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Mar 26, 2018 · Pros of a Library Card. 1. If you are a voracious reader like myself, you will save money even if you do have to pay the cost of a card. Even factoring in the $145 CAD fee for the library card, I was able to save myself over $800 in books and audiobooks.
- Free books galore. From mysteries and graphic novels to cookbooks and biographies, your library has something for readers of all ages and interests. The best part?
- Movies, music, magazines, and more. Library card holders can check out way more than just books: many libraries also offer free access to streaming video and music as well as online versions of your favorite magazines and newspapers.
- Access to databases and courses. Libraries also offer extensive electronic resources for students, small business owners, job seekers, hobbyists, and lifelong learners.
- Big savings on museums and cultural attractions. Some libraries also loan out free or discounted passes to local museums, National Parks, performance venues, and other cultural attractions.
Apr 15, 2024 · 1. Access to information. One thing that makes libraries essential is that they provide free access to a wide range of information resources, including books, databases and digital platforms such as PressReader, which features thousands of newspapers and magazines from around the world.
- Foreword
- Recommendations
- 1. A national data hub to better evidence the role libraries play in our society
- 2. Undertake a scoping exercise for a consistent national branding campaign to raise awareness of our libraries
- 3. The closer involvement of the British Library
- 4. An expanded library membership
- 5. Strengthening the volunteer network
- 6. The creation of a Libraries Minister and a more joined-up approach within government
Our public libraries sit unassumingly at the heart of our communities, a world of possibilities behind their doors.
Their ethos remains as true today as when the first purpose-built library was established in 1857. They are there to share knowledge and information, help bring about opportunities and to make sure those opportunities are freely available to all.
The routes by which that knowledge can be passed on are obviously more varied nowadays. You can still pick up a book – and books must always be at the heart of every library - but you might also download an audio version or order an eBook. Alternatively, you may wish to browse the newspapers or magazines online, use one of the library’s computers or simply plug in your laptop or borrow a tablet and take advantage of the Wi-Fi that you may not have access to at home.
In terms of opportunity, there are countless ways in which today’s libraries can help people achieve their potential. They might provide employment advice, adult literacy support or any number of different language classes.
There are libraries with Business & Intellectual Property (IP) Centres which can provide assistance to business owners, entrepreneurs and inventors. Others have nurses on site with a link to the GP’s surgery so that basic health checks can be carried out.
There are social groups designed to tackle the stigma of men’s mental health, code clubs for children and libraries where young people can borrow a Fifa standard football for free.
1.The establishment of a national data hub to better evidence the role libraries play in our society
2.A national branding campaign to raise awareness of our libraries
3.The closer involvement of the British Library
4.An expanded library membership
5.A stronger volunteer network
6.The creation of a Libraries Minister and a more joined-up approach within government
Comprehensive data at a national level
The current data picture for libraries is precarious. Historically, the government has relied on CIPFA (the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) to collect data on the number of libraries, the number of book loans and how many people are using other library-based services. DCMS needs this to advocate across government on behalf of libraries, fulfil their statutory duty of superintendence and to feed into the calculations for Public Lending Right payments for authors. It is also needed by local authorities and sector supporting organisations for strategic planning so that they can make sure libraries are delivering to the best of their ability. While the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 requires library authorities to provide the information necessary for superintendence, the most recent CIPFA survey (21/22) only included returns from approximately c.45% of library authorities in England, meaning no robust conclusions may be drawn from it. Government no longer funds CIPFA to make the data collected available to all local authorities. The situation is now at an impasse. Numerous complaints were raised at the roundtables about the usefulness of the data which many believe is too basic to give a rounded picture of the services they offer, cannot measure ‘success’ and yet is time-consuming to collect as it has to be done manually. Many services were also not prepared to pay CIPFA for the data which they themselves had provided. DCMS is looking at ways to plug the gap but the overall ambition should be to develop a platform that not only collects basic data, such as visits and loans, but can actively help the library service by looking across the sector as a whole. Exploratory work is underway. A group which includes Arts Council, DCMS, the British Library, Libraries Connected (LC) and the Chartered Institute of Libraries and Information Professionals (CILIP) has been looking at the development of a new data hub which would capture all the information held on the country’s