Archived decisions
Hampshire County Council
Executive Member - Recreation and Heritage Item 5
13 September 2007
Library charges for implementation in April 2008
Report of the Director of Recreation and Heritage
Contact: Stephen Edwards tel: 826630 e-mail: [email protected]
1. Introduction
1.1 Current request charges are: In county stock 50p; Inter Library Loan £1:50 (urgents no extra charge); International Inter Library Loan £7:50; Subject Search £1:50. There is now a need to review these in the light of staff time involved and of postal and other inflation costs.
1.2 It is unlikely that the proposed changes will greatly affect income levels and the use of the Inter Library Loan service overall but they do result from a business process review which highlighted the need for charges to reflect the degree of staff time involved.
1.3 There is no proposal to raise any other charges (e.g. overdue charges) this year. The full list of current charges is attached at Appendix 1.
2. Recommendations
2.1 That the Executive Member for Recreation & Heritage approve the following recommendations:
i) That from 1 April 2008 the request/inter library loan charges be set at:
In county stock: 50p
Inter Library Loan: £1:50
Urgent Inter Library Loan: £2:50
International Inter Library Loan: £8
ii) That from 1 April 2008, the charge for a subject search be set at: £3
3. Background
Urgent Inter Library Loans
3.1 Inter Library Loans - requests for items not held in Hampshire stock that have to be borrowed from other regions or national institutions - is a value added service for which we recover a proportion of our costs. The inter library loan system is used when it is more economic to borrow than to purchase the item concerned. When customers need an item by a particular deadline that has to be provided through inter library loan networks, our urgents service guarantees immediate action is taken by both the branch and the interloans team, bypassing existing processes:
· Branch staff phone or fax urgents to Library HQ interrupting their normal workflow.
· The interloans team interrupts their work to make regular checks for urgent faxes, to write out phone requests and to action them immediately upon arrival.
· Urgents receive a premium service. Extra checks are made to verify availability, (this involves time consuming checks carried out via the online catalogues of potential suppliers); a manual file is maintained to monitor the progress of each application to ensure the deadline is met and manual chasers have to be phoned through, (normally interloans are managed via the automated Unity UK work queue).
· We may incur extra charges as the supplier will be chosen on the basis of speed rather than cost.
· The branch staff notify the customer that urgents are available by phone.
3.2 The urgents service does not offer the customer a guaranteed supply time. However, it does guarantee that every effort will be made to meet the customer's specified deadline and failure to do so guarantees the customer will not pay over and above the normal request fee. It is now proposed, however, that there be a charge of £1 levied for successfully providing Inter Library Loan items by a specified deadline. Our inter library loan charges are commensurate with those charged by other authorities.
International Inter Library Loan Service
3.3 The postal costs of providing the international inter library loan service means that charges should rise from £7:50 to £8
Subject Search
3.4 A subject search is a request for information on a particular topic, where nothing can be found in Library stock and where customers and/or staff have not been able to identify specific titles to order. NB This does not include detailed genealogical, market or technical research.
3.5 In order to respond to these, we search a range of sources, including print, online databases and the Internet for information on the chosen subject. Whenever possible we supply monographs or periodical articles providing the information needed. These are supplied via a designated `pick-up branch'. Should we fail to find anything relevant, or if we are unable to borrow suitable items, we endeavour to provide a bibliography and/or contact details of internet sources or other organisations which will assist research. Occasionally, we may also decide to purchase relevant publications.
3.6 The complexity of subject search requests has been increasing in recent years such that there is now a need for considerable staff expertise and experience in searching the Internet. The amount of time spent on each request has therefore been rising. It is now proposed that the charge be increased from £1:50 to £3.
4. Legal Implications
4.1 Charges for facilities in public libraries are governed by regulations issued in 1991 under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. These regulations are framed in a way that gives local authorities the power to charge for a wide range of services and complete discretion over the level of the charges. However, they specifically preclude charges for the core library function of lending written material.
5. Impact Assessment
5.1 The existing exemptions and concessionary charges for requests will still apply and the proposals are in line with the Recreation and Heritage charging policy.
LINK TO CORPORATE STRATEGY
Yes No
Hampshire safer and more secure for all
Maximising well-being _
Enhancing our quality of place
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