Here comes the sun

Joe Hendry, like many public librarians, long felt the effects of a Thatcherite big chill. Now, he explains, we can look forward again.

Public library services in Britain have been in decline for the last 20 years. In the words of Lennon and McCartney, 'it's been a long, cold, lonely winter'. So the words of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, after the formation of a new Labour government in May 1997 were music to the ears of many librarians, teachers and countless other public servants: 'Government has put education, learning and the knowledge-driven economy at the heart of its ambition.'

From 1979 through to 1997 we saw public services reduced, externalised, starved of resources, put out to 'competitive' tender. Public servants were derided by government and made to feel that they were living off the backs of those in the private sector who earned the smart money that allowed the rest of us to exist. The ethos of community service was dismissed.

For some 18 years, public libraries in particular suffered from what I can only describe as malign neglect by successive Conservative governments. Britain's public library service, once the jewel in the crown of our civilised society, suffered a grim decline which many of us feared terminal.

As a matter of fact

A report 1 produced jointly by the Local Government Information Unit, the trade union Unison, and the Library Campaign, observed: 'Many parts of the free public library service feel increasingly caught in a twilight world where the cumulative effect of cuts has led to an unbreakable cycle of reduced opening hours and fewer branches, fewer book issues and reduced usage. The library service feels that local authorities see themselves as being in a position of having an obligation to provide a statutory service, but without the necessary means.'

There have been several studies of library usage over the past few years, all of which point to an apparent decline. Most active in this area has been the Library and Information Statistics Unit (Lisu) 2 at Loughborough University, but also significant have been reports from Aslib and various government bodies.

In 1996 in England and Wales 24m adults were users of public libraries. Half of those used the library at least once a fortnight 3, but there was an overall drop of 19 per cent in the number of books issued: 460m in 1995-96 in England and Wales (Lisu, 1997). The total number of books available in the UK's public libraries in 1994 was 131,657,000, a reduction of almost seven per cent on the 141,400,000 volumes available 10 years earlier (Lisu, 1995). With a declining population in the same period, the decline in real terms was 10 per cent, from 2.51 books to 2.26 books per person.

Meanwhile more than one third of libraries open for more than 45 hours per week in 1985-96 had, by 1995-96, fallen below that level. In the same period there was a fall of around 40 per cent in the number of libraries open for 10 hours per week or less (Lisu, 1996).

The library workforce declined by eight per cent between 1984 and 1994, from 29,547 to 27,320. The number of professional staff fell from 8,366 to 7,158 over the same period. Manual staff were cut by 62 per cent from 3,893 to 1,472 (Lisu, 1996). In addition Lisu recently reported that by 1997-98, the number of library premises had fallen by six per cent on previous years (Lisu Perspectives, 28, 1999). The government nevertheless claimed that expenditure on libraries had been rising.

In 1991 the government proposed that public libraries could be subject to compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) of their services. The Department of National Heritage (DNH), as it was then called, gave a remit to a firm of consultants (KPMG) to investigate the introduction of CCT to public libraries. To many of us, this was typical of the attitude of government at that time towards public services. KPMG, however, found that, although feasible, CCT was unlikely to bring any cost saving benefits or improvements in quality of services.

In February 1997, less than three months before the general election, the DNH published its long awaited report on public libraries, Reading the Future 4. Key points were that public libraries should:

• adapt to new ways of delivering services;
• continue to co-operate to maximise their efficiency and effectiveness;
• play an important part in the government's IT for All strategy;
• benefit from the National Lottery;
• be open when their users need them;
• make more use of volunteers;
• aim to improve Value for Money: by taking advantage of the end of the Net Book Agreement, contracting out and development of library trusts, raising sponsorship from the private sector and applying for National Lottery and EU funds, 'where they can'.

Perhaps the best way to judge Reading the Future is to quote the last two paragraphs of the foreword by the Secretary of State, Virginia Bottomley: 'Some in recent years have thought wrongly that the importance of public libraries was bound to decline; that the only way to slow down, though not to halt, this decline was by the growing accumulation in public libraries of a range of worthwhile but marginal activities - like libraries providing notice-boards for local authority circulars and advice, or providing meeting places for small societies.

'The advent of the Information Technology Revolution of the Information Age means that libraries will not have to rely for their continuing significance on any such marginal strategy.'

Pejorative? She went on: 'The original concept of the British public library system was one of high seriousness and importance. In recent years, there has been a shift away from that high seriousness towards entertainment. Information technology should help to restore the profound importance of public libraries in our society.'

So it would seem that we were reduced to providing notice-boards and entertainment and that the problems we faced were of our own making.

Due for renewal

The final straw for many of us was the publication, also in 1997, of the Audit Commission's report on public libraries, Due for Renewal5. With a sepia picture on its front cover of an old man sitting reading newspapers in an old-fashioned reading room which had a tired and run-down appearance, the whole tone of the report was patronising.

In Chapter 2, for example, 'Rising Concerns', the commission had this to say: 'High usage, accessibility throughout society and popularity are impressive achievements, but despite their success, libraries need to respond to the problems they are currently experiencing with their traditional services: declining usage, reduced access, and increasing costs.

To have the gall to make such comments, let alone edify them as conclusions, came hard to those of us who had seen a whole raft of middle and senior professional managers opt for early retirement as a result of stress, disillusionment - or even just weariness. And janitors, so often the mainstay of local libraries, became a thing of the past.