Library Management Systems. Collected digitally, via an API (application programming interface), this would not create any extra burdens on local authorities or take valuable time away from library staff. The data set would be richer than that previously collected by CIPFA and, if built in the right way, it could be used alongside the local government data platform, LG Inform, and the national library platform, LibraryOn, to improve policy and decision-making at a local level to provide a more targeted library service. Some local authorities have begun to use data analysts to ‘interrogate’ the data they have of their own accord, but many do not have such a capability and it must be a national resource. Reading In Reading, we wanted to investigate patterns of use and map usage of library items and IT use across the town, to see whether customers were or weren’t coming from particular areas. We refreshed our strategy in the immediate post pandemic period, and wanted a dataset that could be manipulated live in order to answer questions and test what we could see. Previously everything would have been done in quite a static way using charts and tables, and reports would need re-running, and be much less visual. As part of the work we carried out, we were able to bid for an internal data analyst to support this work, and effectively plug all the library data into a mapping system, which also mapped against other indices such as multiple deprivation. This enabled us to demonstrate that library use reduced as deprivation indicators increased and enabled us to set strategic priorities accordingly. We now have an annual process to upload data, to assess how things have changed. A data hub, Moving Communities, was created for the leisure industry in 2021 and there are a handful of library versions - Finland and Belgium have created them, Ireland is developing one, as is Scotland. Moving Communities Moving Communities was launched in March 2021 and is driven by the largest data set ever gathered for the local leisure sector. It allows analysis and comparison by time periods, statistical neighbours, geographical areas, operator and individual sites, activities and social value. This enables local authorities and leisure providers to understand their performance and how this compares with others. This insight informs strategic decisions about where time, effort and money are best invested to benefit local communities and the audiences most in need of help. Moving Communities can be accessed by local authorities, service providers, active partnerships and national governing bodies such as Sport England and the LGA. While ACE is able to carry out the scoping work, it would need government to support the building of the dashboard itself. Government can provide the framework, and a central body can provide the stewardship but it will be up to local authorities to join up and provide the data that sits within it. Ultimately, while helpful to government and arms lengths bodies, this would be a service driven by the sector for the sector. I have been told that a number of local authorities are supportive and I would hope others would follow suit given the benefit it would bring. Of particular interest is the potential measurement of social value which has already been done with Moving Communities, in conjunction with Department of Health and Social Care analysts, and would be of enormous interest to the library sector. Barking & Dagenham In the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, a group of data professionals from the council, led by Pye Nyunt, implemented a localised tool, known as the ‘Social Progress Index’ which brings together data from multiple sources including libraries, on the social, environmental and wellbeing outcomes of its 219,000 residents. This led to the development of a new model for libraries; moving these towards a ‘community hub model’. The Barking Learning Centre for example has hosted the council’s ‘Homes & Money Hub’ for the past five years, where thousands of residents have been supported within the library to find employment, upskill, seek benefit and welfare where required, and prevent vulnerable families from homelessness. Each library has a slightly different offer to residents depending on the need in the community evidenced by the data. Decisions will need to be made over who holds the data and agreement should be sought to ensure it is available to all. Finally, as well as a development cost, there will be an annual maintenance cost. In my view, this cost should be borne centrally. While it is not within my remit to make financial recommendations, I have noted the comments made by CILIP and Libraries Connected in their scoping study towards a blueprint for public library development and sustainability in England. “There have been several national development initiatives for libraries over the last five years, but these have tended to focus on supporting innovation and change within individual library services. Whilst these are welcome, they have not generally addressed the structural support that can be brought into the wider national operating environment with a view to supporting the sustainability and security of the sector as a whole.” They point to the success of the national funding for Wi-Fi rollout where central funding made a significant difference to the consistency and quality of the service. The provision of a central data hub could be equally transformative in terms of the evidence it would yield and the benefits that would bring. Having data that can be properly analysed will enable libraries to build a stronger narrative about the services they provide which can then be used for advocacy on a national, regional and local basis.
