Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by Suffolk County Council

  In evidence to the Select Committee enquiring into the state of public libraries, I should like to provide the success story of Sunday Opening in Suffolk. I enclose a seven minute DVD in evidence, and summarise it in writing in this letter.

  In the summer of 2003, Suffolk County Council embarked on an ambitious programme to open all its 44 libraries on a Sunday, probably the first county in England to do so.

  The changes were brought in to ensure that Suffolk libraries met the Government's public library standards and followed the advice of the Audit Commission in its 2002 report "Building better libraries".

  An average of 5,200 people visit a Suffolk library every Sunday.

BACKGROUND

  In November 2002 Suffolk County Council decided to extend library-opening hours in order to meet the relevant Public Library Standards and help attract people who do not normally use the library service. The target markets were families, school and college students, people in their twenties and thirties, and people from ethnically diverse communities. There was also an emphasis, but not an exclusive one, on those communities most in need.

  The basis of the Sunday Offer was to be: routine transactions on a self-service basis; a new relaxed ambience and Look and Feel; learning and arts activities; staff to provide information and advice; and participation by the voluntary sector and community agencies.

  We invited town and parish councils to help fund even more hours, and to consult locally about the detail of the opening hours. We bought in professional marketing, targeting some of the marketing at the poorer communities of Suffolk.

  From August to October 2003 we implemented a 27% increase in library opening hours at an extra cost of £378,000 per annum ie less than 5% of the library budget. We employed only extra frontline staff and made no additions to the management or administrative infrastructure. We achieved some of these additional opening hours at no extra cost, especially during weekdays, by reorganising staff rotas. We also developed innovative ways to recruit, train and pay staff, particularly for Sundays, though these techniques are influencing our total staffing approach now. These changes enabled Suffolk to meet the Public Library Standards on opening times, and helped the county council improve access to services.

  The extra opening hours included every library opening on a Sunday as well as most libraries opening for some additional hours on a week day, evening or on a Saturday. The specific times were chosen, after extensive consultation, with the aim of attracting people who do not typically use the library service.

SATISFACTION WITH SUNDAY OPENING

  91% of Sunday customers are very or fairly satisfied with the hours we open on Sunday. We have no benchmark to judge this against, but it seems to confirm public support for Sunday opening.

TARGET AUDIENCES ON SUNDAY

  Our target audiences for Sundays are: families, school and college students, people in their 20s and 30s, and ethnic minorities. We have been successful in attracting families with young children; noticeably, more fathers with their children visit on a Sunday.

  We are successful in attracting school and college students and people from ethnic minority communities. However, we would like to be more successful in attracting single people in their 20s and 30s.

  In total 2,200 people have registered on Sundays since opening was introduced. This suggests that we are making some headway in attracting new customers.

SUMMARY OF SUNDAY OUTCOMES

  Since September we have been reaching our target of visitors and exceeding it as an average. Bearing in mind how difficult it is to build library audiences, we are very pleased with this achievement so far.

  Of our target customers, we have been successful so far in reaching families, children, young people and people from ethnic minorities, but less so in attracting single people in their 20s and 30s.

  We aimed to attract new customers and people who had lost the library habit. Many people who visit on Sundays do so during the week as well. However so far there seems to be an upturn in the number of new customers we are attracting.

SUNDAY OPENING—HAVE WE PROVIDED THE SERVICE WE SAID WE WOULD?

Activities

  Up to October 2004, 4,400 people had attended ICT sessions on Sundays and more than 3,600 had attended other sorts of activities. These are staff intensive activities that reflect the commitment to offer a different type of "offer" on Sundays. Some of the participants will have been children and young people but many are from other target groups.

Look and feel

  We planned to offer a relaxed ambience on Sundays, with music, Sunday papers and refreshments. We have done this successfully in many libraries, but still need to embed this approach everywhere, especially through continued staff training.

FURTHER INFORMATION

  I enclose a seven minute DVD produced to give a flavour of Sunday opening in Suffolk libraries. We will be very happy to provide more information or host visits if required.

  Can I also urge the Select Committee to consider evidence from Aarhus in Denmark. This city, which partners Suffolk and other Eastern Region authorities in LearnEast, is an inspirational model of how library services might develop in the future. It has recently received a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Award for its extensive training and technology programs, and its commitment to delivering innovative library services to disadvantaged refugee and immigrant communities.

11 November 2004





 
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