Alan Gibbons’ Blog

Oh it’s a hectic life as CILIP CEO - how I’ll (almost) miss it when it’s gone!

Yesterday, back on the radio, this time for Sally’s lunchtime phone-in on BBC Radio Leeds. Yes, libraries are under threat; yes, we need to campaign about the value of libraries (and librarians); yes, we also need to support libraries through challenging times; yes, we need the help of the good people of Yorkshire to speak up for their local library service. It’s all on the BBC iPlayer and CILIP President Biddy Fisher is following up with a piece in the Yorkshire Post.

Today, off to the Local Government Association for the first meeting of the grandly titled Governance Board for the new Libraries Support Programme announced by Ed Vaizey on 1 July.

The Board was co-chaired with brisk enthusiasm by Rob (Whiteman, Managing Director, Local Government Improvement and Development, part of the LGA Group) and Roy (Clare, Chief Executive of Museums Libraries Archives, MLA). Submissions to phase one of the Support Programme have been received and up to ten pathfinder projects will be announced in the week beginning 16 August. Consultancy support will be provided for the pathfinders and a second phase will follow in which learning from the pathfinders will be shared with a larger group of public library authorites - 30 or 40 was the number mentioned - in order to build capacity for change through peer group support.

My question - about a phase three for the remainder of the 151 public library authorities in England - was met with a splendid mouthful of govspeak from Rob and Roy about a new relationship between central and local government in terms of place-based investment across the cultural sector emerging after the Spending Review in October. Make of that what you will but it sounds like the Arts Council to me, given the government’s announcememt yesterday of the intention to abolish MLA and the Advisory Council on Libraries - see the main CILIP website for CILIP’s response to that announcement.

Highlights from the Governance Board meeting? Rob’s emphasis on the need to get libraries on the agenda across government, echoing Ed Vaizey’s comments on 1 July. Roy’s insistence that community engagement needs to be an integral part of the Support Programme, echoing the comment in the meeting by David Ruse (Society of Chief Librarians) that everything should start with an assessment of local need -  a point made very clearly by Sue Charteris in her report of the Wirral Inquiry last year. The suggestion from Paul Philpott (DCLG, the Department for Communities and Local Government) that exploratory models of library provision might include a “Total Profession” model by which all the publicly funded libraries in a locality (public, school, college, university, health, etc) come together into one aggregated whole. And the participation of Race Online 2012, the organisation led by Martha Lane Fox (who has been saddled by government with the title of  ”the UK’s digital champion”) with the aim of getting the UK 100% online (whatever that means) by the time of the London Olympics. Helen Williams (Head of Libraries and Archives at DCMS) was quick to point out to meafter the meeting that Martha has spoken very positively about the role libraries can play in the digital inclusion agenda - another point made by Ed Vaizey on 1 July.

So it’s beena good start to the week in terms of the twin objectives of campaigning for the value of libraries (Radio Leeds and the Yorkshire Post) and supporting libraries (today’s meeting to note progress with the Libraries Support Programme). But, of course, there’s now a third objective as well following yesterdays announcement about the eventual demise of MLA and ACL: getting the government to clarify its intentions regarding the future leadership framework for libraries at national level now that they’ve announced their intention to dismantle the current framework; and wondering if there’s an opprtunity here for professional bodies like CILIP (and the Museums Association and the Archives and Records Association) to take on a bigger role in that future leadership framework.

Exciting times ahead, eh? It makes me (almost) sad to be stepping down!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 7:37 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.