Cambridge Library innovation and enterprise Centre

It's come to light today that Cambridgeshire Council has Big Plans for Cambridge Central Library. These plans were agreed at Tuesday's meeting of the Highways and Community Infrastructure Committee.

The report presented to the committee and the summary of decisions are both available online. I've had a very quick read through, and these are some of what I think are the salient points:

• '1.4 The Council was approached by Kora to create a Cambridge Library innovation and enterprise Centre (CLEC)'

Kora are these folks, I think.

• '1.5 Services are aimed at students, young people and adult career changers, those returning to work or growing their business, entrepreneurs, start-ups, corporations, individuals and groups.'
• '1.6 The creation of CLEC is envisaged as an enhanced offer for customers, creating an opportunity to re-position the Adult Learning and Skills, Careers and Youth Support Services to more prominence' 

OK, so services for people who might want services from a library, and making those services visible...

• '2.3 Kora would manage a large proportion of this floor, charging for the use of the entrepreneurs lounge, co-working and individual workspaces, and some events.'

Mmm-hmm. Private company managing part of the library space, and charging for it's use? Not so fond of that.

• '2.4 ... current café would be replaced with a small, high quality coffee-bar style refreshment service' and in 2.9 'tailored to the needs of business users'

Current café is cheap, friendly, welcoming, sort of place parents can take squalling children, or older people can sit all morning, or people without anywhere much else to go can stretch out a cuppa.

• '2.10 ... it would take 8 weeks to install the enterprise centre on the third floor and require at least one week closure of the whole library (three weeks maximum).'

Unless they find more structural problems like with the major refurb, I guess...

• '5.1    Resource Implications
• The Business Plan assumes returns from CLEC or a similar venture.  If it is not developed, further savings in the business plan will be required to make up the shortfall.'

The council's relying on the money from this, so if it doesn't bring in returns that's not good. But private collaborations like this always turn out fine, eh?

Anyway, I'm not perfectly sure what I think, but it seems to have sprung from nowhere rather quickly, which isn't great. And I don't like the idea of private running of library spaces, or of serious charging for space use.

There's a protest organised by the local MP and a  petition.

Wigan redux, or how CILIP got my goat this week

I finally got round to opening and reading an issue of CILIP Update this week, and almost immediately had to put to down again because it made me cross.

At the foot of page 12 appears a small two-column news piece on the sale of rare books from Wigan public libraries (as mentioned previously on this blog). Unfortunately, the whole tenor of this short news piece is that selling off rare books is a perfectly sound way to raise money for public libraries.  The headline is 'Rare books raise cash for service', which makes it sound like this is all a jolly good idea, and possibly something other libraries should be thinking of, too.  Well done, those rare books...

The text just repeats the council's line that the books had "no intrinsic connection to Wigan".  Which is likely true, but doesn't represent the whole picture: "intrinsic connection" is not the only way books can be relevant to a place or institution. 

It notes that "at least some of the proceeds [are] set to be ploughed back into the library services": maybe that headline should read "Rare books possibly raise cash for service" then, eh?  And "ploughed back" sounds awfully like it's been copied straight from a council news release.

That's really my whole gripe with this short piece.  I appreciate that it's a news item, not an opinion column, but it very much feels like lazy journalism - repeating a release from a particular source without giving sufficient thought (or research) to what other opinions there might be.  There's no mention of opposition to the sale from the Historic Libraries Forum (who do get a mention in this local paper piece from October), nor any nuance to the writing to suggest that the relevance or value to Wigan of the books as stated is the opinion of the council and not necessarily a fact.

I know that CILIP can't campaign on everything, and I'm not asking them to.  But I don't think it's asking to much to expect a professional body to recognise a professionally controversial event and to report on it carefully, accurately and with a bit of subtlety.  I wonder now how much I can trust the Update news on sectors and issues with which I'm not so familiar.  And I do hope that no heads of service or councillors read this nugget and took away from it the idea that they can sell their old books to make a fast buck, too...

Of course, public libraries are not necessarily the best place for rare books to be, given that there's often little or no resources for cataloguing, preservation and conservation, or access and outreach (Brooke Palmieri comments very interestingly on this point on my first post about Wigan - I recommend a read).  But I really think we as professionals, and our professional body, should be trying to make these resources exist, rather than just to report blandly on collection dispersal.

I don't want to elect a Police and Crime Commissioner but it seems that I better had #pcc

(Edited 14/11/12 to add candidate replies from Farooq Mohammed and Rupert Moss Eccardt, and to add more nuance to the section on links.)

I'm sorry, dear readers, this post is political.  It's not overtly party political (unless you view dislike of the English Democrats as overtly party political) but it does discuss, at length, forthcoming elections set up by the government because they decided to change how things are run.  If that's likely to make you cross, or uppity, or wish you weren't reading this blog then it's probably best to leave now and come back for the next post and we'll say no more about it.

