Memorandum submitted by Somerset County
Council
1. INTRODUCTION
Somerset County Council welcomes the opportunity
to provide evidence to the Culture Media and Sport Committee's
New Inquiry on Public Libraries. We note that the committee will
focus on:
— The state of the Service
— Future development of public libraries
The evidence below focuses on some of these
issues in so far as there is something useful to illustrate to
the Inquiry about original ideas in Somerset, and how we think
some issues should be tackled nationally. We focus on resources
because these are the key issues in improving the service and
in sustaining it. We subscribe to the values of Framework for
the Future and do not feel the need to make the case here for
the value of public libraries.
Somerset is not a rich county: in the year ahead
the county is planning for an anticipated shortfall in its budget
of 29 million, largely as a result of the removal of some 18.2
million in grant, compounded by the higher cost of delivery of
services in a rural area. This may have an impact on the Library
Service.
However, the Libraries, Arts and Information
Service is one of the most efficient in the country compared with
the 34 English counties:
| Net Expenditure per capita
| 26th |
| Visitors to libraries | 3rd
|
| Enquiries | 9th |
| Floor Area per capita | 2nd
|
| Premises expenditure | 24th
|
| Book issues | 8th |
| Book expenditure | 24th |
| Net Income per 1,000 pop | 3rd
|
The Cultural and Heritage Services, of which Libraries, Arts
and Information is the largest block of services, received a "good"
with "promising prospects for improvement" rating in
the recent, 2004 Audit Commission re-inspection of the service.
We offer these comments as an efficient service, which is striving
to provide better services to the people of Somerset.
2. ACCESS IN
THE RURAL
CONTEXT: NEW
MODELS OF
SERVICE DELIVERY
Somerset is the second most rural county in England. It has
a population of 510,000 and the largest town, Taunton, has a population
of 66,000. The population is dispersed through market towns and
small settlements. To the west of the county lies the Exmoor National
Park with a sparse population and particular social needs.
The County has no university but does have five Colleges
of Further Education, many of which link to Universities in the
South West.
The County Council's policy is to provide static libraries
in all communities over 4,000, and to extend mobile library provision
to the remaining communities, which we do through six vehicles
which cover over nearly 1,400 individual stops. This represents
34 libraries, one prison library, six mobile libraries and one
Sure Start Mobile Library. In some communities below 4,000, eg
Porlock and Bishops Lydeard we do have libraries because of the
strong community demand and need for the service.
All mobile libraries have Internet access as a result of
a successful bid to the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation funding stream.
All of the vehicles have a platform lift which allow access to
people in wheelchairs, and others with mobility difficulties.
We believe that for isolated communities it is important to maintain
the network of mobile library provision because for those communities
the mobile library represents the only public service space in
their village or hamlet. It fulfils all the community engagement
roles of a static library in bringing people together and is a
key part of community identity and sustainability.
In a significantly rural county such as Somerset it is not
possible to provide the full range of services in all towns, even
in the four largest—Yeovil, Bridgwater, Frome and Taunton.
For this reason, and because of the move to electronic sources
of information Somerset Libraries, Arts and Information has taken
an innovative approach to reference and information services.
— In 2001 we created a central Enquiry Centre, based
at Taunton, and scaled down almost entirely reference library
provision in the largest libraries at Frome, Bridgwater and Yeovil.
Access to the Enquiry Centre is by telephone, by email or via
the web. From a relatively slow start the Centre with only three
librarians is now answering nearly 1,000 enquiries per month.
The impact of the Centre has been huge: it raised the standard
of information provision across all libraries, large and small
in Somerset. It is a model which is being emulated by others—Somerset
regularly hosts visits to the Centre from other authorities. This
we believe is an excellent solution for rural authorities, but
also appropriate in some in the urban context where it may not
be efficient or effective to attempt to provide a traditional
reference service. 90% of the answers provided by staff are obtained
from electronic sources. This has reduced our acquisition of hard
copy material and allowed us to redirect those resources into
other areas of stock.
— A major innovative feature of the Centre is Answers
Now which provides a 24 hours, seven days a week, web based information
service in real time, with access to a fully qualified librarian.
We have achieved this through a partnership with libraries in
the USA (Richland County, S Carolina), in Australia (Brisbane),
and in New Zealand (Christchurch) whereby each partner provides
coverage in their own time zone. The service provides real time
live access to a librarian via the web using chat room technology;
Answers Now can be accessed at http://www.somerset.gov.uk/somerset/culturecommunity/culturalservice/libraries/
Answers Now is, we believe, the first of its kind in the
world and we hope is a useful benchmark for the 24 hour enquiry
service which is planned via Framework for the Future. The partnership
recently won the "Best International Partnership" Award
from Tutor.com, the provider of the software. Through the partnership,
not only do we all provide the service, but we do it at 25% of
the standard cost and achieve 24/7 coverage.
