APPENDIX 13
Memorandum submitted by the Carnegie United
Kingdom Trust
1. BACKGROUND
The Carnegie UK Trust's well-established interest
stems from the Trust's pivotal role, and that of its founder Andrew
Carnegie, in the development of public libraries in the UK and
Ireland.
By the 1940s there were around 660 Carnegie
libraries in the UK and Ireland for which Carnegie UK Trust had
provided grants totalling £1.64 million, 35 per cent of its
total grants over a 40 year period.
Since the Libraries Act empowered local authorities
to take responsibility for public libraries, the Carnegie UK Trust
interest has naturally diminished and in recent years the Trust
has not had such close involvement.
2. LIBRARY CLOSURES
The Trust's main recent contact has been with
groups lobbying to prevent the closure of Carnegie libraries,
which in many areas remain major educational centres.
The key points which have emerged are:
(a) Opening hours have been reduced. This
has usually been at weekends and evenings when the majority of
population might use them. As a result there has been less usage
and therefore a vicious circle of further reduction in hours.
Ideally hours should not be reduced, but if they are, surely opening
hours should be geared to users' needs, not merely to save money
or to be convenient for staff;
(b) Reduced expenditure on book buying and
building maintenance has made many libraries less attractive to
use, particularly for young people; and
(c) Changes in population location and profile
have meant that libraries are not necessarily in the most relevant
places.
The impression is of a Cinderella service that
has not been adequately updated or considered in the wider context
of social change.
The closure threats have stimulated community
reaction and in some cases forced local politicians to think through
their strategies more comprehensively and with longer term horizons.
Nevertheless these considerations have tended to be limited to
the Library Service to include:
— Relocation closer to residential
populations;
— More modern buildings able to cater
for computerisation;
— Services more relevant to different
localities; and
— Transforming local libraries into
homework centres.
They have not, it would appear, thought more
broadly.
3. FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS
The Trust believes from its own wider work that
in considering the Library Service it should be seen as one of
a number of key community access points along with museums, health
centres, art centres, community centres, colleges and schools.
Any strategy for libraries would therefore look
at the interlinking with other community services so that it is
possible for libraries and museums to work more closely (the new
national structures may help such linkages). Such links would
be a start. More thinking about other links in the community is
needed so that learning, use of leisure, community interchange
are more co-ordinated with ready accessibility. Such accessibility
could be via multi-faceted locations and include better data exchange
and access, more community involvement so that volunteers are
encouraged and creative links between the activities of different
community provision.
One of the disappointments arising from Lottery
funding is that new and creative thinking about local institutions
has not been at its core. This may have been because the different
boards were organised in a way that reinforced existing structures,
ie arts, heritage and sports. A different Lottery structure might
have led not only to more creative thinking but provided the resources
to initiate exciting experiments in more co-ordinated and client
orientated approaches.
If this philosophical position is taken, then
more adventurous and relevant structure plans within local authorities
would be drawn up.
The "library" itself should include
improved reading facilities, homework centres, communal access
to computers, special activities related to books and learning,
eg reading clubs and the provision of food, coffee, tea and café
service to develop a congenial, social environment. Locations
would include the museum, gallery, community centre etc.
In other words, the Carnegie UK Trust calls
for an expansion of libraries to include amenities which would
expand their appeal to the wider community. It opposes any further
closure of libraries or reductions in the service they provide
to meet expenditure cuts by hard-pressed local authorities.
January 2000
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