I'm also sorry dearest readers, because I am cross about this. I have been cross about it all week, and the feeling's not lessening, so I'm just going to have to write and hope that it helps.

Next week, on Thursday 15th November, England and Wales (excluding London) are voting to elect people to the brand new post of Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), one person for each of the 40-odd police forces.  These PCCs will replace the existing Police Authorities (one per force).  Police Authorities are (or were) defined as follows by the Association of Police Authorities:

A police authority is an independent body made up of local people.

Together with the Home Secretary and chief police officers, police authorities are responsible for the management of policing in England and Wales.

Police authorities make sure that you have an efficient and effective local police force.

Police Authorities mostly had 9 councillor members and 8 independent people from local community.

PCCs are described thusly by the Home Office:

The job of the police and crime commissioner will be to ensure the policing needs of their communities are met as effectively as possible, bringing communities closer to the police, building confidence in the system and restoring trust.

They will aim to cut crime and deliver an effective and efficient police service within the force area. They will do this by:

• holding the chief constable to account for the delivery of the force
• setting and updating a police and crime plan
• setting the force budget and precept
• regularly engaging with the public and communities
• appointing, and where necessary dismissing, the chief constable

It will not be for the PCC to tell the professionals how to do their job - the legislation continues to protect the operational independence of the police by making it clear that the chief constables retain direction and control of the forces officers and staff. The operations of the police will not be politicised; who is arrested and how investigations work will not become political decisions.

So, in principle it looks bland and similar.  But although the PCC won't legally have power over daily operational policing, they can hire and fire the Chief Constable, write plans and set the budget.  That's quite a lot of power, and whilst committees can be terrible things, too much power in the hands of one person isn't necessarily so great.  I don't argue with the suggestion that there should be someone in charge of keeping the police honest, but I do have a gripe with pretty much every aspect of this PCC business.

I'm going to look at the Principle Of The Thing, how the elections are seemingly being run, and then I'll look at our local candidates.  At the end are links to more information.

The Ranty Bit
I do not think that control of public services should be made political. Whether or not candidates or incumbents have party allegiances, by making this a voting issue, it makes control of the police political. Candidates will, the very nature of the thing, being appealing for votes, and probably therefore by promising to do populist things. I'd rather have the police run according to evidence gained through rigorous academic and practical research, not through unsubstantiated popular "hang 'em, flog 'em" opinions (the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire debate was preceded by vox pops all calling for "MORE BOBBIES ON THE BEAT!!!", which isn't necessary a good way to reduce crime). Policing is complicated. I do not understand how best to do it. I want the mechanisms of government to ensure that qualified, capable people run the police for me. I simply don't know how to choose the best person to do that - and I'm not sure how most other people can, either.

These Wretched Elections
Not only is the principle of PCCs in my opinion seriously flawed, these elections don't seem to be run very well at all.

The candidates have very large areas, compared to council or parliamentary elections, over which to campaign.  They have been given no free mailshot to voters, as happens in parliamentary, mayoral and European elections.  This likely unfairly disadvantages independent candidates, who do not have party finances and volunteers to help get the message out.  Of course, some independent candidates may well have money of their own, or from their businesses: but do we want this role bought by the richest candidate or to have a candidate in the pocket of some company of other? Very many people are reporting that they've heard absolutely nothing from any of their local candidates.  This happens often enough for other elections, it's true, and that's a great shame.  But these elections are, or should be, much less about party policy (the basis for most voters' normal voting choices, I'd guess): how can we choose if we know little about the candidates?

The governmental decision to make a website the primary source of candidate information mirrors other decisions (such as that to make claiming Universal Benefit primarily online) which disenfranchise those (older people, poor people, people with disabilities) who can't, or find it difficult to, access information the internet.  Just the sorts of people who, as we're always saying, rely on the public libraries that are being closed down to get access to the stuff they need to be active members of society.

There have, I understand, been some hustings events in various places.  Reports suggest that these have been poorly attended, but I strongly suspect that that's at least partly because they've been poorly advertised.  If there have been any events in Cambridge then my repeated searches have turned nothing up...

Added to this, the Home Office, via the Electoral Commission (I think), was supposed to be distributing a booklet about the PCC role and the elections in general to every household.  I've yet to hear of anyone who's received one: the only thing that many people know about the elections is that they've received a polling card. Further to that, people who have requested a copy, or other information, over the phone have apparently been getting a very poor service, too.  No booklet means that even if you have internet access, you don't know where to look online to find candidate information.

Either this shambles is the result of deliberately, even maliciously poor deign, or (more likely) very shoddy implementation. We really ought to be able to do better as a country, though. It makes me cross.

