Our local situation
Nottinghamshire have cut opening hours at many branches, and generally we were in agreement that their approach to cuts were not particularly strategic, and their solutions not particularly imaginative; i.e. reducing opening hours and cutting book budgets, rather than thinking about how best to serve their communities and looking at alternative revenue sources. MPs can only make recommendations to councils, but it’s good that she would encourage ours to take a different tack.

Changes to library services
As a trained lawyer, Anna was keen that volunteers did not replace professionals, so we were generally on the same page here. I also made her aware of some of the issues around charging for library services, and the (profession-wide) suspicion that charging for internet access or non-paper books (both have happened in local authorities) set a dangerous precedent which might eventually lead to charging for e-books, if not traditional book loans.

The national situation
Anna was quite interested in The modernisation review of public libraries, which I’ve found immensely informative. She did offer to raise a question about what happened to this report in parliament, but as Ed Vaizey seems to have ruled out implementing any of the ideas in the report, I suspect that there’s little that can be done. It’s a shame, because many of the recommendations in the report are small, but only seem implementable at a national scale.

As the Nottinghamshire Public Libraries service is not one where intervention on the grounds of the statutory duty seems appropriate, there’s not a huge amount to be done at this stage (apparently MPs are expected to only raise questions about issues that affect their own constituency) but it’s good to have made contact and raised awareness of the issues we’re facing, and I’d encourage others to do the same with their MP. I’ve urged Anna to get in touch with me if she has any questions, or would like further information on libraries in general, so I’m hoping there’ll be some follow-up.

Read-in-ers at Beeston Library

I went down to my local library in Beeston this weekend with a couple of friends to participate in the read-in protest taking place, addressing the cuts to public libraries taking place in Nottinghamshire (we’ve been spared closures but book budgets and opening hours have been slashed).

There were several readings about books and libraries, organised by local independent publisher Five Leaves Publications, which were lovely, and a bigger crowd than I’ve ever seen packed in to the library. My only regret was that the services libraries provide other than books were given a back seat for the day, but I guess having a single clear message is a valuable stance for this kind of event.

Once the readings were over, we were encouraged to take away as many books as we could – I managed a paltry seven of my 24 book allowance, but couldn’t face carrying any more back to my house (we were on foot and it’s over a mile!) despite bringing my sturdiest librarian bag for the occasion.

I thought my haul was a great illustration of the diversity of public library stock: two fantasy novels, one collection of short stories, a travel guide for my summer holiday, a book on knitting, the music to the first season of Glee, and the graphic novel Tamara Drewe (on which the film was based) all of which I genuinely wanted to read. Hopefully I can carry them back in shifts!

There’s still plenty of opportunity to get involved if you weren’t able to attend a read-in or other protest last weekend: why not check out the CILIP guide to Save Our Libraries Day for ideas?

Dear Anna Soubry,

I’m writing to you about the threats to public libraries in Nottinghamshire. Recent news has revealed some small changes to the massive cuts proposed to the library service: a 50% cut in the book budget rather than a 75% cut and some smaller libraries no longer reduced to an 8 hour week http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-12277741. For an educational service which supports exactly those people educational services usually fail, these small concessions are good news, but cold comfort given the extent of the cuts going ahead.

As a librarian myself, I work in the academic sector with students and academic staff. Before I decided to go and work in academic libraries, I’ll admit I hadn’t stepped in a public library for years, although I loved them as a child. But as I studied for my postgraduate qualification in librarianship, I learnt more about the services that libraries offer – reading groups, community events, vital internet access for those who can’t afford their own connection. I found my interest revitalised. I joined my public library again.

By the time I moved to Beeston this September I was a born again public library user: joining the local library and heading down to pick up my first armful of books made me feel like I was truly a part of the community. I’ll be joining that community in our library in Beeston on the 5th February, at just one of a number of read-ins taking place across the country demonstrating the value of library services to the communities they serve.

If you’re wondering exactly what you, as an MP, can do, I’m sure you’ve been contacted by CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, with their guidelines on the questions MPs should ask about local library cuts and closures. In case it fell by the wayside, they’re available at http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/public-libraries/Pages/goodlibraries.aspx – they’re well worth reading.

Yours sincerely,

Katie Fraser

PS. I’m posting this on my personal library blog at www.chuukaku.com/blog as I think it’s important for this issue to gain as much exposure as possible. Please do let me know if you would like me to share any response in that forum.

View from the upper floor of Worksop Library. Apologies for the blurriness: only had my camera phone!

In November I went on a visit to Worksop Public Library run by the East Midlands branch of CILIP, which combined a workshop on CILIP qualifications (relevant to my chartership) and a tour of the library.