The Library of Congress only recently launched a similar
scheme, using time zones.
3. CAPITAL INVESTMENT
Strategically, we recognise that the best opportunity we
will have to extend access and opening hours is through self-service.
The Library Service has been successful this year in winning an
ODPM e innovations grant for the introduction of Radio Frequency
Identification Technology (RFID) in a rural library and in two
community venues. This will allow for extended opening hours at
Dulverton Library and will provide access to library materials
at a youth centre and another location. This technology which
is implemented throughout Singapore libraries and widely in Europe
is only just being introduced to the UK (eg Colchester, Norfolk
and the Barbican). All library items have unique "smart"
tags which not only identify the item but also include an embedded
security trigger. Using radio frequency the library user can issue
the item to herself and then leave the library. In Singapore this
is further aided by the National Smart card which gives entitlement
to services and functions as a debit card.
We believe that the implementation of RFID technology will
transform libraries and would release staff and resources to improve
services. However, the capital cost of implementation is high—particularly
in respect of the cost of the smart tags for each item. A key
consideration for the development of RFID in libraries is that
before implementation is extended widely there should be agreement
on a national standard. If all the systems are not compatible
this will represent a huge missed opportunity for the public library
network as a whole and its interlending function.
RFID technology presents a huge opportunity for public libraries,
but we need capital investment to kickstart this to realise efficiencies.
This is another area where Lottery funding could be directed to
Libraries.
The People's Network is a terrific achievement for the United
Kingdom, and for all the individual local authorities and their
library services which made this public ICT project come in on
time and within budget. In Somerset we recognise the principles
of free access to information and regret that the new Public Library
Service Standards do not specify free Internet access as a requirement
for all authorities. This would not necessarily have prevented
those who wished to do so, making a charge for a premium service.
Somerset has provided revenue funding for the People's Network
amounting to an additional £172,000. In 2006-07 the Service
will require replacement of its PCs and a provisional bid of £250,000
has been placed for this purpose. These sums of money place enormous
pressure on already small revenue and capital allocations so it
is easy to understand why sustainability of this terrific national
asset is an issue, particularly for poorly funded authorities
like Somerset. However, we see the People's Network as an important
part of our delivery strategy for e government, and we suggest
that it should play a greater part in delivering national government
services.
It is accepted that citizens' use of the Internet depends
on many factors, which have to be taken into account if they are
to engage effectively with the Council using this medium. Key
amongst these are ICT skills and trust. Libraries are trusted
institutions—they are safe public spaces—and in many
of our communities they are the only County Council presence.
Our staff are both trusted and skilled and we are increasingly
deploying them to provide basic ICT training. For example at Priorswood
Library in East Taunton, and Dulverton Library on the edge of
Exmoor, Library staff in partnership with JobCentre Plus and LearnDirect
are delivering in the Futures Project, a range of learning opportunities
to people in areas suffering from urban and rural deprivation
respectively.
In Somerset we are proud of our record in investment in the
infrastructure of our Public Library Service. Somerset has the
second highest floor area in libraries of all 34 counties, and
only the 24th lowest expenditure on these premises. Since 1986
our record of replacement, extended and refurbished libraries
is notable, amounting to a spend of £9.02 million at today's
prices:
| Yeovil | new |
| Frome | new |
| Wells | extension |
| Williton | new |
| Langport | new |
| Somerton | new |
| Dulverton | new |
| Porlock | new |
| Bishops Lydeard | extension
|
| Wincanton | extension |
| Shepton Mallet | extension |
| Taunton | new |
| Chard | new |
| Glastonbury | new |
| Highbridge | new |
| Street | refurbished |
| Bridgwater | extended and refurbished
|
Our largest library, Taunton, is a converted supermarket
of over 3,000 sq m acquired, converted for £2.87 million
and opened in February 1996. Its predecessor was located just
across the road from County Hall, a 1905 Carnegie building that
had been recognized as unfit for its purpose since 1952. The new
library has transformed people's views and expectations of what
a modern library service should deliver. The visibility of a community's
commitment to culture is important. The UK has significant very
visible museums, but few public libraries which announce their
presence and their significance in the way that they do abroad.
