APPENDIX 11
Memorandum submitted by the Social Exclusion
Action Planning Network
1. The LIC-funded research project, Public
Library Policy and Social Exclusion, commenced work in October
1998, and is due to complete in May 2000, with the final report
expected in June 2000.
2. The research project is a partnership
between Leeds Metropolitan University School of Information Management;
Sheffield City Libraries; the London Borough of Merton (Libraries
and Heritage); and John Vincent, an independent consultant.
3. One of our major concerns has been that
important research into public libraries is published and is then
taken up by only a handful of library authorities with little
chance that the findings and recommendations are going to become
part of sustainable development (we felt that this was very much
the case with the Roach and Morrison Report[12]).
4. Therefore, from the start, we have been
disseminating information about and preliminary findings from
the research project, and we organised a number of courses, including
an Action Planning Conference in February 1999. At the end of
this Conference, the participants drafted an Action Plan and decided
that a Network and contact group with a Newsletter should be established.
5. The Network and its Newsletter were launched
in London and the South-East in May 1999 and then nationally at
the Public Library Authorities Conference in October 1999. To
date, we have 26 organisational members (primarily public library
authorities) and one individual member, and an additional 18 organisations
having expressed interest.
6. It is clear from the experience of the
Network that there is a very real need for developmental work
to take place in public libraries to begin to tackle social exclusion.
Some public libraries have been developing exciting and innovative
schemes over the last 20 years or so, but these are often poorly
funded and, indeed, in some cases, have ceased operating because
of budget cuts. Some library authorities have been attempting
to redirect funds towards initiatives to tackle social exclusion,
but, of course, such resources are still very limited (and such
actions often meet with loud opposition from "traditional"
library users).
7. There is also an urgent need for further
research into the needs of specific groups who are socially excluded,
particularly investigating the needs of those who, so far, have
tended to be excluded from current initiatives, particularly women;
lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people; working
class people.
8. The focus on social exclusion needs to
be developed so that parallel training and development initiatives
to those for ICT are put in place as a matter of urgency.
9. The DCMS draft guidelines, Libraries
for all: social inclusion in public libraries, (on which,
incidentally, the Network has commented separately) are very welcome,
but need to go further in assisting to find the resources to develop
this vital area of work and to take on board the points made in
paras 6-8 above.
January 2000
12 Patrick Roach and Marlene Morrison Public libraries,
ethnic diversity and citizenship, University of Warwick, 1998
(British Library Research and Innovation report 76). Back
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