It was good to meet people who were in a similar stage of chartership and the talk from Kath Owen was great. This was the first part of my plan to get beyond the ‘gathering evidence’ stage of my chartership and actually start putting together something which looks like a portfolio. As I’ve finally regained my free time after buying a house in September (hence the lack of activity on this blog since then!) I should have lots more opportunity to make that happen!

Worksop Library is newly built and only opened on 20th September 2010. It’s lovely: my photos really didn’t do it justice, so I’d recommend checking out the photos from the day on the East Midlands Branch Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/emboc/sets/72157625342805449/. It’s a beautiful rebuild.

What was really inspiring for me, though, was hearing all about how the library had gone the extra mile in embedding itself in the community since the reopening. The library had worked alongside community businesses to help open up author days and put on lots of community activities. They were also co-located with other services, including a registry office (and gorgeous little wedding chapel!) and a day centre for those with disabilities.

With my chartership hat on I was particularly interested in how the library has fostered relationships with the other services in the building. I think it’s often assumed that putting two services together will automatically lead to collaboration, but in my experience it’s far from that easy! For example, the Student Development team in the University are based in the library building at my current post, but we’re still working on ways to work together.

At Worksop collaboration and co-location seemed to have worked well: you could tell that staff from different services all knew each other, and day centre users were happy to wander out into the library and get books. I asked after the tour and the staff were keen to stress that it had needed a lot of personal commitment. Clearly something to think about doing more in my post (I’m a liaison librarian, after all!).

The only downer of the day was going into the staff room and noticing a newspaper clipping about library cuts on the noticeboard. It’s all the more heartbreaking to think about the impact of cuts when you see what a little investment in library services can do, and Nottinghamshire County Council is getting hit hard http://www.thebookseller.co.uk/news/131578-protests-begin-over-library-cuts-in-nottinghamshire.html. I hope the momentum Worksop Library gained when the new build opened isn’t lost completely in these hard times.

This visit was a little bit different from the Derbyshire Public Libraries visit, as instead of going to the flagship library as we did in Chesterfield, we visited a couple of branch libraries, in this case Parson Cross and Upperthorpe Libraries. These were an interesting mix. Parson Cross is quite far out of Sheffield, and a fairly old library, but due to be replaced by an exciting new library within a community centre soon. Upperthorpe is a relatively new library, based in a community centre including a swimming pool – in fact, I remember the renovation works on the old swimming baths where it’s housed taking place when I lived in Sheffield before! To illustrate this post you’ve got a picture of the children’s library in each, Parson Cross to the right, and Upperthorpe below. I’ve picked the children’s area as they’re always nice and cheerful, but I also think the pictures nicely illustrate the slight differences between the two – with Parson Cross being cheery but slightly dingy (or well-loved, perhaps), and the Upperthorpe slightly brighter and airier.

After the tours around the two libraries (we were bused between the two) we had the opportunity to talk to some senior staff from Sheffield Libraries. As with the Chesterfield Public Libraries visit I came away feeling a little bit of guilt about public libraries not being my sector of choice. However, I think the visits did confirm for me that I really wouldn’t like to work in a branch of a public library. Don’t get me wrong – they both looked like fantastic places, and I’d happily be a library user in either. The community aspect of libraries, while valuable to me, however, is not what I’m interested in libraries for: my passion lies in the information side of library work, and helping people locate and use resources. On the other hand, it made me think about the possibility of working in a public library in a more central, administrative area. Some of the profit making and project based arms of Sheffield Libraries sounded really intriguing, and I’d definitely be happy working in a more information-focused role in a public library. Never say never!

Derbyshire sounds like a fantastic library service to work for: they seem up to speed with the political agenda, open to new ideas about how to make the library service work for the public, and full of initiatives for drawing new users in. My personal favourite aspect of the library was how much natural light came in: I find so many libraries in every sector lack this. Of course, part of their agenda was to sell their service to us – in a year we’ll be potential job applicants – it’ll be interesting to see whether that’s a theme in future visits too!

One of the things I enjoyed thinking about during the visit was how academic and research libraries could learn from the way things are done in public libraries. The picture in the top right shows the front-facing books displays which seem to be becoming pretty common in public libraries. I was wondering if academic libraries could benefit from similar displays. Universities often concentrate on core texts for undergraduates, but as a postgraduate I certainly would have been tempted by a display of intellectual classics. For example, when I was an undergraduate my lecturer claimed that every educated adult should have read ‘The Selfish Gene‘ by Richard Dawkins, and I know I’m always telling people to pick up ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat‘ by Oliver Sacks. Promoting books as tangible and desirable artefacts isn’t really done in academia, but it could lead to wider reading, expand minds and encourage interdisciplinary thought. In fact, reading without a specific learning outcome in mind is something the academic sector could borrow from public libraries in general!