Work with the Evaluation Taskforce
Erik Boekesteijn, who helped create Storyhouse in Chester and is a senior adviser to the National Library of the Netherlands talks of libraries as a ‘third space’. The concept, pioneered by the urban sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, relates to a place that is not work and not home, where people are treated equally and can enjoy a ‘feeling of being apart together.’ [footnote 1] It is not a phrase that I have heard used particularly in this country, but it surely encapsulates the enduring appeal of the library; and it is perhaps one of the reasons that libraries are so good at addressing so many of the social challenges we face. There is no judgement in a library and no stigma to walking through its door. It is why a person might visit a nurse in a library but be too nervous to go to the GP’s surgery for a check-up. It is why, at one of our roundtables, Youth Employment UK, said they would be interested in libraries as a way of accessing the teenagers who are dropping out of the system, who won’t visit JobCentre Plus, but 80% of whom recognise libraries as a service they can access. The government strategy may wish to look at this in further detail. Day in, day out, library staff see the difference they make to people’s lives across a range of national agendas. Yet this has not translated into sustainable funding to the sector from those departments which benefit from their work. When libraries have tried to evidence the value that they bring, they are often told that it is not Magenta or Green Book compliant and therefore does not meet agreed government guidance on evaluation methods or project appraisal. We need to get to a point of being able to measure the things we say libraries are good at; however, it should be said, this is not a problem unique to libraries but an issue across government. To that end the government set up the Evaluation Task Force (ETF), a joint Cabinet Office and His Majesty’s Treasure (HMT) unit to provide significant evaluation support across 10 priority areas. DCMS should work to ensure that the role of libraries is included in their work – in particular, the priority areas covering the Youth Investment Fund, equipping young people with skills for work and life; opportunities to learn from changes to public service delivery arising from COVID-19; children’s social care in relation to family hubs and educational recovery. It is a fact, largely unrecognised, that libraries help meet a range of government objectives spanning several different departments. In time it would be hoped that an important loop can be closed, whereby libraries are able to attract sustainable funding from those departments which benefit from their work.
A national branding campaign
Public awareness of our libraries is a complicated issue. The public has retained its affinity for libraries; certainly, when libraries are threatened with closure - as local politicians know to their cost - the public reaction tends to be formidable. However, at the same time, there is no denying that the number of visits to libraries has dropped dramatically - from 272 million per year in 2009/10 to 178 million in 2018/19 Anecdotally, part of the reason for this contradiction lies in the feelings people have for the libraries they used in childhood; or as one person said to me, “libraries are like seaside towns. You have strong memories of visiting them as a child but it doesn’t mean you automatically want to go to them now.” There is a power in this attachment and it underlines the special role libraries play in our lives but we shouldn’t rely on it to sustain them over time. We need to better understand why people use our libraries and perhaps, more importantly, why they don’t. The DCMS Taking Part Survey 2019/20 and its successor, the Participation Survey 2021-22 offer some insight. When asked to give a reason why they hadn’t used a library in the last 12 months, 60% of respondents in 2019/20 said that they did not need these services. In 2021/22, 30% of people ticked the ‘I’m not interested’ box and 27% opted for ‘no reasons in particular.’ Further research into the public’s use and perception of libraries is needed. In particular, it would be helpful to understand the key points at which people engage with their libraries and why. Parenthood is an obvious one but according to Robert Glick, Founder of the Adult Literacy Trust, the loss of employment or threat of employment is another key engagement or re-engagement point. DCMS should undertake a research project into the reasons why people do and don’t use libraries. In the meantime, however, the figures about those who are ‘not interested’ or ‘don’t need these services’ accord with the biggest frustration that came up during our roundtables. Time and again, people noted the general lack of awareness of libraries among the public and more specifically, a lack of understanding about the range of services they offer. Having only recently started to use the library I’m amazed at the ease of use and what is available. Superb.” A GLL library The most repeated request was for an advertising campaign but when asked, “Okay, but what’s the message?” no one could agree on an answer. So, while I completely accept the value of targeted campaigns around certain offers such as the Summer Reading Challenge, I do not think a generic campaign would have the desired result. Far more beneficial, to my mind, would be a national branding campaign. In truth, the majority of people pass by the library without giving it a second thought. It might be a beautiful Carnegie building in the heart of the town or it could be on a street that no longer attracts the same footfall it once did. Alternatively, it might be a newer library, deliberately placed by the local shopping centre or close to a vital bus route. But whatever the location or age of the building, the fact remains that all too often, people walk on by without really noticing it is there. Our libraries are all around us and yet they simply aren’t ‘visible’ in the way that other institutions are. We know our