularly and are greatly
appreciated and valued. This service would not operate without
volunteers, who are becoming difficult to recruit. A central service
staffed by one member of staff supported by volunteers provides
a talking book service to visually impaired people in the county;
together with providing subtitled and signed videos for people
who are hearing impaired.
THE ROLE
OF LIBRARIES
IN THE
PROMOTION OF
EDUCATION AND
LIFELONG LEARNING
Libraries play a crucial role in the promotion
of and access to education, providing access to services as diverse
as the Bookstart scheme, Open Learning Centres, Open University
workshops, premises from which to operate Basic Skills courses,
as well as book and ICT support for independent learners. In well
provided areas the public have access to many facilities including
colleges, further education centres and cyber cafes as well as
many other educational, Lifelong Learning and ICT facilities.
In rural and isolated areas, urban deprived areas, and remote
and small communities there is a lack of sophisticated formal
access to learning. The only place many of these communities can
use to access learning is the library. Working in partnership
with the Education Department, Libraries, Information and Arts
in East Sussex is widening access to all facilities. Co-operation
on the Lifelong Learning Plan and the Education Development Plan
is developing some innovative approaches in reaching people who
have not used libraries or formal education in recent years. Examples
include use of library premises for courses organised by local
further education colleges, rural information points which give
access to information on education and to the library catalogue,
jointly funded staff training in areas such as Basic Skills, and
use of the Schools Library Service expertise and staff to support
family learning and parenting skills courses. Mobile libraries,
in particular are often seen as a way to target groups which have
limited access to educational opportunities.
Projects recently undertaken in East Sussex
include outreach officers from local colleges visiting isolated
communities with the mobile library to offer individual advice
on courses and opportunities available. However, current trends
are to reduce mobile library fleets in order to meet reducing
budgets despite the popular image of the service.
Currently, Lifelong Learning is a County Council
priority and work is being done corporately which boosts the role
of libraries as access points to formal and informal learning.
Bidding for small grants funds much of this
work. This is time consuming and funds are often only for one
year. This means that projects are frequently time limited where
they should be ongoing in order to deliver consistent outcomes.
Services need to be funded adequately to sustain viability. The
improved infrastructure offered by the National Grid for Learning
and the People's Network will play a significant part in improving
access to Lifelong Learning and will underpin current partnerships,
but it is essential that isolated and socio-economically deprived
communities do not become deprived from access to education and
library services.
THE ROLE
OF LIBRARIES
IN THE
PROMOTION OF
ACCESS TO
AND AWARENESS
OF NEW
TECHNOLOGY
The recent focus on ICT in public libraries
has had a number of intentions behind it. The key ones can be
summarised as below:
— Improving the availability of ICT
to the general public and thereby enabling people on low incomes
to access technology and to enable unemployed and other people
to develop ICT skills useful for the job market. This can be seen
as a cost-effective means of widely distributing access to technology,
enabling reskilling to take place and encouraging sustainable
economic development. The New Opportunities Funded ICT training
for library staff will enable expert help to be given to novice
users. ICT in libraries is also an effective means of delivering
distance learning into the heart of difficult to reach communities
and this approach is fully supported by Learn Direct (formerly
University for Industry). The ability of even small libraries
to access learning materials, provide tutorial support via e-mail
and access discussion lists is a valuable extension to our traditional
role supporting Lifelong Learning;
— Improving the quality of public services
by presenting a modern public library service. Libraries play
an important role in giving people access to books. However increasingly
information needs are satisfied using ICT and access to web and
CD-ROM based resources is a more powerful tool to meet information
needs than the limited book-based reference resources usually
provided in all but the biggest libraries. Access to these resources
improves the quality of the services delivered in libraries;
— Improving access to services within
libraries. East Sussex now has online public access catalogues
in every library which will soon support users adding stock reservations
directly against items on the system. With three neighbouring
authorities, East Sussex has established access to stock catalogues
and the ability to reserve material across all four partners.
Self issue will also soon be offered to improve the service in
busy libraries; and
— Improving remote access to library
services. East Sussex is aiming to use ICT wherever possible to
combat the effect of reduced opening hours. ICT can enable us
to provide some services 24 hours a day. The stock catalogue will
soon be accessible via our website with the ability for users
to reserve an item and have it sent to the library of their choice
for collection. The community information service will also soon
be on the web. East Sussex is also seeking to install an automated
24 hours telephone renewals service and a much enhanced online
enquiry service.
In brief ICT has the potential to enhance existing
services, enable more services to be placed under the direct control
of the user and also to implement new services and thus enhance
services to the community.
THE ROLE
AND PROPOSED
ROLES OF
THE DCMS, MLAC, LOCAL
AUTHORITIES AND
OTHERS IN
LIBRARY PROVISION
The emphasis on Lifelong Learning which is given
in the People's Network programme and in the Government's own
agenda provides libraries with opportunities to bring to the fore
and promote the work which they do, and have always done, to support
individual people in learning for life, at those times in their
life when they need it, where they need it. This calls for close
co-operation from local authority library and education departments.
However, it would be beneficial if this close co-operation were
also reflected in the way in which the DCMS and DfEE relate to
one another, and in the funding streams which are attached to
Lifelong Learning through the DfEE and education departments,
but which are not accessible to libraries.
The creation of MLAC will provide opportunities
and encouragement for Museum, Library and Archive services to
work more closely together, nationally and regionally. Regional
Cultural Consortiums could also change the strategic direction
of DCMS services if funding streams come down through them. However,
at the moment there is no funding to support closer regional working
between those services.
Regional co-operation between library authorities
is enhanced by ICT and is underway in the South East. Joint marketing,
training and stock acquisition and retention are also planned.
January 2000
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