Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Tim Coates
1. "Much space is given in the national
press to declining book borrowing but this is inappropriate and
misses the point of what libraries are about"
This quotation from the written evidence presented
to the Committee by the Society of Chief Librarians was used as
a headline in the Bookseller, the weekly journal of the
book trade, last week, following the session of oral evidence.
This view was formulated by the Society several years ago and
has been their policy ever since.
2. The Chief Librarian is the only source
of professional advice on the library service available to elected
council members in every Local Authority. The councillors have
no means with which to challenge any advice that the general trend
of provision is away from books and journals and towards other
activities, and that book lending is not a measure against which
their performance should be judged.
3. The Society of Chief Librarians answers
to no one: it is not accountable for the consequences of its policy
to any agency or body: yet it effectively sets the day-to-day
performance standards for all library authorities. When the Society
observes that a council is performing well, that judgment is made
against its own criteria, not against any public measure. When
they observe that an Audit Commission report or a DCMS national
library standard is "flawed" or "unachievable",
there is no one who can contradict their position or influence
the effect of their observation on councils.
4. Audit Commission reports and the evidence
produced annually in Public Library User Surveys nowhere indicate
that the public need and demand for book borrowing has declined.
There has never been a policy statement from central Government
indicating a movement away from the centrality of books being
the raison d'etre of free library provision. On the contrary
"Framework for the Future" and successive ministers
have emphasised the essential role of books and reading. The Select
Committee in its last report insisted that investment in other
activities should not reduce investment in books and reading.
Yet that has not been the policy followed.
5. The leaders of the Society of Chief Librarians
are, in fact, in the vanguard of the action to reduce book lending
and the Society's Executive Members are responsible for some of
the sharpest declines. In the five years to 2002-03, the fall
has been 32.8% in Leeds; 15.8% in Somerset; 29.9% in Bournemouth;
20.1% in Birmingham; 18.5% in Lancashire; and 20.7% in Southend.
(Cipfa data quoted in my written evidence.)
6. Market research does show that the public
is, in the case of almost all councils, increasingly dissatisfied
with the range of books available which is why book lending is
in decline. In the small number of local councils in which book
lending has increased, it is easy to recognise specific actions
recommended by the Audit Commission and taken by these councils
to improve the book stock and to increase opening hours so that
libraries are open when the public wants to use them.
7. In this service it is the bus driver
who is deciding where the passengers will go.
6 December 2004
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