Contact: Richard Ward 01962 826621 e:mail: [email protected]

1 INTRODUCTION

In April 2004 the report "Who's in Charge" was published by Libri, an independent charity concerned to further the work of public libraries. The report was written and researched by Tim Coates drawing upon his experience in book selling and upon an investigation he carried into Hampshire's library service. Mr Coates was aided in his work by Kiffer Weisselberg, the Chair of the Libri Trust.

The production of the report was funded in large part by the Laser Foundation - an independent grant making body, of which the author of this report, Richard Ward, is a trustee.

"Who's in Charge" was commissioned by Laser in an attempt to "clear the air". Mr Coates was a well known library campaigner who had been arguing for several years that the public library service was in crisis and that either nothing was being done about it (i.e. those concerned were in denial) or, the solutions being implemented were wrong headed. It was felt the time had come for Mr Coates to be given the opportunity to produce a report which could act as a blueprint for the survival, and then the revitalisation, of the public library movement and that report would be all the more powerful if it was based upon real data obtained from an actual rather than a theoretical library authority.

Because of Hampshire's close links with the Laser Foundation we were asked to be the authority who would co-operate with Mr Coates and agreed.

Tim Coates and Kiffer Weisselberg visited Hampshire on several occasions and produced several drafts of his report. There were several frank and forthright discussions with colleagues in Hampshire, and with elected Members. The final draft of the report was published in April containing various sections and interpretations with which we disagreed but which Mr Coates and Libri refused to remove from the report. Libri also declined to publish the statement we had provided stating that we did not agree with all the findings.

The report created a stir on publication and received many column inches in the professional press, an interview on the Today Programme and coverage on national TV news. There were many local radio and press stories. Andrew (Lord) Mackintosh, the government Minister with responsibility for libraries, took a keen interest in the matter and held a seminar in London at which the future of public libraries was debated. Mr Coates was invited to contribute as was Yinnon Ezra, who put the case for Hampshire's Discovery Centre initiative.

2 THE REPORT

The report is arranged in four parts with an executive summary, introduction and appendices.

Part 1 addresses the library service nationally and draws upon various reports such as the Audit Commission's "Building better libraries". The report points to the decline in library visits and book issues, and consequent fall in value for money as the fixed costs of running the service have not declined equally. A bar graph shows that if the level of decline continues the number of books issued will fall to almost zero by 2020. This section goes on to argue that most people want their libraries for books and reading and that current library policies are skewed in the direction of chasing non-users and the disadvantaged.

According to the report use of libraries has fallen because of a poor selection of books, inadequate opening hours, and inconveniently sited and dilapidated library buildings.

Part 2 looks at the library service in Hampshire where the situation mirrors the national picture - reduced levels of use combined with rising costs leading to a reduction in value for money as measured by cost per visit.

Various tables are given - showing for example declines in visitor numbers.

A further table shows performance against a selection of the Public Library Standards for 2001/02. The performance for 2003/04 is added in the table below.

The report then discusses the likelihood of finding a particular book on the shelf at any one time and illustrates the point with an idiosyncratic list of titles. The key point here is that the library holds a wide range of material and makes that arrange available - but not necessarily instantly. As the report says "There may, therefore, be other copies out on loan". Precisely - that is how a public lending library works.

"Who's in Charge" then moves on to look at what needs to be done and recognises that we understand that "the great majority of current visitors are long standing loyal users but their number is falling. There is a need to broaden the appeal of the libraries to introduce a wider and younger audience, while continuing to look after the needs of those who currently use the service." Market research show that there are three major factors to be taken into account - range of materials, location and appearance of buildings, and opening hours.

Despite the temporary reduction the materials fund expenditure on books is targeted more closely with improvements in the supply of best sellers, books for children and materials supporting social inclusion. A "fastback" service has been piloted successfully in Basingstoke and will be rolled out to other libraries. More children's books have been supplied through the Sure Start scheme aimed at parents and children. Additionally we are increasing the support to such groups as the visually impaired.

The location of libraries in Hampshire is excellent. We have many High Street locations, libraries in shopping malls and on the main streets in villages. Moreover the 19 strong fleet of mobile libraries reaches out to all other parts of the county.

There is a coherent plan to address the appearance of our buildings. This is funded by the transfer to building refurbishment of £500k in each of two years. This £1m has levered in another £1m - which would not otherwise have been available and has led to major refurbishments at Fleet, Farnborough, Chandlers Ford, and Yateley with work about to commence in Ringwood, Stubbington and Lee-on-Solent. At the end of the two years the £500k will be returned to the book fund.

