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A very silly statistic
• I DON'T think I have seen a sillier statistic than the figure you report of the supposed cost of £10 for every Camden library book borrowed.
It suggests that the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, who produced the figure, know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
It might be relevant if all the libraries did was lend books. But of course they supply a lot of other services. Expensive reference books, like the New Oxford Dictionary, which no one can buy for themselves. Newspapers, periodicals, Online services. The libraries are often full of students working for exams or whatever.
So keep it up, please Camden libraries, and don’t get too worried about the CIPFA.
DESMOND DONOVAN
Willow Road, NW3
“Fatuous” was the comment from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on Tim Coates‚ latest analysis of Camden’s public library statistics (£10 to loan out a library book, February 1).
In fact, the situation is worse than that. The analysis is completely misleading and, if believed, will do a great deal of harm.
To divide the overall cost of running Camden’s library service by the number of books issued by it, as Tim Coates has done, produces a figure that is of no use to anyone. The public library is the only local public service left in very many communities and to restrict it to the book issuing task is to deprive those communities of vital resources. Thus, already deprived areas would sink further into deprivation.
This seems to be the objective of Tim Coates’s campaign.
Everyone believes that the prime task of a public library is to lend books. As far as the general public is concerned, there is no need for a debate about the issue. First this task has to properly resourced and then other, properly funded, tasks can be added. It is very simple.
Tim Coates has used statistics collected by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) for his strange calculations. CIPFA takes a considerable time to collect and collate the figures and, when published, they represent the outcomes of long past management decisions. In this case, decisions which were taken under a local political regime with different priorities to those in power at present.
A window of opportunity appears to have been opened up by last year’s local elections and we should make use of it before it is too late. Is it not better to look to the future with a determination to improve it, rather than argue about the past?
ALAN TEMPLETON
Chairman, Camden Public Libraries Users’ Group,
Honeybourne Road, NW6 |
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