Cambridgeshire Candidates
Now, much as I wish I could just be cross about a Rubbish Thing and leave it at that, there is a choice to be made here, because someone's going to get this role and I'd like to do my part in making sure the outcome is the least bad one possible. In Cambridgeshire we have seven candidates. They have spoken in a Radio Cambridgeshire debate, all have websites and other web presences, some have contributed to other PCC information sites, and they've all be asked the following two questions by me. (Questions picked, almost at random, from my personal list of bugbears.)

Question 1: What role do you think the police have in ensuring road safety for all road users, but particularly cyclists, and what would you do as PCC to improve road safety?

Question 2: What is your opinion of the recent government decision to close the national Forensic Science Service. How would you support the creation of rigorous policies and practices for the retention of forensic science archives in the Cambridgeshire force?

And here are my summaries of their positions and (where received) their answers to my questions.  I do advise you to read their statements for yourself.

Ansar Ali, Independent
web | twitter
One-sentence summary: A long-time community advocate who believes he has the existing knowledge of policing to be an effective PCC; wants the police to be more responsive and to communicate better.

Sir Graham Bright, Conservative
web | twitter
One-sentence summary: Believes that privatisation of some services and collaboration between forces is a good way to save money and become more efficient; views members of the public using the police as customers who deserve a good service.

1: Road safety is important to all road users and
pedestrians making people aware and education is one of the key ways of
making our roads safer. At the moment road safety is promoted and funded
by the police and local councils. I would like to review what is being
done at the moment and see whether a co-ordinated effort could be more
effective. The problem is you only need one bad driver, cyclist or
irresponsible pedestrian to cause a very serious accident. I would want
to see that road safety was featured in our schools as that gives a firm
foundation. I recently spent some time with a group of volunteers who
operate Speed Watch. I was very impressed by the way in which they had
effectively reduced the number of instances of speeding motorists and I
intend to offer them additional support.

2: Forensic Science is an important part of catching criminals. As you may
already be aware Cambridgeshire is co-operating with Bedfordshire and
Hertfordshire. It is my aim to extend that co-operation to Suffolk,
Norfolk and Essex. With this very large grouping, there is absolutely no
reason why we should not set up several specialist facilities for all
forces to use and, of course, this would include Forensic Science. I
believe this is the right way forward and I will set about immediately to
develop this co-operation because in other areas, such as human resources,
payroll and I.T. support, I believe we could make effective savings that
could go towards more police on the front line.

Paul Bullen, UKIP
web | twitter
One-sentence summary: More police on the beat, wants strong tough laws on people who steal and threaten property, he values are: "straight-dealing, integrity, plain-speaking, honesty, and forthright defence of law-abiding people".

Stephen Goldspink, English Democrats
web (party website)
One-sentence summary: The official party name given is actually "English Democrats - 'More Police Catching Criminals'" so it won't surprise you to know that he's a zero-tolerance on anti-social behaviour and more visible police candidate.

1: The police should be around to enforce the law regarding cycling. We need
more resources on the front line to do this. Please see my leaflet for
pledges around this.

2: The fact that this service has existed for years and years show the decision
was all about cost, not effectiveness. Strange how, in other areas, they
are all for centralisation. I suspect there is no going back, although I
would be in favour of doing so. I think we need to collaborate with other
forces and experts and develop one set of rigorous policies and practices
for national adoption - much more efficient and cost effective; I'd promote
and champion this.

Farooq Mohammed, Independent
web | twitter
One-sentence summary: Says he is the only genuinely independent candidate and can bring a fresh new approach; will ensure good police response although this doesn't necessarily mean more police on the streets, which is unaffordable and not the best use of resources.

1: As a father of four I have always cycled with my children and indeed, still do so occasionally with my youngest who is aged 13. I do get frustrated sometimes when motorists cut in sharply and show little or no consideration for those on bicyles. In a city like Cambridge which has one of the largest cycling populations in the country, I can imagine this is even more of an issue at certain times. The police's role as always is to uphold the law, and it may be that encouraging more bike patrols would give greater insight into driving behaviour - I would certainly be in favour of making bike training more accessible to traffic officers so they understand both viewpoints.
Here in Peterborough we are fortunate the Green Wheel and many miles of safe cycling routes but I am sure even more can be done across the county to highlight and improve road safety for all users especially as high fuel prices and greater emphasis on 'green' issues means more people are taking up cycling.

2: The decision to close the NFSS has been made and we have to live with it. As I understand the situation the archive service is still operational and those same rigorous standards independently regulated will apply to the Cambridgeshire force. Any changes would be carefully considered after thorough consultation with experts whose advice would guide local decision making.

Rupert Moss-Eccardt, Liberal Democrats
web | twitter
One-sentence summary: Professes to be a life-long public servant, with connections in government that enable him to understand the issues.

1: The police have a responsibility to keep the whole community safe, and that does, of course, include road safety. Fortunately the Cycling Campaign's survery is now 'live' so I would encourage you to have a look at all our answers there. http://www.camcycle.org.uk/elections/2012pcc/cambs/
In summary, though, I would make it easier for people to report poor driving, work with the Community Safety Partnerships and the County Council to improve the streetscape and have targeted campaigns to deal with all road traffic offences.