local GP surgery because we instantly recognise the NHS sign. If you need to find a pharmacy in Europe, it’s easy because of its distinctive green cross. We are often told there are more libraries than there are branches of McDonalds. While it’s not possible to break down the figures exactly, broadly speaking this is absolutely the case. There are more than 1,270 branches of the fast-food chain across the UK. According to the ACE basic data set in England specifically, there were 2,892 open static libraries as of 31 December 2022. I appreciate some might find the comparison with McDonalds jarring but one of the reasons they are such an integral part of our high streets is the sight of those familiar golden arches. If the aim is to encourage more people into our libraries, if we want to make people more aware, then it might be helpful to give them a much stronger physical presence - to encourage an affinity with the building, not just the offer. I am not the first person to suggest this. William Sieghart made the same recommendation in his report saying, ‘we would like to see some greater consistencies in libraries, such as branding and signage’. When I asked why this suggestion had not been taken forward, I was told that branding is the domain of local authorities and it would therefore be difficult to agree a national strategy. I don’t accept this is a reason not to try. Of course, library services should be delivered locally and there is nothing to stop local authorities from providing individual signage as to the different services each library has to offer but our libraries are also an essential part of our national civic infrastructure and we can and should do more to promote them as such. Certainly, when I put the idea to frontline staff throughout the course of this work, the majority of them were supportive and did not see it affecting the local offer in any way. The decision, ultimately, will come down to the agreement of local authorities but in the first instance, it is up to the centre to provide them with the pros and cons of such a proposition. ACE has done some initial work on the possibility of a new advertising campaign. Meanwhile, the British Library has already invested a lot of time in the branding of the national digital platform, LibraryOn. Under the 1964 Act, government has a duty to promote the improvement of the library service. It should now look at ways of bringing this work together to see how we might pursue a national branding campaign, something that would not only raise awareness of our libraries but also demonstrate how much we value them. The Library Campaign The Library Campaign is an independent national charity which supports Friends and User groups across the country. These groups tend to operate on a hyper-local basis but they are also the most vociferous defenders of the service and a key part of the library eco-system. Sector organisations may want to consider how they could work more closely with The Library Campaign for as their Chair, Laura Swaffield says: ‘Some library services work with us willingly but friends groups are sometimes perceived as a nuisance, sometimes even a threat. But libraries are better used and better protected where they exist.’
Background
While I have heard mixed feelings about the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), it is fair to say that its disbanding in 2012 left a fragmented structure in its place. Within government, DCMS is the policy lead for libraries and advocates on their behalf to other government departments while the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities leads on local government funding issues. ACE took over from the MLA as the National Development Agency for libraries. It has increased the number of libraries within the National Portfolio (organisations which represent leaders in their areas) and co-funds with the LGA, a small programme of peer reviews for libraries which have been praised during our roundtables as being extremely helpful in identifying how and where a local service can improve. It administers the Libraries Improvement Fund which supports building and digital infrastructure work and National Lottery Project Grants, as well as investing its own funding in library projects. CILIP is the professional body for the information, knowledge management and library profession and focuses on professional development as well as doing work in specific areas such as green libraries and different funding models. Its CEO, Nick Poole, is a passionate and committed advocate for public libraries. The Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians (ASCEL) is 1 of 2 Investment Principles Support Organisations (IPSOs), partly funded by ACE, which is working to embed quality children’s and young people’s engagement across the library sector. Libraries Connected, formerly the Society of Chief Librarians, is a charity and membership organisation, also partly funded by ACE as an IPSO and its support is crucial to the sector. Under the stewardship of its Chief Executive, Isobel Hunter, it has driven increased co-operation and innovation amongst the sector, helped broker national partnerships and brought a new cohesion to the 152 library services. It has developed a draft accreditation scheme which ACE is now working to implement and should help encourage best practice. It is also piloting work, funded by ACE, to strengthen local and regional support. The funding allows for 2 development managers and some administration support covering nine regions over 3 years. As well as testing the concept of an ‘Expert Bank’ where libraries can receive targeted support to tackle a specific challenge, the pilot will build stronger peer networks and help drive strategic collaborations. It is not within my remit to make recommendations to ACE but as a general rule, the library service works at its best when it is locally led, regionally supported and nationally developed. ACE has clearly recognised the need for better regional support through the Libraries Connected pilot but it is, by the very nature of a pilot, on a limited