Press Release

Library Campaign Press Releases/ Statements

• DCMS Consultation paper (issued 1 December 2009)

DCMS REVIEW IGNORES PEOPLE WHO USE LIBRARIES...

Today libraries minister Margaret Hodge published her 'public libraries modernisation review' – or the latest version of it. It's a consultation paper.

That's just as well – because it says nothing at all about what library users want. Why? They weren't asked!

This just isn't good enough, says The Library Campaign – the national umbrella body for Friends and users of libraries.

The review was first announced over a year ago (October 2008). Library ministers/secretaries of state have come and gone. Work has been commissioned, round tables staged. But not with the people who use libraries. What they want doesn't seem to matter.

Quizzed about this this morning, Margaret Hodge said the review was aimed at 'the professionals' alone. Told that trade union Unison is to hold a 'people's inquiry' on 11 February to find out what real people want, she said that would be too late – her final report won't take account of it.

The Library Campaign will be doing all it can to make Mrs Hodge listen to the voice that really matters – the children, adults, old people, schoolchildren and many others who use public libraries – and want to be consulted.

But why should it be made so difficult?

• Wirral report (issued 30 November 2009)

AT LAST! THE WIRRAL REPORT. AT LAST! SOME SENSE!

The Library Campaign – the national umbrella body for Friends and users of public libraries – warmly welcomes the report of the inquiry in Wirral council's decision to close 11 much-valued small public libraries.

It is excellent. And – very clearly – it finds a definite breach of statutory duty by WBC (Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council). This has never happened before.

Wirral has already wriggled out of taking any blame – by simply cancelling its whole plan before the report got published. The Minister has cheerfully gone along with this. The plan has been 'revoked' so there's no breach, according to DCMS. What a disappointment.

But the report must surely alter the decision-making landscape. And just in time.

As cuts loom nationwide, many local councils will be thinking about Wirral-type ideas. 'Fewer is better' was WBC's mantra. We'll be hearing this one quite a lot, I suspect.

Or will we? The inquiry was carried out (by Sue Charteris) with scrupulous fairness. Its report is the same. It does not vilify WBC. It states WBC's point of view.

But it boils down to – 'If you are going to make drastic changes to people's services (1) FIND OUT ABOUT THEM and (2) CONSIDER THE PEOPLE AFFECTED (3) ASK THEM WHAT THEY THINK'. WBC did none of these, the inquiry finds. Local people said so very loudly. They had to go through months of demonstrtating, campaigning and simply asking to be heard, to get this far. The Library Campaign hopes they will now get the service they deserve.

If local councils adopt these principles, much ground will have been gained. Library users ask no more. And, by the way, WBC's awful plan was NOT in any way dreamed up by WBC's library chief, or any of its staff.

Despite the DCMS failing to give this report a proper endorsement – surely these principles have got some legs now. That has to be good for users and librarians alike. We just have to make sure the message gets across. Big-time.

Author: Andrew Coburn