Moreover the County's commitment to revitalising its library service is shown by the new £1.2m Alton Library opened in September 2004, by the £2m investment in the Gosport Discovery Centre which will open in March 2005, and by the advanced plans for the new library for Winchester and the major extension at Romsey.

This section also looks at opening hours and points out the well known fact that Hampshire's opening hours need to improve. This has been recognised by the County Council and steady progress is being made. In the current year, for example, an extra 19 hours per week have been added taking the score from 83 hours to 102 aggregate opening hours per 1000 population.

This section also foreshadows the Appendices which speak acquisition costs and a "large staff and management structure". Both these issues are addressed later this report.

This section ends with a series of recommendations

Improved performance measurement

Yes, we can agree up to a point

More market research

Yes, although we already undertake significant amounts of Market Research.

Opening hours to be increased with the long term aim of all libraries open from early morning to late evening.

Agree with the need to increase opening hours but appropriately - not necessarily everywhere open as suggested.

Book buying to directed to meet the needs of users and non users - and book fund increased by diverting funds from elsewhere.

Who on earth would the book buying be targeted at if not "users and non users" now? An increase is generally agreed to be desirable but from where it is to be found is more problematical.

Smarten and redecorate libraries economically and over a period of years.

Agree and we are doing this. It is a continuous process - once we have finished it will be time to re-do the first libraries.

Devolution to individual library managers.

Agree and this is underway.

Cost of staff and appropriateness of qualifications to be looked at.

Agree without accepting all of the assumptions in this section.

Review procurement to reduce costs and improve services

Already in hand.

There are no new insights in this section - those areas that we agree with are areas in which we were already taking action

3 KEY MESSAGES FROM "WHO'S IN CHARGE"

The two most important messages in the report are that more money should be spent on books and library opening hours and that moreover that added expenditure can be found from within the money already available by a judicious redirection of funds.

It is Mr Coates's view that the decline in library use is because authorities over the past years have spent less on books and maintaining opening hours and more on staff and management overheads. ¹

The largest section of the report covers a model action plan - in ten parts - which, if adopted, would lead to a turn round in the use made of libraries. Each section of the Action Plan is described briefly in turn and commented upon.

A: PLANNING AND BUDGETING

This section recommends that financial and service planning should be brought together and recommends a five year period. The key aim should be to increase visitor numbers for each library and monthly projections should be given against which performance will be measured. All the budget should be spent on addressing the priorities; all the national standards should be met; initiatives should be costed, prioritised, evaluated; all recent library research incorporated; and budgets and responsibility delegated to library managers.

Section A lists all the desirable activities with further detail fleshed out in the following sections.

B: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

There is a strong concentration upon numeric indicators with weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reporting cycles. A new type of post is required - a Finance and Performance Manager. These reports would be available to Members and to the public.

Qualitative monitoring would be obtained through the use of friends groups, mystery shoppers and surveys. The catchment populations should be profiled and analysed to aid planning and the meting of library standards.

There is absolutely no objection to the qualitative monitoring referred to. "Friends of libraries" are well established in many parts of the country and can be extremely valuable: similarly mystery shopping is a well known technique and one already used in Hampshire. Further investment in market research is also to be encouraged. The level of numeric monitoring appears over the top - almost as if it is a surrogate for a commercial organisation's cash flow.

C: OPENING HOURS

The report says that libraries should be open from early morning to late evening - seven days a week. The use of part time staff is recognised along with the statement that everyone who works in a library (with the exception possibly of the manager of a large library) should be on the "opening rota".

We believe that libraries - as the report says - should be open at times which suit library users. This does not necessarily mean from early morning to late night for each and every library. We agree that hours need to increase - but in a measured and realistic way. There is little point in opening a library in a town centre which is deserted on a Sunday; conversely when a shopping centre is busy on a Sunday the library located there should be open.

We would also disagree with Tim on his use of the phrase "opening rota". By this he means staff able "to open the doors and stamp out books". Many of out large town centre libraries employ specialist librarians - in reference, children's, or readers' adviser work for example - without them the library could not function as a "library" but they do not count towards the "opening rota".

D: READING MATERIAL

The report adequately describes the type of books to be stocked by a public library. It goes on to say that there must be more copies of a greater number of titles so that 95% of demand can be met from copies on the shelf. It also recommends spending £4-5M per year on replacing old items.