scale. The programme has been designed to build capacity as opposed to a project that will require ongoing funding, and so they may wish to look at whether it should be expanded further. In terms of national development, as the national development agency for creativity and culture, ACE should be given credit for taking on responsibility for libraries when it wasn’t an obvious fit. On an individual level, I have liaised with members of ACE throughout the course of this review and found them to be absolutely committed to their work and the role of libraries in our communities. Sector organisations have also pointed out that ACE’s increased commitment to, and understanding of, libraries over the last decade has been notable. However, it should be said that questions have been raised about the lack of a clear development path for libraries. Some have said they would like to see ACE focusing on one or 2 areas of the library offer and taking the time to research and evidence them rather than trying to cover too much all at once. Others have questioned the development model. As one person told me during a library visit: “The problem is that ACE only gives funding on the basis that something is innovative so you do a project and then it’s never repeated because, by definition, it’s no longer new. There are no repeat studies because we don’t get funding for it. ACE should be taking the scoping study and replicating it to get findings but they’re not doing it. Why not?” ACE has said it is looking at core development programmes that can be evaluated – as their current work on data shows - but it would be helpful to see a detailed development and delivery plan beyond what is in their overarching strategy, ‘Let’s Create.’ The upcoming quinquennial review of ACE might want to look at this in more detail. It is not that I doubt ACE’s commitment to libraries; rather that libraries have a different set of objectives to the other art forms in ACE’s purview. It would be helpful therefore to have a better sense of ACE’s strategic ambition for libraries.
The British Library
The British Library has no formal role in the public libraries sector but thanks to the efforts of its current CEO, Sir Roly Keating, and his team, it does view itself as having a responsibility towards it. It works directly with the public library network through its Business and IP Centre National Network and it runs the Living Knowledge Network which is a UK-wide partnership of national and public libraries to share ideas and connections which includes more than 20 public libraries, the British Library, the National Library of Scotland and the National Library of Wales. It is also responsible for the Public Lending Right and for LibraryOn, the national digital platform, funded by ACE, which aims to raise the profile of public libraries - to connect more people to their local library services while also improving public access to the collections, exhibitions and online events of libraries across the country. Clearly the British Library is already playing an important strategic role in the library sector. With their agreement, I believe there is a further opportunity to take on a convening role that could be of huge benefit to public libraries. The great advantage of the Museum, Libraries and Archives Council was that it was the first and obvious point of contact for any organisation with an interest in libraries. There are, of course, other points of contact. Libraries Connected and the LGA have created some excellent partnerships with the sector and should continue to do so. As previously mentioned, ACE has a committed and knowledgeable libraries team which can be called upon while the team at DCMS have deliberately operated an open-door policy to library services and sector organisations. It is, however, a complicated landscape with no obvious ‘front door’ for those wishing to engage with public libraries. While in no way wishing to diminish the important role of all the other organisations involved in this space, I would argue that the British Library has a unique status, as well as a reach across the United Kingdom, that brings with it the opportunity to broker some interesting, strategic, partnerships across the public and private sector. Many have said during the course of this review that there is a need for more national, big-scale, programmes delivered locally which the British Library has already done very successfully with its Business and IP Centre Network. Business and IP Centres (BIPCs) The Business and IP Centres (BIPCs) provide free business support to start-up businesses, owners, entrepreneurs and inventors. In the past 3 years, with the investment of £13 million from DCMS, the network has grown from 13 to over 100 libraries, with services helping to create over 18,000 businesses. 21% of BIPC users come from the 20% most deprived areas in their towns and cities; meanwhile 72% of BIPC businesses are owned by women and 26% by ethnically diverse people. (According to figures published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, nationally, only 20% of businesses without employees are owned by women and only 5% are owned by individuals of Black, Asian and minority ethnic origin.) Together, the BIPC entrepreneurs generated £168 million for the economy with a pay back of £6.63 for every £1 of public money spent. Every Centre is tweaked according to local needs. With some BIPCs securing support from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, matched by local authority budgets and private sector investment, the BIPC network could work with many more library services to extend their reach to communities across the UK, further propelling the evolution of libraries as hubs of innovation and enterprise. I am not suggesting that there needs to be an entirely new department within the British Library, rather some small, proportionate extra resource to develop a new convening role which would generate – alongside other sector partners - a valuable central conversation about libraries and potentially lead to some interesting opportunities and collaborations.
