Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by South Gloucestershire Council

1.  INTRODUCTION

  South Gloucestershire Council welcomes the invitation to contribute to the inquiry into public libraries. South Gloucestershire is a unitary authority created in 1996, it inherited a poorly resourced service from the former Avon County Council and has been striving in the last eight years to recover from such a low starting point. South Gloucestershire Council itself has always received less Government grant per head than most other local authorities, despite the financial pressures the Council has tried to support the service in delivering both local and national priorities. In the following contribution the Council have highlighted key issues of importance to South Gloucestershire and have provided local examples in support.

2.  IMPORTANCE OF LIBRARIES

  Framework for the Future provided a vision for the public library service in the 21st Century and has been helpful in aligning local public library strategy with the national vision. The Framework reinforced the importance of libraries in delivering both local and national agendas in the areas of

    —  Books, reading and learning.

    —  Digital citizenship.

    —  Community and Civic values.

  Public Library Position Statements have shown that libraries are striving to meet the vision despite the difficulties they face.

2.1  Libraries provide

    —  A physical place where people of all ages and backgrounds can develop, learn and relax.

    —  Locally based staff who can connect with communities and individuals helping them to develop and get involved.

    —  A virtual space enabling people to access knowledge and high quality resources at anytime.

    —  A place for self-learning and access to the resources and support to follow a self defined learning path. Sometimes this is associated with accredited training. In other instances learning is self-motivated.

    —  A safe place, especially for more vulnerable communities and groups, South Gloucestershire has found that libraries are becoming seen as safe places for young people who know that they can use the library free of charge, staff will protect them from bullying and any intimidation which they might encounter in other parts of the community.

    —  Access to council services—libraries are often the first port of call for information (South Gloucestershire answered 78,000 in 2003-04) and are symbols of the council in many communities. They enable local people to access local and national government and are key in delivering the e-government agenda.

    —  Neutral, safe and welcoming community spaces, they are seen as non-threatening and non-judgemental, they support active citizenship.

2.2  To deliver the above to all sections of the community they need:

    —  To be open at times when people want to use them which means at least six days per week, late nights and convenient hours at the weekend including Sundays.

    —  A stock that is of a high quality is up to date and is well promoted.

    —  Buildings that are in good locations, where there is a high usage of other services (eg leisure centres, supermarkets) well maintained, spacious and have adequate ICT facilities.

3.  FUNDING

  Despite the low level of funding compared to areas such as Education and Social Services the library service are continually evolving and improving to improve services to their communities. However it is a continual struggle to maiantin the level of service expected by the community . There is a need for increased funding directly from central government to help libraries develop the services and sustain existing ones. South Gloucestershire like many other authorities has shown that when resources are increased the return is over the increase in investment.

  For example in 2004-05 the staffing budget in South Gloucestershire libraries was increased by £120,000 (7.4% increase of staffing budget) to enable most libraries to open at lunchtime and two libraries on a Sunday.

  Based on the July-September quarter performance indicators the service would estimate the following increases this year.

    —  Issues increase by 9%.

    —  Enquiries increase by 16%.

    —  Visits increase by 15%.

    —  Reservations processed increase by 33%.

    —  Use of People's Network increase by 45%.

  This demonstrates that where funding is increased libraries can deliver improved usage above the initial investment.

  Funding needs to be improved for buildings, stock and ICT, libraries should not have to reduce funding on stock to maintain ICT, both are of equal importance.

4.  PARTNERSHIPS

4.1  Local

  Good partnership working is essential to the library service; South Gloucestershire is a member of the Foursite consortium with three other authorities. Through the sharing of a library management system and joint acquisition process, the service has achieved major economies of scale and better services to the users—for more information see the library website www.southglos.gov.uk/libraries

  The Foursite model of provision could be used by many other library services.

4.2  Access to college and university libraries

  There is a need for local library networks to be established to include public, academic and specialised library services. With the West of England an agreement has been reached to allow the public to use academic libraries. However, the academic libraries are unable to allow access to electronic resources due to license limitations which restrict usage to their own students. Local library partnerships would require funding to enable licences to be extended to include access by the public.

4.3  Regional

  The regional network provides a strong base for the inter lending of materials, within the South West the WISDOM project has shown that ICT enables catalogues to be linked to make resources held in public libraries to be more accessible. With additional resources there is a possibility of achieving a national union catalogue of all public library materials.

4.4  National

  South Gloucestershire supports the work being carried out on national procurement of electronic resources and the establishment of a national enquiry centre. Within South Gloucestershire we have demonstrated that through joint purchasing, individual authorities can achieve discounts not otherwise available. As South Gloucestershire does not have a central reference library it has brought into the Somerset County Library Enquiry Centre to deliver a higher quality service available throughout the week.

  Local examples such as these show a willingness by public libraries to cooperate and if they were to be delivered at a national level would enable a more consistent level of service across the country.

5.  PEOPLE'S NETWORK

  The country through the New Opportunities Fund People's Network has made a significant investment in learning and communications technologies in libraries. There has been a huge and successful re-skilling programme for library staff. The future benefit of this investment will only be available if the infrastructure and development of networked services is maintained and if access is open and free to all who need the library learning environment. In South Gloucestershire the library service will delver 88,000 hours of access to users.

  Infrastructure. The infrastructure will need to be maintained. The rollout of the People's network is an exemplar of public service ICT development; the project was delivered within budget and on time. Failure to invest in its maintenance will be a disaster in an area where currency is critical.

  Access. In addition to providing the service to those people who cannot afford the Internet at home access to global knowledge sources and Internet communications is now integral to learning and to economic development. The very notion of a library without integrated and equal access to learning and knowledge in all media is an anomaly in the 21st century.

  The key to maintaining the People's Network is funding to sustain the major capital investment. With major Education ICT initiatives (eg National Grid for Learning) the DfES has funded both the capital and revenue costs, yet with the People's Network which is reaching a far wider sector of the population, local authorities are being expected to fund the maintenance.

12 November 2004



 
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