In Chapter 3, 'Further Challenges', it was concluded 'that the use of ICT in public libraries is still limited' and that 'the potential of ICT... is still a long way from being realised'.

Writer and television personality Melvyn Bragg retorted in no uncertain terms. In a piece in The Times (1 October 1997), 'Bad smell from cooking the books', he concluded that the Audit Commission report revealed only the blinkered limitations of a wholly financial standpoint.

He noted that the role of the library in the community, because it is outside pricing, is therefore outside valuing; that the borrowing of children's books and adult educational non-fiction was increasing, but that these matters were not shown in the Audit Commission's report. He pointed out that major bookshops in British cities are open till 9pm during the week, and also open on Sundays. In an increasingly 24-hour world, libraries have not been given the resources to compete.

Bragg kept his final scorn for the commission's advocacy of more technology in libraries, as if its lack were the fault of the library staff. He pointed out that the National Lottery, in February 1997, turned down a request from the Library Association for £50m to link Britain's public library network to the Internet.

This National Lottery Commission was chaired by the Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley, whose department had responsibility for public library standards, and who had urged in the report Reading the Future that public libraries should embrace ICT.

School's out for summer

Since the advent of the Labour government, there has been a host of initiatives relating to education, lifelong learning and 'joined up working'.

The Prime Minister has stated frequently his government's ambitions: 'Our three most important policies are Education, Education and Education.'

So why has much of the last three years been the most edgy and frustrating of my professional working life? After the grim years of 1979-97, the new government was introducing, in its first year in office, a plethora of reports and initiatives on the theme of lifelong learning. But was I the only one who wondered, 'what about public libraries?'.

The Library and Information Commission had brought forward proposals in New Library: the People's Network 6 which were fully consistent with the government's proposals in the National Grid for Learning. But it was going to cost an awful lot of money. A figure of £200m seemed likely, but did we really believe that 'our' Secretary of State, Chris Smith, could find these kinds of resources?

In October 1998, the LIC published firm proposals to implement the People's Network. Building the New Library Network 7 has three strands: creation of content; network infrastructure; and training.

And Chris Smith and the LIC have found the money. New money. Real money. Millions of it. To modernise public libraries and take them into the new century, the knowledge age. I can hardly believe it.

And is there not a rich irony that the People's Network will be funded by the biggest voluntary tax on working-class people in this country, the National Lottery? The People's Lottery for the People's Libraries. Here, indeed, comes the sun.

It was wonderful to be young when the Beatles were young. As I feel the hope beginning to thaw in my bones, I go back to the words of 1969:

'Little darling, I feel the ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun

And I say it's all right

It's all right.'

At long last I actually believe that it will be all right again. I hear Chris Smith stressing that public libraries are the nation's street corner universities. His Minister for Arts and Libraries, Alan Howarth, wrote recently: 'The government attaches great importance to public library services' and 'the library sector contributes in a very big way to four of our main objectives - education, access, social inclusion and modernisation.'

So it's time that we public librarians begin to talk ourselves up, to feel the sun on our faces. We know that there are almost 20 years of damage and neglect that cannot be put right immediately. But we need to get our confidence back. And with it a re-discovery of our sense of belief in ourselves and in our calling, in the value of public service. We must remember that confidence breeds further confidence and optimism.

It's time to plan, to turn dreams into reality. To plan astutely and wisely for Best Value. To seize the initiatives which seem to emerge almost every week. And to do some lateral thinking about service delivery, our economic as well as social and educational contribution to society - and our continuing contribution to social inclusion, practised by countless librarians for generations, long before we knew what it was.

Back where we belong

If we are now to return to some creative and lateral thinking, we could start in no better place than with Aslib's public library review (PLR), commissioned by the Department of National Heritage, perhaps with the political intention of seeking to privatise libraries.

Instead the radical ideas produced by the review, such as the significant drawing power and support for public libraries, the logic of establishing hyper-libraries and much more besides, should be re-visited with serious intent. PLR might not have been what the Conservative government of the mid-1990s was looking for, but it seems to me that some of its ideas are just what we are looking for now.

We must remind ourselves that in the midst of the many opportunities that ICT brings, libraries are still entrusted as the custodians of the paper records of civilisation. If the information poor are not to manifest themselves we must ensure support and mentoring for so many older, poorer people. And although I cannot get that Beatles song out of my head we should remember, too, that we are still about books and ideas and the clashing convictions of mankind.

It's time to replace Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic, 'the man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing' with Samuel Beckett's urgings: 'Let us not waste our time in idle discourse, let us rather do something while we have the chance. It is not every day that we are needed.... But at this place, at this time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late.'

J. D. Hendry is County Heritage Services Officer, Cumbria, Carlisle and is Past President of the Library Association.

References

1 The Future of the Public Library Service. Unison/LGIU, 1997. ISBN 1 897957 40 8.

2 Lisu (www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dis/lisu/lisuhp.html).

3 Review of the Public Library Service in England and Wales. Aslib, 1995. ISBN 0 85142 353 1.

4 Reading the Future. Department of National Heritage, 1997.

5 Due for Renewal. Audit Commission, 1997.

6 New Library: the People's Network. Library & Information Commission (LIC), 1997. (www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/lic/newlibrary/)

7 Building the New Library Network: a report to government. LIC, 1998. ISBN 1 902394 03 8.

© The Library Association
Last updated: 17 April 2000