This section shows the major "culture clash" between bookshops and libraries. "More copies of a greater number of titles" - most library borrowing is by browsing. The person coming in for a particular book is in the minority. The whole point of a public library is that people read books in turn not that we predict that say twenty people in Winchester will want to read a known book and therefore we buy twenty copies. The skill of the library book selector lies in choosing the right number of copies of titles bearing in mind the immediate demand, the long term demand, the quality of the book from the content point of view, the physical quality of the book, other books in stock on that subject and so on. Libraries are building and holding book stocks for the future - not just maintaining current high interest titles. This difference between bookshops and libraries was mentioned in a recent article in the Bookseller (22 October 2004) where a senior Waterstone's manager said in effect "We are not a library....we hold books that sell."

E: WELCOMING AND WELL DESIGNED LIBRARIES

This section states that money spent on well designed and attractive libraries is not wasted. Shelving layouts need to be attractive and well designed. The buildings need to be well lit, clean, and clearly signposted.

I would agree with all of this section and point out that we do employ extremely talented architects and interior designers: we have recognised that some of our libraries are due for redecoration (and have a £2M, two year plan to begin to address that problem).

F: MANAGING INDIVIDUAL LIBRARIES

The report calls for devolution of management authority for each individual library to one person. This person would work within known framework of expectations e.g. over visitor numbers and would control all the resources available to that service point.

A section at the end refers briefly to sharing buildings, using volunteers and smaller libraries obtaining stock from those in other towns.

Devolution of management authority to one person is a perfectly respectable option for running a large and geographically dispersed service. However it is not appropriate for Hampshire now, nor in the near future. The library service is in a state of transition from a highly centralised and professional management ethos to one where "facility management" and "professional librarianship" has been separated. The facility management side are colleagues who are not professional librarians, they are based in their libraries (and often live in their communities) and have an increasing level of decision making and budgets devolved to them. The librarians are grouped into peripatetic teams looking after a wider area and concentrating upon those tasks which require their skills and training. This system has been in place for one year and will evolve over time.

G: MANAGING THE SERVICE

In this section the report describes the number and type of roles needed to run a modern library service. In total there would be 3 - 6 people with perhaps 3 or 4 clerical staff. There would not be 190 staff "not on the opening rota". There would be a Head of Service; a Finance and Performance Manager; a Property Manager (possibly a shared post); a Stock buyer; a Systems Manager (shared post?); and a Human resources Manager. Any other areas of expertise which were felt to be needed should be added to the skills of one of the above.

This section gets to the heart of the matter as Mr Coates sees it. The 190 people "not on the opening rota" include all the professional librarians engaged in face to face service delivery to the public as well as the more formal headquarters or backroom staff. It is not realistic for 3 people to manage a service employing over 700.

H: APPROPRIATE STAFF FOR DELIVERING SERVICE

The very valid point is made that to the public all people working in a library are "librarians", yet most library authorities have a distinction between library assistants and professionally qualified staff. The report recognises that it is not the place for a detailed examination of the issues around the required skills for staffing public libraries but recognises that such work should be carried out.

I would not disagree with the main thrust behind this section whilst not necessarily accepting such a sweeping statement as "The demarcation between professional and non-professional staff should cease." In essence the report is saying monies for increasing the bookfund and improving opening hours would come from employing less well qualified and thus less expensive staff.

I: BOOK ACQUISITION, SUPPLY AND LOAN SYSTEMS

This section deals with the way in which library authorities purchased books and make them available to the public. In Mr Coates' view libraries waste significant amounts of money on this process and were they to adopt book trade methods substantial sums could be added to the bookfund. The report suggests for example that it is not necessary to identify individual copies of a book, nor to classify them nor label them. Libraries should work with the book trade, and adopt the processes used by innovators such as Amazon.

As with a lot of this report one has to agree with this section up to a point. It is obviously right that authorities should seek to minimise the costs of acquisition, although it must be said that Hampshire's costs are nothing like those quoted in the report. The view that books do not need classifying or labelling is an interesting one. Certainly for many libraries the very close classification to full Dewey standards is perhaps unnecessary and a form of stock categorisation can be employed. However the view that there is sufficient information on the book jacket to enable staff to re-shelve the returned items consistently so that that item may be found when needed is frankly ludicrous as is the view that individual copies of a separate item do not need to be identifiable.

J: MANAGING CHANGE

There is a recognition that change is exciting for those who devise it yet stressful for those who it affects. Yet change is necessary.

I agree.

4 OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

Part Four of the report looks at the role of the DCMS (Department of Culture, Media and Sport) and MLA (The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council) in overseeing the public library service. The basic recommendation is that the MLA encourages and challenges library authorities to improve performance in all areas. Advice and expertise should be brought in from outside the library sector and government needs to be sure that the MLA has the ability and resources to carry out the task.