2: The FSS closure was, quite simply, a mistake. There is no longer an independent, reliable source for forensic services. The recent failures at LGC show how dangerous this is.
I am grateful you have raised the issue of forensic material retention. It is of course important but I hadn't realised that the force may not be doing it properly. Can you let me know what you know of this or point me in the right direction, please? Interestingly, the project I'm working on at the moment has a significant forensic element.

[I've contacted Mr Moss-Eccardt to explain that I don't know of any specific problems and to clarify that I'm just interested in how, given the times of change in Force governance and forensic services poor practice caused by insufficient resources and care can be avoided.]

Ed Murphy, Labour
web | twitter
One-sentence summary: Government cuts are ruining the police and forcing privatisation; he will stand against all privatisation.

1: The police have a lead role in ensuring road safety for all road users, but particularly cyclists. I would also look at more grant aid and commissioning work from local voluntary, community and mutual organisation to improve road safety. This can be everything from helping cyclists learn about safety to redesigning streets And signage. Obviously we also need to work with relevant local authorities and agencies. I am a bit biased towards cyclists and have always put the pedestrians and cyclists needs above those of the motorist when it comes to resource allocation. Just addressing the imbalance of past policy makers there. There are very different cultures in place in different parts of Cambridgeshire - In the north of the county I am presently involved implementing campaigns and thankfully some local action plans to stop pavement parking and remove vehicles parked on cycleways. Speeding is also a key issues and the fact is that recent reductions in funding for speed reduction will mean more injuries and deaths. In particular I support 20mph and Home Zones in appropriate areas to improve road safety.

2:  I question whether the decision to close is the national Forensic Science
Service is the right one as we need to ensure we have the tools to do the
job of policing and making successful and correct prosecutions.

Where to find out more 
I'm bunging links up on Diigo - you can refine the choices with the tags on the right. In particular, here are links relating to Cambridgshire, including other people's blog posts and articles from the local media. Do be aware: I'm not selecting for quality, so evaluate everything for yourself.  Lots of different organisations are writing about this, and I haven't investigated who they all are.

Postscript: Spoiling Your Ballot
If you are in a constituency where the candidates look uniformly bland, then spoiling your ballot does seem a half-sensible thing to do.  Spoilt ballots have no legal standing, I don't think - even if there are more spoilt ballots than votes for any other candidate it doesn't affect the result - but they are counted up, and it at least feels like you're doing *something* about the situation.  But here in Cambridgeshire we have an English Democrat candidate standing, and I can't very well note vote for someone, anyone, else in case my not voting lets the English Democrat in.  (Although at least our English Democrate candidate isn't suggesting, as does Robin Tilbrook in Essex that "If elected every police station in Essex will proudly fly the Cross of St George and will promote Essex’s celebrations of St George’s Day").

I don't know for whom I'll vote - should I go with what candidates say in their statements, or how they engage people on Twitter, or whether they've replied to my email, or how well they write? I just don't know.

Yet another sale of historic books (Wigan edition)

An article from the local press has drawn attention to the sale of five early printed books belonging to Wigan Public Libraries. According the article these include incunabula and other rare books, including the eight-leaf Conradus' Brevis annotatio in errores scribentium S. Augustinum fuisse eremitam ([Rome: Johannes Schoemberger, not before 15 Nov. 1483]), which sold for £5,000 and was the known copy in the British Isles (I don't who has bought it, so it may yet still be available here, but then, it may not be).*

The saddest thing about this story is the quotation from Pete Gascoigne, executive director of culture on Wigan council, which demonstrates a disappointing (but sadly not necessarily unexpected in a council official) lack of understanding of the issues at hand.  I'm cross enough about it that I'm going to look at a couple of his points in detail.

Gascoigne states:

[A] decision was taken to sell some antiquarian books that are have received little or no public interest since they were acquired and are not intrinsically linked to the borough’s heritage, in that, they contain no information relating to Wigan or its people.

This sale will mean Wigan and Leigh retain a relevant modern library service for the people of this borough - not one where books sit on shelves gathering dust because they are of no relevance or interest to the majority of its people.

It's very narrow-minded to believe that a collection of books is "not intrinsically linked to the borough's heritage" simply because their content is not related to the area.  The ISTC records 82 incunables (pre-1501 printed books) in Wigan public libraries, and the ESTC a further 83 early printed books from the UK (or other English-speaking countries) or in English.  This isn't a bad haul, especially of incunables: one wonders what the story is behind their arrival in the Wigan public library service.  There's quite likely a story behind their ending up with this library, and that story might well demonstrate that they are, in fact, "intrinsically linked".  What if, for example, an important local businessman collected them and donated them to the town? That would surely demonstrate a link.