Universal child membership
As has been discussed, our love of libraries often begins in childhood but more than that, there is a growing body of evidence to show how libraries can support speech, language and communication skills in the early years and beyond. In Scotland, the Every Child A Library Member programme (ECALM) provides library membership for all children at 3 key stages: birth registration, Nursery, and Primary enrolment and there is an interest from the sector in doing something similar in England. It has been looked at previously. In 2012/13 ACE ran a pilot, supported by DCMS and the Department for Education, investigating how best to reach pre-school, primary and secondary school-aged children. The programme ran up against a problem with data protection. Since joining the library was not the purpose for which the data was collected, schools could not share their pupil data unless parents opted into the scheme or the school’s admission process included permission to share the data with libraries. Findings also indicated that auto-enrolment really needs to be supplemented by a continuing programme of activities if children are to become active readers. This chimes with the view of many during our roundtables and was also raised as a key point by ASCEL. The Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge (SRC) avoids this problem by encouraging primary school age children to read a selection of books, of their choice, from their local library over the summer months. This is a brilliant scheme. Not only does it address a specific policy problem – ‘the summer slide’ or the dip in reading skills and confidence over the holidays when children are not in school – it has become part of the fabric of our library service. I have lost count of the number of brightly coloured boards I have seen, in all sorts of imaginative shapes and sizes, filled with the stickers of each child taking part in the Challenge. There are still issues regarding data protection but a 3-year pilot to broaden the reach of the SRC, working through cross-local authority partnerships to support universal access, has shown that it can be done. Begun in 2021 and extending across 34 areas in the UK, some authorities negotiated GDPR exemptions using either the ‘legitimate interest’ or ‘opt out’ principle, or a combination of the two. The SRC now reaches more than 700,000 children, at a cost of £1 per child to the local authority, but given its success, it would be good to see it rolled out more widely, particularly given its potential to fulfil so many other objectives. The pilot showed that the universal enrolment/automatic library membership models brought parents and caregivers into the library who might not otherwise have done so, thus helping libraries to target those that could benefit the most from reading and simply using the library. By supporting libraries to work in partnership with education, public health and children’s services, it also helped raise awareness of libraries across local authorities – a key objective, frequently raised at roundtables. Of particular interest is the way many worked closely with the Holiday, Activities and Food Programme (HAF) teams to target children from more disadvantaged areas and which was highlighted as an underused potential partnership during our discussions. Another key programme is Bookstart, the world’s first national book gifting programme run by BookTrust, which entitles every child in England and Wales to a free Bookstart pack before they are 12 months old. For the last 25 years, the Bookstart network has supported parents across the UK to read to their children in the early years with all the benefits that brings, particularly to children from disadvantaged backgrounds who continue to face the biggest barriers to reading. A new collaboration focused on low income families, BookTrust Storytime, offers a raft of resources for libraries alongside different activities for families to help bring the power of reading to life. Over 70% of the families which took part in the programme returned to their library after the initial visit. DCMS should look at ways of aligning the different models and identifying the best ages and access points to provide every child with a library card. This could provide an important platform for encouraging not just children into libraries but also parents and caregivers who might otherwise struggle to engage with the service. There is no data protection issue if the information is collected specifically for that purpose, i.e. when registering the birth of a baby, but any scheme supporting children into libraries throughout their young lives, will undoubtedly involve schools. While the SRC’s pilot has managed to overcome some of the hurdles, there is little consistency across local authorities in the interpretation and application of data sharing policies. The department should also begin work with DfE to enable the schools admissions process to secure permission to share data with libraries which was one of the recommendations from the ACE pilot. “Schools put my boys off reading books but Kitty Jane saved their love of reading. We take out nearly our whole quota each week.” Surrey
A universal library card or universal library membership