The response to the display among our library staff was really interesting – I’d say the instinctive reaction was to be slightly defensive about promoting a different library. However, when they saw that we’d focused on the things that made us different it reduced the element of competition. Lots of staff seemed interested in finding out more, and we even had a member of staff or two suggest they might check out some of the services! I think it’s a good idea to some kind of dialogue between different library services in this way: there is the potential for traffic to pass between academic and public services, and perhaps even a small gesture of friendship like this between the two might make us a little bit more likely to think of each other as comrades in arms!

Anglia Ruskin University Library, Chelmsford seems rather modern in comparison to the more traditional university library where I do my graduate traineeship. One of the major takeaway points of the visit was how the differences between the two libraries reflect the differences in our studentship. For example, Anglia Ruskin has a lot of distance learners, in comparison to the large number of international students we actually have living on campus here, and our large number of postgraduate students mean that we need a much larger legacy collection than them, which even affects the cataloguing – they get in books already classified, whereas ours have to be altered to fit a legacy system. Anglia Ruskin are a lot larger in terms of the number of students, and this means they also have a much larger number of staff, with faculty and subject librarians across the two campuses. Overall, their set up made them feel more vibrant and efficient, but our library feels more learned and home-y. Each has its place, I guess. Interestingly, they used many of the same technology providers as we used when I was at Nottingham University Libraries – such as LMS, digital library, RFID scanners – I wonder if there’s any connection there.

Colchester Sixth Form Library was also very interesting. I’ll admit that I hadn’t really considered working in what I’d deemed to be ‘school libraries’. However, the sixth form college seemed far from school life, and while the library was small, it had a really nice atmosphere. Because of the small librarian staff I felt quite envious of the range of tasks that were involved in work there. The College Librarian had a fantastic job involving everything from cataloguing and classification, to information literacy training, to maintenance of the Virtual Learning Environment. The small team seemed to mean much more variety, and she was able to use a wide range of internet services to present and provide information to students. I guess without the corporate image of a University to support, it’s a lot easier to mix and match and be a bit more 2.0! Universities are still where my heart lies, but I’ve got to say I’m tempted!

Apologies for the lack of photographs – rain and a lack of good vistas prevented it. A hectic time and reduced internet access (house moves etc.) mean that this blog hasn’t been updated to my usual targets, but hopefully I’m back on the wagon now!

I joined my local library when I decided that maybe I wanted to be a librarian one day. It’s actually quite illuminating to see a service entirely as a user, so I guess I see librarians joining libraries as an opportunity for professional development, rather than an ideological imperative. However, I share Jennie’s guilt. I haven’t joined my local library while I’m on my year-long trainee placement. I barely go into town, and we have a fiction section in our academic library, which provides all the literature I need. I have visited the library out of curiosity, a library is always a good bolt hole in an unfamiliar town, and I’ve been on a visit to Chelmsford Public Library, part of the same Essex system, so I’ve got an idea of how it works behind the scenes as well.

My favourite fact I gleaned from Essex Public Libraries is that I’m not really the library’s target audience, so that makes me feel a bit better. The active acquisitions head revealed that libraries cater better for some than others, as some are much bigger users of libraries than others. This is partly in response to perceived need. Some of my favourite genres (sci fi, graphic novels) are purposefully stocked in low numbers, as readers of these tend to buy their own materials. And yes, said head pointed out how circular this was. Apparently I need to develop a taste for ‘sagas’ (read: Mills and Boon) to truly benefit from the local library’s stock!

How important is it to know about (let alone use) public libraries in order to be a good librarian? An ex-colleague of mine, working in an academic library, was put out when his chartership was questioned on the grounds of a lack of reference to public libraries. Some assume that public libraries are the ‘real’ libraries, and that other librarianship is just a pale, commercial shadow. You certainly wouldn’t expect a chartering public librarian to be criticised for failing to include references to special libraries in their materials. However, neither would a public librarian be eligible to become a user in the majority of special libraries.

I think that assuming librarians will be public library users is a bit naive. However, as individuals it’s well worth taking the time to learn a few lessons from our local public library. It seems to me that one of the major jobs of any librarian is convincing his or her userbase that he or she is not just the keeper of a bunch of book shelves. Looking beyond our book-based needs as users to see what services the library can provide us therefore makes a whole lot of sense. Thinking about our own enthusiasm for such value-added services (or lack thereof) can help us think about how to market our own services to users. Of course, if we truly believe that the only service the public library offers for librarians (and others like them) is obsolete, maybe we should go and give our colleagues a good sharp poke in the ribs.