I say "what if" as it's not straightforward to find out much about these books.  A quick look at the library catalogue doesn't reveal any records for early printed books, the ESTC records don't include any provenance information, and I haven't tracked down a printed catalogue either. One fears that there's no good record of what's held at all. 

This lack of documentation might just explain why the books are (or were) "have received little or no public interest since they were acquired".  It doesn't take a genius to realise that if no-one knows that something is in a library, no-one will access it.  The onus is on the library service to promote its collections.  Yes, records on ESTC may attract the attention of a few serious scholars, but that's only one rather small segment of a much larger potential audience, and even they might not make the effort if you've no information at all on your library webpages.

Promoting collections take time, expertise, an understanding of what you've got.  But it's enormously worthwhile in the long-run, and provides benefit to institutions and communities far beyond the special collections corner of the library. 

Other public libraries (Manchester springs to mind) are doing great things in using their special collections in exciting ways as part of " a relevant modern library service". Yes, Manchester library is bigger and more obviously historic than Wigan. Dustiness and neglect isn't the natural state of old books: the responsibility to sweep away the dust lies with councils and library managements.


*It's worth nothing that £5,000 is quite a lot of money for a 16-page book, but it's not necessarily all that much money for a 500+-year-old book, and it's only a drop in the ocean of money required to implement self-service machines in one or more libraries.

Law Society response to an email about the #Mendham collection

My last post reported on the forced dispersal of the most valuable books and manuscripts from the Mendham collection held by the University of Kent and Canterbury Cathedral on behalf of the Law Society.  Last Wednesday this I emailed the Law Society. My message had too main points:

• to express my dismay about the break-up of the collection 
• and to comment that this seemed particularly egregious if--as has been stated--there was an agreement at the time of the donation of the collection to the society that it would be held intact.

On Friday I received a response from a member of the Society's library staff.  The gist of the message is that:

• The society is grateful to the University and Cathedral for looking after the collection
• The society recognises that the collection is valuable to 'religious historians'
• The society exists to serve solicitors in England and Wales and a collection of 'historic religious documents' doesn't help with this purpose
• The decision to sell wasn't taken lightly and
• The society has made it cleat that they would be happy to sell the collection to the University and Cathedral.

I didn't write to the society expecting them suddenly, through the power of my words, to change their decision, but simply to register my opinion. So this response--which seems both to misunderstand the contents of the collection ('historic religious documents'?) and their scholarly value (the collection is of interest in fields beyond just religious history)--isn't a shock, or a great disappointment, but it is rather sad.

ETA (24/7/2012): In case you haven't already seen it, there's a petition against the dispersal of the collection (further information about the petition).

Yet another historic collection faces dispersal

Just a very quick note to draw attention to this press release from the University of Kent at Canterbury. The university writes:

The Mendham Collection, which is owned by the Law Society of England and Wales, contains about 5,000 invaluable items including medieval manuscripts, rare books and unique copies of some of the earliest books to have ever been printed. It has been held under the custodianship of the University and Cathedral for nearly thirty years.

Despite an agreement that Cathedral and the University will retain the custodianship of the Collection until the 31 December 2013, the Law Society has given notice of its instruction to Sotheby's to remove the most valuable items on 18 July 2012 as part of a fundraising drive.

ETA (20/7/2012): The University of Kent have set up a petition to protest against the Law Society's actions.  Further information here, and petition here.

ETA (24/7/2012): I've summarised the reply I received from the Law Society to my email about the Mendham collection.

There was 'an understanding' at the time of the donation that the collection would not be broken up.  Dr Alixe Bovey, Director of the University's Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies tweeted throughout the day as the collection was boxed up for transportation to Sotheby's:

Threat of library closure at the British Museum

Oh dear. Very worrying news has trickled out from the British Museum. It seems that the Museum is considering closing its Paul Hamlyn Library.

British Museum Great Court

This library is open to the public, to all visitors to the Museum.  It brings together resources relating to all of the cultures present in the Museum, to support both visitors' and curators' understanding of Museum artefacts.  The Library has a significant outreach role: it provides a children's library, school sessions, and lends out resource packs for families.  It also houses unique special collections and archival material: Museum guidebooks dating back to 1762, copies of Museum publications and exhibition ephemera, and a poster archive.

The Paul Hamlyn library moved into the famous round Reading Room in the centre of the Museum's main court after the British Library opened in the 1990s.  For the last few years it's been moved elsewhere as the Reading Room has been turned over to blockbuster exhibitions. New exhibition space is due to open fairly soon, and it had been planned for the Paul Hamlyn Library to move back in when the exhibitions moved out. With no Library to live in it, one worries about what might happen to the Reading Room in the long term.