This chapter also addresses the role of the Audit Commission and recommends a national performance management framework with the Commission being stricter in its assessments and more assiduous in pursuing poor performing library authorities. The need for commercial experience is stressed again.

The final section recommends user groups and friends of libraries and gives basic information that members of such groups might find useful.

APPENDIX 1

This Appendix is lists the staff employed. Throughout the report there are references to "a large staff and management structure" and "a substantial number of professional librarians are not on the opening rota". The reality is, of course, rather different.

The largest group of staff which fall into the "not on the opening rota" category are the librarians. We have deliberately separated the roles of the professionally qualified librarians from the operational staff who run the libraries on a day to day basis. The philosophy behind this is to ensure that our librarians are able to devote as much of their time as possible to work requiring their training and expertise and to have the libraries managed by other teams of staff. This is not the only model which would work but it is the model appropriate for Hampshire's library service now, and for the at least the immediate future.

The librarians' work falls in five major categories:

Children's and Youth - these colleagues work with children and young people, their parents, carers and teachers to instil a love of books and reading which should last a lifetime. The informal learning, education and understanding of life experiences that comes from exposure to the best in children's imaginative literature is of incalculable value. Without reading schemes such as those run through the summer months children's learning would be severely impoverished.

Reader Development Librarians - larger libraries have readers advisors working directly with the public helping people find the books they need. Part of their work is outside library buildings developing such activities as reading groups . They also play a role in stock selection and stock management.

Reference, Information and Lifelong learning - these librarians are employed in our largest libraries dealing with enquiries from the public on a very wide range of subjects. Matters dealt with include business and commercial information, community information, legal queries, and consumer affairs as well as people researching whatever interest they may have (whether it be for work, study, or leisure) to whatever level they wish to reach. Organisations such as the Open University would find it hard to function without the national network of public libraries.

Local studies - each major library collects and preserves information about its locality. Many of the larger collections are of national significance and they are used by researchers ranging in age from young schoolchildren to university professors. This is a growth area with as there is an ever increasing interest in family history and in the history of one's own town or village.

Equal Access - our equal access librarians are employed to see that the benefits of the library service may be made available to all - despite perhaps difficult individual circumstances. Work is undertaken for example with people who are housebound or resident in an old people's home, members of ethnic minorities, inmates in closed institutions, or people who are perhaps visually impaired or have a hearing disability.

Other staff include the Head of Operations and two Customer Service Managers. (The post of Change Facilitator was transitional and has been deleted). This give a field management ratio of three colleagues to 74 service points.(55 static and 19 mobile libraries). Interestingly when a major book chain was created by a merger a few years ago "a deliberately top heavy field management structure was established" with "six regional managers covering only ten or twelve shops each." (Bookseller 13 March 1998).

There is a small Strategy and Performance Section which covers such things as performance management, business planning, monitoring, staff development and managing projects such as library refurbishments. This section also includes the van drivers (who transport books and equipment around the county), the clerical staff and the one colleague who looks after all the contracts and non-book purchasing.

The ICT section is located in libraries but covers all of recreation and heritage. The idea that one person could undertake the role of this section of 5 people is ridiculous.

The Head of County Services assists in the overall management and direction of the service as well as a coordinating the work of the specialists. The work of the Children's Youth and School Service has been in part covered above. The second part is fully paid for by the individual schools who choose to buy the schools library service from their full devolved budgets. Information and Lifelong Learning and Local Studies has been covered above; the Local Government Information Service is provided for the whole County Council; the "Special Project" was externally funded - the project is now complete and the staff have left. The Digitisation Project Officer post has been deleted and the People's Network Manager looks after the public access to the Internet initiative. The Equal Access Manager develops, promotes and manages the service described above and the salary costs of the two colleagues are met externally.

The work of the stock section is covered in the notes to Appendix 3.

APPENDIX 3

This appendix deals with acquisition costs and purports to show that it costs Hampshire £24 to buy a £10 book. In reality the figure is £8.07. This is made up of the cost of the book after discount of £6.35, servicing, £0.32, selection £0.39 and Acquisition costs £1.01.

Section 100D - Local Government Act 1972 - Background Papers

The following documents disclose facts or matters on which this report, or an important part of it, is based and has been relied upon to a material extent in the preparation of this report.

NB the list excludes:

Published works and documents which disclose exempt or confidential information as defined in the Act.

None