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The newly announced Department for Culture, Media & Sport review of libraries will lack teeth without new measures to implement its findings, librarians and campaigners have warned.
First meetings have already been held for the Library Service Modernisation Review announced by culture secretary Andy Burnham at the Public Libraries Association (PLA) conference in October, with findings due in the spring.
Brian Gambles, assistant director of culture at Birmingham, said he "welcomed" the review, but added: "The weakness of government reviews tends to be they review but things don't change. You live eternally in hope and there is an opportunity now with the reinvigorated Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). The problem is, how will the outcomes be implemented?"
David Ruse, director of libraries at Westminster, applauded the "short and sharp" nature of it [the review] but added: "What is needed is national level action to consolidate and develop the many positive library developments that are happening across the country."
Library campaigners Tim Coates and Desmond Clarke poured scorn on the review. Coates said: "There have been so many reviews in the past 10 years. Libraries have never been off the political agenda, but the [borrowing] figures are also going down." Clarke added: "It's classic civil service stuff—when you don't have any money and you don't know what to do, have a review."
However, Bob McKee, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals, said Burnham's speech reflected a "critical shift" in government policy by emphasising the statutory nature of the library service. "What CILIP is saying is that, if we are going to have a quality service delivered consistently across the country, what are the levers to ensure that is done? If you are saying the library service is statutory you are saying it is on a level playing field with schools and hospitals. That means a regulatory framework and a link between funding and performance."
A spokesperson for the DCMS said: "We are working in partnership with local government on the review to ensure that it is effective in delivering improved library services across the country."
Meanwhile, Lyn Brown MP, who announced an All Party Parliamentary Group on Libraries review on leadership at the PLA conference, said that she would be pressing ahead with a separate review following "amazing" reactions to her speech, which included an outspoken attack on the MLA. "I have been asked by Andy Burnham to join his review and I am going to do that, but he hasn't asked us to halt our own review," she said. "We decided to do one predicated on a growing feeling of unease within the library community. We felt the lack of leadership had got to the point where it was the elephant in the room." Brown hopes to deliver her review by Easter 2009.