The Bookseller.com

7th September 2008

Katherine Rushton is chief reporter on Broadcast, and was formerly senior reporter at The Bookseller.

Libraries need a line in the sand

24.08.07

Libraries were the subject of this week's Leader column in The Bookseller. Here it is:

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The library sector is good at developing readers, reaching out to minorities, and embracing digital change—but at a more fundamental level, flexibility is scarce. Advisory bodies wheel out tired answers to unsolved problems, and heads of library authorities seem reluctant to break with the status quo.

So it was quite a coup when professional body CILIP broke ranks and pronounced that all this talk of re-invention and redeploying resources was just another name for cuts. The politicians are guilty of "spin doctoring", cried CILIP chairman Bob McKee.

But if the politicians are to be believed, they have little real power to do anything about cuts. Library funding is a discretionary spend in local government, and the book fund is discretionary within that. The only legislative tool available—the 1964 act that permits the government to seize control of failing library authorities—has been reduced to an all but theoretical threat. Margaret Hodge, the new culture minister, recently told The Bookseller that she could act only as an advocate. Hodge has a pedigree in dealing with local government pressures and seems to understand the nature of the challenge. But if her powers really are that redundant, the perennial question raised by library firebrand Tim Coates comes to mind: if not Hodge, who's in charge?

The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) says it's not them either. It employs more than 90 people at a cost of over £50m a year to provide advocacy and advice for the sector—but it can only conjure up new plans and hope councils buy into them. Disturbingly, the MLA's board members include Yinnon Ezra of Hampshire, who has outraged residents with his "revamp" of the service, overseen a decline in book issues, and—shockingly—raised doubt over whether libraries should bother to stock fiction at all.

This lack of a clear national mandate for libraries makes it impossible for local authorities to defend branch budgets against "core" services like schools and hospitals. Rather than constant strategy reports and "visions", libraries need a line in the sand on resourcing and priorities. As Coates points out—and now proves with his impressive restructuring scheme for London's Hillingdon—overall funding is only part of the problem. Bold steps are needed to simplify structure and accountability, rebuild book stocks and help the frontline staff who are working so hard to engage with communities.

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