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Libraries’ downward spiral
• PLEASE forgive me for being totally bemused by the comments of Councillor Flick Rea and Unison convener John Mann (Library plan must be an open book, September 17) on the proposed introduction of new technology in Camden’s libraries.
They gave the strong impression of having made up their minds on narrow group interest grounds and had little intention of considering any issue which affected the public.
They have forgotten that the sole reason for the public libraries to exist is to provide a service for the public.
The only topic which was really addressed was that of money saving/job reductions.
There is far more at stake than this.
The whole future of the Camden Library Service is now being opened up for scrutiny. Perhaps one should first ask the question of both these protagonists as to whether they believe that the service’s present direction of travel, that is, a consistent downward spiral, is good enough or whether something should be done to break away from the comfortable, convenient, status quo. If the answer from either of them is that nothing should be done, any claim of taking the public interest seriously can be discounted. If the answer is that something should, indeed, be done we are at the beginning of a useful discussion rather than a shouting match.
It is this type of discussion which Camden Public Libraries Users Group would like to see happening and, to this end, it intends to hold a public meeting at Belsize library on October 5, starting at 7pm.
Please come along and help clear away the fog of misunderstanding and misinformation which surrounds the new technology proposals.
ALAN TEMPLETON
Chair, Camden Public Libraries
Users Group, NW6
Borrowing books
• I VISITED the Swiss Cottage Central Library on Saturday to borrow some books.
I looked for an explanatory leaflet about the planned changes in the library system but there were none.
Letters appear regularly in this newspaper – all so far it seems – decrying the changes, apparently believing that the libraries will no longer be oases of calm but full of muzak and munching junk food addicts. From the sporadic and less than informative letters in from the arts and leisure boss and others in the council I would, with respect, suggest that they come clean about their plans so that they can be debated in the open.
How do they see our libraries in the future, and what is wrong with them now? I would like to know, for instance, what the remit was that they gave to the “consultants” and exactly what these persons came up with reinterpreted in plain English.
The term “Growing your Library” is meaningless for a start.
I also cannot see the logic of installing expensive checking in and out machines and thereby releasing staff to “answer questions”.
That is an entirely specious reason.
Staff at the counter are always available to answer questions and in the larger libraries there is at this moment at least one member of staff working among the books and CDs available to act as a “host” and who are always more than willing to offer advice and help.
Is it the intention of the council that librarians released from the check-in counter will mill about in the expectation of hordes of people demanding attention?
Is this a crafty trick, when it becomes evident that these librarians are surplus to requirement, to dispose of them?
We need real and detailed answers to these questions and observations rather than bland, all too brief, reassurances that all will be well.
J HARDY
Belsize Park
Experts?
• THE estimable Malcolm Holmes has hit the nail on the head (Who needs consultants? September 17) in identifying the employment of outside consultants as the root of so much that is wrong with the introduction of change in our libraries (and elsewhere).
Before this disease of consultancies set in,
in-house professionals achieved what was needed without the expense and concern to staff and users, which is familiar today.
In 1946 I joined the staff of the High Holborn library.
The newly-appointed borough librarian James Swift, in his first annual report, described the library as “one of the least effective in the metropolitan area”.
At that time, the lending library was closed access, readers (not customers please) could only obtain books through intervention of a member of staff.
By December of that year open access was operative with minimum disruption of the service.
Preparation was well in hand for the creation of a branch library, with necessary staff appointed and a book stock of 21,000 volumes already purchased.
It opened in April 1947 in Gray’s Inn Road. Within a year, a gramophone library was established, the reference library, refurbished and restocked. In 1948, a completely new commercial reference library was set up.
At the same time, a programme of recorded music recitals and lectures, was introduced, and a film society, established. Art and local history exhibitions took place from then on, on a regular basis.
Draft plans had been made for a new central library, as long ago as 1936 but it was not before the late 1950s, that it was possible to set the project in motion. When I left the service in 1959 the foundation stone of the Theobalds Road library had been laid.
All this happened without the intervention of outside “experts”, just the work of chief librarian and staff, who knew what was needed, and the co-operation of others, such as the borough architect.
Now it seems it takes a succession of four sets of expensive consultants to produce a half-baked scheme, which can only be outlined in a consultation pack, written in management gobbledegook. Answers to a neatly-titled “Growing your own Library people workstream manager”.
Oh... and one of the prime jobs of librarians has always been the answering of users’ questions.
Wandering “libraries customer service officers” will be no more effective than clearly identifiable staff at a service-point.
MALCOLM CAMPBELL
Agar Grove, NW1
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