A few months ago I was asked if I would be willing to address the National Acquisitions Group (NAG) of leading librarians at their annual conference. Although I knew little about the politics and economics of the library world the partnership between librarians and publishers is important and I agreed. They didn’t (quite reasonably) tell me at the time that I was second choice to the government minister responsible for libraries, David Lammy. Coincidentally and at about the same time Ronnie Williams (Chief Executive of the PA) and I (wearing my PA President hat) had a meeting with Lammy and his civil servants. Thus began my introduction to the world of British public libraries.
Here are some of the things I learned while doing my research.
The Minister for Libraries has no power to administer libraries. This is handled entirely by local authorities.
Expenditure on books has fallen from 14.4% to 8.5% of the budget over the last decade.
The book collection has been reduced in the same time by 20m books.
100 libraries have been threatened with closure in this year alone.
1000 library buildings in England are no longer fit for use, 30% of the total.
The acronymic quango which tries to oversee library policy, MLA, has spent £4m with various consultants since they were formed. In particular these include in the past 2 years £0.5m with accountancy firms PwC and PKF who have come up with a plan which at best will produce savings of just 1% of the budget.
Libraries are chronically short of books and (surprise surprise) libraries with poor book stockholding fail to attract users.
The government and the MLA whilst mouthing support for books seem bent on turning libraries into community centres, outreach posts, and IT training camps.
The total UK public library book acquisition annual budget is £90m, the cost of ‘selectors’ is £45m, the total cost of acquisition processes is £200m, the total annual revenue and capital cost of the library service is £1.3bn. During the last decade overhead costs have risen by 5% per annum, book purchasing has fallen at the same rate.
The solution is not simple but here are a few suggestions:
- Re-establish that the prime objective of libraries is to lend books and that book stocks need to be increased and improved significantly by an initial doubling of the budget.
- With the support of our excellent wholesale distributors work with libraries to ensure that the money is efficiently spent thus eliminating multiple classification systems in local authorities and ensuring rapid dissemination of new books through the system.
- Use the publishing industry’s media contacts and authors to generate a wave of support for libraries and front-line librarians.
- Back an initiative from Tim Coates (former Managing Director of Waterstone’s and the leading nearly lone voice in the wilderness) to work with three or four local authorities to act as exemplars for the rest of the library network – with or without the support of the MLA or any other quango. He needs the help of the industry. His email address is timcoatesbooks@yahoo.com and his blog is www.goodlibraryguide.com/blog.
Of course publishers and authors arguing for higher expenditure on books will be seen as special pleaders but sometimes change benefits everyone and the changes required will benefit readers as well as authors, particularly non-blockbuster authors. I suspect that my support for books in libraries will get me into serious trouble with the Minister for Libraries because, to quote him: ‘So I get heartily sick and tired of self-appointed, unelected, unrepresentative groups who dogmatically say that libraries are for this and not for that.’
I also get heartily sick of certain things. My list includes bureaucratic waste, missed opportunities to improve education in deprived areas, vandalizing through inaction a great national treasure and civil servants and government officers whose jobs and final salary pension scheme are to be protected ahead of the needs of the public at large.
In short, public libraries are in crisis. They are there for making books available to all. The book purchase budget should be doubled and the costs of that recovered through administrative savings not by more strategy consultations. The government and all those connected with it should cease pretending things are fine and justifying past decisions and take action now.