There is little concrete information available about this threat.  There has been no public statement from the Museum, despite the apparent existence of a 90-day consultation period.  Everything I know about this I've heard from the Historic Libraries Forum (who are a great organisation, by the way, and you can be a member for free!).  Worryingly, it seems as though the Museum is trying to slip through this closure without many people noticing.  No-one seems to know, for example, when the 90-day consultation period actually started!

The HLF is trying to raise awareness of this threat as widely as posisble, and is asking you to write to the Director and Deputy Director of the Museum to express your concern about the loss of the library.  Closing the Paul Hamlyn Library would mean: the loss of services to the public, families and schools; the possible break up of a unique collection relating to the Museum and the collection it holds (including unique material), the loss of staff expertise; and an uncertain future for the iconic British Museum Reading Room.

Neil MacGregor, OM, FSA Director of the British Museum Great Russell Street LONDON WC1B 3DG

Dr Andrew Burnett Deputy Director of the British Museum Great Russell Street LONDON WC1B 3DG

Serious Concerns

You may have heard that the British Library has just bought the papers of poet Wendy Cope, and that this collection is notable for being the Library's biggest digital accession in a literary archive to date as it includes thousands of Cope's emails.

This story made the culture slot in Thursday's Today programme on Radio 4, aired right in the middle of my breakfast-eating time. John Humphreys interviewed John Sutherland, Emeritus Professor of Eng Lit at University College London, and Richard Ovenden, Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian and chair of the Digital Preservation Coalition. You can listen to the whole piece until next Thursday (28 April) here.

I've chosen to blog about it because of the infuriating way the story was presented.

Humphreys was trying quite hard to make the general tone of the piece 'Emails? In an archive?! What is the world coming to?!!', and it's to Ovenden's huge credit that he managed to present a nuanced, forward-looking and optimistic case despite this attitude.

It was really interesting to see the way in which opinions about what is reasonable behaviour differ when considering a digital, not physical, archive.  It's not news that in debates of this kind the physical object attracts an almost fetishistic level of interest.  In this piece that was the case - Humphreys and Sutherland discussed a letter of Keats that sold for thousands, and the way that the manuscripts of George Orwell are poured over to see the exact minutiae of his writing processes.  They decried the inability to extract similar information from digital material, but then when Ovenden suggests that this level of 'forensic' investigation is possible in the digital world too, the tide suddenly turned and this was viewed as intrusive and creepy.  Humphreys even suggested it is reminiscent of the Stasi.  (For more thoughts about what level of investigation into personal papers is and isn't expected and/or acceptable today and historically, read this interesting post on the Darwin and Gender blog.)

The topic of the interview then drifted on towards the difficulties brought by the high volume of digital material available. I've transcribed the closing section, which I think gives a decent impression of the uphill battle faced by Ovenden.

Ovenden: There are very useful techniques like text mining and data mining which enable you to use algorithmic analysis [incredulous laughter from Humphreys] on huge bodies of information.  These are the tools of the scholar of the future.  But also there are very traditional techniques that archivists have used called appraisal: we've been weeding collections of unwanted information for centuries to keep archives in manageable form and I think that we need archivists and librarians more than we ever have had because of this issue of digital abundance as it's been called.


Humphreys: We'll have to end it there because John Sutherland wants to rush off and learn his algorithms.

Digital preservation and access is a hugely difficult issue for archivists and special collections librarians, so I was really pleased to hear any even slightly productive discussion of it in the media. When people learn I'm a librarian who's worked with archival collections they very often start a pessimistic spiel about how 'we'll have nothing left' in the future because we do so much electronically today, which inevitably also reveals this unhelpful attachment to physical objects as relics of people and ideas. If this pessimistic attitude prevails then we we certainly won't have anything left, because no-one will have dared to deal with it. Fortunately, some people are daring to try and sort it out, so hurrah for the BL promoting that side of this acquisition.

The casual listener to Today will probably only have picked up the anti-digital main thrust of the piece, and not Ovenden's more considered, not to mention expert, view. Still, at least some people will have been listening more closely and will have heard the detail of what he said.

It's a shame that this interesting, and not actually entirely intellectually baffling, issue couldn't be addressed with some seriousness on what purports to be a serious news programme on a serious speech radio station.  The Today programme's editorial (or maybe just Humphrey's personal) stance on topics like this is enough to make me scream. 

---
Serious Concerns is the title of a collection of Cope's poems first published by Faber and Faber in 1992. You should read it.

A letter to my MP

Further to my previous post about the government's review of the statutory duties
placed on local authorities by central government, here's my letter to my local MP, Julian Huppert.  Do use it for inspiration for your own letter to your MP if you so desire.

Dear Dr Huppert,

I was very pleased to see that you support the campaign to save
libraries, and to see that you went to the read-in at Arbury Court
Library on 5 February 2011.

I'm writing to you today because I've recently learnt of the Department
for Communities and Local Government's review of the statutory duties
placed on local authorities by central government
(http://www.communities.gov.uk/localgovernment/decentralisation/tacklingburdens/reviewstatutoryduties/).

