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.
— 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.
— 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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