In Seattle, a population not much more than that of Somerset,
the city has just built a $156 million new library designed by
Rem Koolhas, and is about to build 26 new branch libraries as
well. This is mirrored across the USA in Phoenix, in Chicago,
San Francisco, Boston, San Diego and in Canada, in Vancouver and
in Toronto. Closer to home in Europe we can point to libraries
in the Netherlands, in Finland, Sweden, and France which celebrate
their countries' belief in the public library as a major public
institution. In the UK, whilst PFI offers the opportunity for
the development of new city libraries eg in Newcastle, it is unlikely
that there will be sufficient private finance to fill the gap.
Public Libraries have not benefited from the National Lottery—with
the exception of the People's Network. We suggest that there should
be a national programme of public library rebuilding and refurbishment
funded by the lottery in a similar way as the People's Network
addressed the need for an ICT infrastructure.
Whilst buildings are important, even more so is their content.
Others will demonstrate the link between the decline in expenditure
in real terms on books and materials, and the number of loans
from libraries. Key to reversing this trend is capital investment
in the book stock of public libraries. The impact of diminishing
investment in books over the past 10 years or more has been to
deplete libraries of the very materials which support their unique
purpose and function: the "backlist". It is the availability
of esoteric, less popular and out of print materials through libraries
that distinguish them from bookshops. The cumulative impact of
the non-replacement of tired and damaged stock has inevitably
depleted the "backlist".
4. PERFORMANCE AND
PARTNERSHIP
One of the Unique Selling Propositions (USP) of the public
Library is its ability to obtain any book for any user. In Somerset
we obtain 75% of requested items within seven days; 85% within
15 days and 92% within 30 days. Given the relative size of our
book fund, and the rural nature of our service we think that is
pretty good.
This result we attribute to:
— The importance and efficiency of the National
Interlending network which is often overlooked but is key to the
delivery of purposive reading to individuals. Collaboration between
the British Library and The Combined Regions (a regional partnership
which shares data to provide locations of items throughout the
country via UnityWeb).
http://www.talis.com/products/unityweb/unityweb_overview.shtml
— Our track record in innovation in ICT. Somerset
was the first public library service in the country to provide
online public access catalogues (OPACs) for the public. Access
and then fast delivery is key to users' needs.
— Our partnership. As the lead authority in the
Foursite Consortium, with Bath & N East Somerset; North Somerset
and South Gloucestershire we share a Library Management System,
and provide central acquisition and bibliographical services to
our partners. This makes a net contribution of around £100k
to the Somerset budget and all four partners are operating more
economically and efficiently as a result. For example, Somerset
has over 1 million items in stock, but the Consortium catalogue
makes available 2 million items across all four authorities to
any of our respective public library users. We operate as one
system to a large extent, across local authority boundaries and
are have harmonised many of our systems and procedures.
The Foursite Consortium is a model partnership, which is
now in its seventh year. The partners are currently engaged in
a procurement exercise to renew the system and so we anticipate
this collaboration continuing indefinitely. Moreover, we are collaborating
with Bristol City Council for at least the Library Management
System procurement stage, and they, with the Foursite partners
will consider at the end of that process whether the partnership
will be extended to include them as a fifth partner.
The Consortium also tendered for book supply to gain the
maximum discount from Library Suppliers for our combined purchasing
power. To do this we harmonised our servicing requirements (all
the work that prepares a book for the shelf) and would say that
if we can do it, so can the rest of the country.
Finally the Foursite Consortium is a key member of the WISDOM
partnership in the South West. WISDOM links the catalogues of
nine library services and enables the public to request items
from any of them. This is the only collaboration of its kind in
the UK and our ambition is for the whole of the South West public
and academic libraries to be connected in this way. www.wisdom-sw.net
CONCLUSION
We believe that Public Libraries need significant capital
investment for:
— RFID technology is probably the most significant
development to impact on public library operations since the invention
of the barcode. This will enable services to move towards self-service
and extended hours. Detailed work is needed to calculate payback
times and to establish a national standard.
— New buildings—to replace or refurbish the
ageing building stock.
— Books—to provide a large injection into
libraries to replenish the "backlist" of standard works,
and to provide a "new start" which current revenue funding
will sustain for some years.
And it is demonstrable that:
— National procurement of library materials, both
in hard copy and electronically, will deliver real savings to
public libraries, which in turn have a duty to harmonise requirements.
— Consortium and partnership working which combines
library services around their core operational requirement—the
library management system, and acquisitions—can deliver
better services for the public at less cost.
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