Following on from my previous post Through the Barricades, I received the following from library campaigner, Frances Hendrix, which I thought deserved greater prominence. My thanks to Frances for sharing.

“I have always thought of pubic libraries as evidence of the UK’s attitude to learning, knowledge, freedom of information and the importance of reading for learning and leisure. As I have written before, in the small village I lived in queues formed once a week to await the arrival of the box of books coming from the larger library in the small town some 4 miles away.

But since then everything has changed. Who would have thought that by the year 2000 plus, we could travel on our holidays with as many books as we wished on our iPad, courtesy of Amazon etc. However, even though I do just that, it is for mainly fiction, newly published, but my family and I still buy non fiction, travel and other illustrated books in hard copy.And we have a house full of books from all ages and all subjects. In fact my daughter, when she was at school and had a new project would despair when i said ‘oh we have a book on that’! Thus her essay on Archimboldo!

Much else has changed since my youth, the range of TV programmes and the accessibility of TV and other devices, CD’s and video, on-line newspapers, and so on, so I feel to some extent we, in the profession, have not done enough to keep up with the times, and with the offer we should have been making, and promoting that in a more professional manner.

I admit I am fortunate and can afford to buy what I want and need, MANY others are not, and not only should a library provide the reading material, in a clean and accessible way (accessible by virtue of it being there, being clean and with sensible opening hours),but also promoting its services in a much more proactive way.

Book shops have done this very successfully., clean, bright, well stocked, open everyday except Sunday (although some may open Sunday), and bright displays both in and out of the store available on most high streets. Whereas many public libraries are rather dowdy places, with no facilities and poor toilets etc. Yes I know many tried to have coffee etc, but many haven’t changed in years. Also some have had some very peculiar rules. I recall working for one large authority where anyone titled (and there were quite a few in this up market area), was not charged fines! I queried this, but the answer was, this is what we have always done. The same authority also did not allow females to wear trousers on the mobile.

Again I broke this rule, as it was freezing in the winter. needless to say I wasn’t there long, but did leave of my own freewill.
I worked in another authority in a very, very busy branch library, and the volunteer staff, who normally worked on a Saturday, were absolutely fantastic. They were an additional resource mainly for check out and shelving, and the branch would not have worked without them.

So what am I getting at? Well I just don’t think that we, as a profession, have ever had the clout, the PR skills, or the determination to raise the profile of our service and work inside our authority or direct to the public. It has often been the ‘outsider’ to the profession who have pushed the service to new activities etc.

Take automation, the professional librarian in public libraries were not the pushers for this advance. When I worked in Birmingham it was the 2 universities (Birmingham and Aston, and at that time I was in Aston, and the then progressive and active public library), that pushed for the use of Marc records for instance. LASER, where I also worked, was fundamental in automating Inter Lending, providing union catalogues and extending the service UK wide. But there was resistance for all of these and many other initiatives that were frowned upon by many chiefs.

The Professional Body must also be held to some extent, to be part of the problem. For many years their profile was low, their impact negligible, their aroma fuddy duddy! It took the charisma, energy and vitality, as well as the contacts and charm of Lord Matthew Evans to get the ‘People’s Network’ off the ground.

I can hear you now, ‘who does she think she is’ etc. Well these are my experiences and views. BUT our major issue as a service was/is being part of local government, which is not well-known for its drive, energy, forward thinking etc., and often did not think highly of, or treat appropriately the head of the public library service. So much more could have been achieved working and supporting public libraries much better than they were.

Some research projects LASER did for the British Library R&D many years ago, was to examine who and why people were obtaining material on Inter Library Loan from their libraries, many from tiny little branches. The whole world was their oyster, they requested books from all over the world to help with identifying illnesses, starting up businesses, on their own hobbies of for example collecting rare china, to support university research in all sorts of subjects. All done via their public library.

Yes things have changed, access to information for the individual or the business (I recall the manic use and business of Birmingham Public Libraries Business library), with access to the worlds books, journals, research etc available at your desk and in your home. But of course so much more can be done on one’s own PC.

So I suppose what I am saying in some way is it is time for a new model for public libraries. Take them away from the dull, ill-informed and useless local government. Train our librarians to be more forceful, persuasive, business canny and energetic, with high levels of IT skills. Let us move on and up and rethink and fight for what we believe in!”