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Alan Templeton outside the British Library |
The figures don’t lie – so when will this anti-book policy stop?
Camden libraries are failing in their primary function – to provide a book-lending service, as 30 years of reduction in stock proves, writes Alan Templeton
IN her letter to the New Journal on August 14, Fiona Dean, Camden’s assistant director of culture, made a number of claims based on comparisons between Camden and the UK as a whole.
Thus she was comparing an inner-London borough with an area which includes large tracts of countryside.
Library provision in rural areas is difficult and this pulls down the national average figures. For meaningful comparisons, Ms Dean should have used the performance of the 12 inner-London boroughs as her yardstick.
To avoid being mislead, one should always compare like with like.
If Ms Dean had used the correct comparisons, she would have had difficulty claiming that the Camden Library Service was popular compared with its peer group.
The recently published Chartered Institute for Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Library Statistics showed that Camden is ranked 8th out of 12 for adult satisfaction with the service provided. Not remotely popular, then, but probably not particularly unpopular – yet.
Ms Dean claimed that Camden offered a wide range of books to the public. This is a statement of her opinion. Of course, that opinion is not completely unbiased.
What one can say with absolute certainty is that the range of books offered to the public has decreased massively every year for decades – the latest statistics show that the net reduction for 2006/07 was more than 36,600 books.
The continuous reduction of the book stock over many years (1978/79 book stock: 981,166; 1998/99 book stock: 566,394; 2006/07 book stock: 388,836) is slowly destroying what was once a leading library service. It is easy to predict from these figures that a milestone will have been reached at the end of this year – Camden will have succeeded in removing two-thirds of its book stock in 30 years.
Ms Dean may find this is something to be proud of, but that sentiment is not shared by the residents of Camden.
How far must this reduction go before Ms Dean changes her opinion? Just what is the level of book stock that no longer satisfies Ms Dean’s definition of “wide range”? It is not Camden Public Library Users Group’s (CPLUG) contention that Camden’s Library Service has got everything wrong. What CPLUG has been saying for many years is that the Library Service has simply got its priorities wrong.
Camden’s residents want a service that is responsive to their needs. British culture is probably more dependent on its language than that of any other country. That language is flexible and capable of taking many forms. As a result of this, it has now become the Latin of the modern world.
Paradoxically, illiteracy in Britain is rapidly rising. Part of the reason for this has to be that local authorities, such as Camden, no longer consider it part of their duties to strenuously encourage the acquisition of reading skills. They do the minimum to tick the box.
It is not recognised that providing easy access to a genuinely wide range of reading materials is an essential ingredient of any strategy to improve literacy.
Camden’s Library Service does perform many worthwhile functions but, in doing so, it has forgotten the importance of its original one.
The public has not forgotten. To deny that book lending is considered by the public to be the primary function of a library service is to deny the blindingly obvious.
Surely it is time that Camden’s anti-book policy is reversed?
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