I note that three of the duties under review (DCMS_026, DCMS_027 and
DCMS_028) are duties created by the Public Libraries and Museums Act
1964, which requires local authorities to provide a 'comprehensive and
efficient' library service. I am very concerned that these duties might
be rescinded, as this would allow councils to impose drastic cuts to
library services with no recourse for this to be challenged in law. I
am also concerned that such changes to local authorities' duties could
be made with little parliamentary or public scrutiny.

I urge you to voice an opinion in favour of retaining these legal
obligations, and to speak to Mr Greg Clark MP, Minister of State for
Decentralisation, to express your concerns about this serious threat to
public libraries.

Yours sincerely,

Katie Birkwood

Protect the legal duty to provide public libraries

This is a two-part post. We start off with a new, and important, way that you can help defend public libraries, and then we move on to a rant. I recommend that you read, and act on, the first bit, and read the second bit at your own peril.

Practical Action You Can Should Take

Last week, on 7 March, Greg Clark MP, Minister of State for Decentralisation (seriously) announced that the Government is carrying out a review of statutory duties placed on local authorities by central government.  It wasn't a very loud announcement, I don't think - it had certainly slipped under my radar until yesterday, when Voices for the Library, Alan Gibbons, Katy Wrathwall (one of the CILIP Trustees), Public Libraries News, and others drew attention to it. ETA: a CILIP press release about this was issued on Monday 14 March.

The Dept for Communities and Local Government has drawn up a list of 1,200+ statutory duties that central government currently places on local authorities, the majority of which, they say, arise from primary legislation.  They are asking us, the general public, to comment on these or other statutory duties, and to say which should be kept, and which should be lost.

Three of the 1,200+ duties relate directly to public libraries.  Local authorities are currently required by law (the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964) to provide a 'comprehensive and efficient' library service.  Three duties imposed by this legislation are included in this review.  Removing the legal obligation to provide decent library services could have really serious consequences given the pressure that libraries are facing now when council could, and are, being held to account through legal challenges to their plans.

You can comment on this review via this form. Information about the review, including spreadsheets of all the identified duties (libraries are mentioned in the Excel second file), is available on this DCLG page.  These are the three duties affecting libraries are DCMS:

DCMS_026: Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 Section 1(2)

Duty: To provide information and facilities for the inspection of library premises, stocks, records, as the Secretary of State requires.

Function: Necessary for Secretary of State to fulfil (requirement) to superintend library service (see s1 of PLAMA 1964)

DCMS_027: Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 Section 7

Duty: To provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. In fulfilling this duty, must have particular regard to the matters in s7(2)

Function: Secure provision of local library services

DCMS_028: Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 Section 11

Duty: Supplemental provisions as to transfers of officers, assets and liabilities

Function: Provisions provide, for example, continuity of employment for transferring employees. This secures consistency across library transfers etc and in line with other local authority employment legislation

(This summary copied from the Voices for the Library post

Once you've filled in the form, you can also write to your local MP (find him or her here) (ETA: here's my letter) to voice your opinion on the subject.

The rant

The questionnaire is framed almost entirely in terms of 'burdens' (this review, is in fact part of a 'Tackling burdens: Reducing burdens on local government' initiative).  The use of this term sums up for me everything that I think is wrong with this whole Big Society business.  It's clear that by 'burden' we're supposed to think of something that we (or, in this case) local councils would be better without.  When I'm asked if a particular duty is a burden, an answer in the affirmative will be taken to mean that I think that duty can be dispensed with.

But the way I see it, we have government and councils precisely so that we can lumber them with 'burdens'. Healthcare, schooling, social care, policing, libraries, museums, the fire service are all difficult and expensive to provide: in stark terms, they're burdens to those entrusted with providing them.  But just because they're difficult to do it doesn't mean that government (local or national) shouldn't have to do them.  Because they are by their nature burdensome, handing them over to the masses is surely unlikely end well. The masses are unlikely to rush round to do them instead (either commercially (commerce might want to cherry pick the profitable bits, but is unlikely to want to have to so *all* of it) or as volunteers), and even if they did, they'd be unlikely to be able to do them very well.  I want my local authority to be emburdened with the duty to do the stuff that makes us civilised.

/rant

A reply from the PM

At Prime Minister's Question Time on 9th Feb, David Cameron answered a question from Ed Miliband by saying:

We all know a truth about libraries, which is that those which will succeed are those that wake up to the world of new technology, the internet and everything else, and investment goes in. That is what needs to happen. Should councils look at community solutions for other libraries? I believe that they should. Instead of sniping and jumping on every bandwagon, the right hon. Gentleman should get behind the big society.

