It is well worth using Radio 4’s listen again service on your PC to catch the discussion between Culture Minister Margaret Hodge and library campaigner Tim Coates (You and Yours, 30/10/2009 near the end of the programme). Hodge was, as usual with politicians, extremely adept at talking out time. She also, very annoyingly, interrupted Tim’s attempt to make points.
Her remarks indicated the direction of Government thinking in the run up to the publication of the DCMS review. Hodge adopted a ’scatter gun’ approach, raising for discussion a number of initiatives:
*ordering and returning books to any branch, using a National Library Card (an idea raised by Shadow Minister Ed Vaizey).
*buying books from libraries (an idea roundly condemned by book sellers.
*ordering books using an Amazon style service (an idea dismissed by one local authority as expensive and inefficient
Tim argued that the basic flaws of the library service for years (insufficient leadership, inadequate book stock, tired buildings) had to be addressed first, before any additional initiatives were undertaken. Hodge largely ignored his arguments, putting falling loans and visits down to factors such as lack of time, internet usage and demographic changes. She side-stepped Tim’s point that some areas have successfully raised book-borrowing. My reading of the debate is that Mrs Hodge isn’t really interested in learning from such experiences. It simply isn’t ’sexy’ and new age enough.
The other ghost at the banquet was the APPG parliamentary report’s conclusion that leadership of the service had been ‘woeful.” To argue as she did that objective factors like new technology are the main drivers of falling library use rather than subjective factors such as poor leadership and ill-directed resources seems to be wilfully missing the point.
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November 3rd, 2009 at 8:31 am
Yes, it can be really annoying sometimes when someone doesn’t just act as an echo-sounder to one’s own views.
That idea of a national library card didn’t emanate from Vaizey. He doesn’t have ideas. My view of it is , that it is vaguely attractive as some kind of a headline, but isn’t a core issue. And if implemented would be very much tied in with the, if elected, Conservative enthusiasm for Ryanair pricing mechanisms for public services. That is, they attach no value to the service itself, the customer attaches value to the (additional) service and confirms that value by a willingess to pay highly for it.
In my view, this is ultimately destructive for public services, libraries and otherwise. In the case of libraries , if you are relatively poor, it just emphasises it.
As I’ve said before, Vaizey and co do seem to be having an astonishingly easy, and unquestioning, ride on the run up to an election…….