If the aim is to give every child access to the library, there is a question about what we are giving them access to. In reality, we mean their local library and that is, of course, a wonderful thing; but how much more powerful would it be to give them the key to every library, large and small, across the country? When I have raised the possibility of a universal library card, I have been told that it is too difficult because it would have to be compatible with the different library management systems. However, I was surprised to learn of the ‘every library a local library’ scheme which was promoted in 2009 and neatly gets around this problem. The brainchild of Tony Durcan, the former President of the Society of Chief Librarians, the scheme was brilliantly simple – it allowed visitors to borrow books from any English, Welsh or Northern Irish public library, just by showing their existing library card as proof of address. This built on decades of informal inter-library service cooperation. There is a risk with such a scheme that books might be lost but there’s a risk of that in any library service and, in truth, it’s a risk that is far outweighed by the benefits of making the library available to all users, not just the local community. Nor is this just about books – being able to use a printer or know that you can take your children into a Rhyme Time, no matter where you are, would open up the library service in a whole new way. As Tony told me: “People make huge barriers out of possibilities that are miniscule. In the end it’s very straightforward. If you join the library in Rotherham, say, you can use the library in Scarborough. If you’ve joined one library, why do you need to go through the bureaucracy of joining another? All you need to do is show your library card as proof of identity in order to borrow on a temporary basis – and positively promote that opportunity. If you want to build a vibrant library service – and it is vibrant in lots of places – you have to have universal access and a national identity.” The scheme was greeted with genuine excitement and led to national print and broadcast coverage but as people moved on and priorities changed over time with the onset of austerity, it disappeared from view, so much so it didn’t come up once throughout the course of this review until very recently. I have since been told by one Head of Service that they still use the scheme on an informal basis but that this tends to happen as the result of a chance request, rather than because people actually know about it. ‘Every library a local library’ could be resurrected, very easily, by a simple information campaign. While I appreciate that this may be for the sector to pursue, government should explore the possibility of a single card in the future. At the time of the scheme’s introduction, the Society still wanted to look into introducing a one-library card system. And as more and more libraries are joining consortia - finding agreement and breaking down the old cross authority barriers – this feels more achievable than it potentially once did. The London Libraries Consortium The London Libraries Consortium was originally formed of 3 authorities which came together, in 2004, to share resources and contracts. Today, as the Libraries Consortium, it is made up of 23 authorities, covering 321 libraries with a reach of 8.2 million residents. Their shared catalogue provides access to over seven million books, 40,000 eBooks, 800 e-magazines and nearly 5,000 eAudiobooks. It provides a one-card solution for all members and last year it launched a socially interactive platform, Discovery, unashamedly based on the Netflix model. It pulls together all the consortium’s online resources, hosts virtual book clubs and is easily browsable, encouraging people to stay online and discover all that the consortium has to offer in terms of current content, latest releases and the many events taking place across the different authorities. To a teenager who is used to today’s streaming services, it might not seem revolutionary but for libraries it is an enormous step forward and it will be interesting to see, over time, how it has raised awareness and brought new people into the library.
There is a valid concern that in an era of difficult financial constraints, volunteers have often been seen as a way of replacing trained staff, rather than being used to bring important, additional, value to a service.
I agree with CILIP that job substitution will lead to services becoming unsustainable over time. Where possible, volunteers should only be used to support experienced, qualified staff.
“Library employees always help, they are polite. The range of books in the Ukrainian language has increased over the past year.” Coventry
However, even in the best run libraries, where councils are willing to invest and have placed libraries firmly on the asset side of the balance sheet, volunteers remain an important part of the service.
I don’t think there’s a library in the country that doesn’t have volunteers but post COVID, there has been volunteering fatigue with many people dropping out and one library only keeping about 10% of COVID volunteers on their books.
Work is being done to boost volunteering more generally via the Know Your Neighbourhood (KYN) Fund, a £29 million package of funding from DCMS designed to widen participation and tackle loneliness in 27 disadvantaged areas across England.
Within government the job of advocating on behalf of libraries falls to DCMS. By following the principle of the Ambition report to think ‘Libraries First,’ the team there champions the role of libraries and encourages other departments to see them as a natural first choice to provide information and services within local communities. Our roundtables were themed around the seven outcomes identified in the Ambition report that libraries contribute to:
•cultural and creative enrichment
•increased reading and literacy
•improved digital access and literacy
•helping everyone achieve their full potential
•healthier and happier lives
Mar 3, 2022 · While some folks may be unable to get a library card due to a lack of a permanent address, more resources are becoming widely available as public libraries work on the frontlines of the housing crisis.
Feb 4, 2022 · Why do libraries exist? Libraries exist to serve the community’s needs by providing access to information and resources, regardless of an individual’s and community’s socioeconomic status or location.