(Hansard, 9 Feb. 2011, around Column 293)

I thought this was a pretty silly thing to have said, and so I wrote to him to say so (the Contact Number 10 webpage suggests that a posted letter is more likely to receive a response than an email).  I listed a few of the ways in which public libraries have been embracing technological changes - reforming the way they operate, educating their readers, making the internet available to all - and even suggested that I'd be happy to show Mr Cameron one of my local libraries so that he could see what's already going on.

Today I had a reply from the Prime Minister's office. Needless to say, my offer of a library tour has not been accepted.  In fact, given the response, it's hard to determine whether my letter was actually read at all:

From the Direct Communications Unit

I am writing on behalf of the Prime Minister to thank you for your letter of 11 February.

Mr Cameron appreciates all the feedback he receives, so it is good of you to have taken the time and trouble to get in touch and to let him have your thoughts.

Once again, thank you for writing to the Prime Minister.

I suppose that this is the nature of campaigning about something.  Most of the time, efforts look like they might be in vain - it's easy to feel like you're shouting into a gale, and that no-one will hear what you're saying.  When out on the street on Save Libraries Day (5th Feb) I got to thinking more or less the same thing: 'how many people can I possibly be influencing?' 

But equally, when out on the street I did have conversations with a good few people who really were interested to know what was under threat and how they could help.  And all the others who scurried by trying to ignore us will still probably have heard the word 'library' a few times; if drip-drip marketing is good enough for commercial products, then it's good enough for my library campaigning.  At the very least, people have been reminded of the existence of libraries, and Mr Cameron (or someone on his staff, at least) has been shown that there's one more person who's watching what he says and does.

I know that some other library folk also wrote to the PM around that time.  Has anyone else heard anything back?

Save Libraries: Cambridge Action

Two Save Libraries events are happening in Cambridge tomorrow:

• Read-aloud flashmob, in and around Grand Arcade/Lion Yard, 11am.  Please sing up for it on Facebook and invite your friends.  Bring your favourite book (or borrow it from the library) and read a bit out to entertain the general public and show that you care about the library service.
• Read-in at Arbury Court Library, 2pm.  Turn up, borrow a book, read it.

Both events are family-friendly ways of showing that we value libraries.  The flashmob is the brainchild of Emma Coonan, who's put together a list of resources, general and specific.

If you can't make it to either of those, remember that you can still show you support for libraries by:

1. Going to your local library. If you're not already a member take some ID with your name and address on it so that you can join up. Borrow some books or CDs or DVDs, or read the newspapers and magazines, or use the PCs and/or wifi there.
2. Visiting your library webpages and use the online resources - you can look things up in the OED, for example.

ETA: Here are two write-ups of the Cambridge event, by Andy Priestner and Annie Johnson.

News roundup, including savelibraries

Savelibraries

Campaigns to defend public libraries across the country against cuts are gathering strength, and this Saturday, 5th February, will see a day of action to show our support.  John Kirriemuir has written up a summary of what's what, including links to resources, so I won't repeat all of that here.  What you need to know is the following:

1. Check this list to see if a library near you is having an event. If is is, go to it.
2. If there's no event near you, go to your library anyway. If you're not already a member take some ID with your name and address on it so that you can join up. Borrow some books or CDs or DVDs, or read the newspapers and magazines, or use the PCs and/or wifi there.
3. If you can't get to your library, visit its webpages and use the online resources - you can look things up in the OED, for example.
4. If you're a Facebook user, show that you're taking part by RSVPing to this event. Then invite all your friends.
5. If you're on Twitter, tweet a reason why libraries are important, using the #savelibraries hashtag.
6. Pass this message on, using some of these posters to help you.

Echo-chamber breakout

Back last June, during Library Day in the Life 5, a post by Emma Cragg inspired me to think that the Library Day in the Life Project (which was started and is maintained by Bobbi L. Newman) could be used to advocate for libraries outside of the 'echo chamber'.  Emma and I teamed up, and wrote a pitch about 'what librarians really do' that we sent to The Guardian and to Radio 4.  Some time later, we heard back from The Guardian, who were interested in using the idea in their 'Behind the Job Title' series.  We wrote up an article about the various roles of, and skills needed by, a modern librarian, sent it off, and heard nothing for a while longer.  But lo, after Christmas we were asked for some revisions, which we supplied, and the article was published on Monday in GuardianCareers:

'Beyond books: what it takes to be a 21st-century librarian'

There was a little excitement in the comments and on Twitter in response to the decision to swap the picture of a brain for a picture of some stereotypically dressed female librarians carrying books on their heads and with their fingers on their lips in the international gesture for 'shh!'.  Comments from some upstanding librarians have now set that to rights, which is very pleasing indeed.

At this point I have to say an enormous thank you to Emma. She did all the hard work with the article, including writing all the best bits, thinking up whom to use for case studies, and corresponding with the paper.  She's been a pleasure to work with, and is clearly pretty busy as she has another article out this week in the ORG (Open Rights Group) Zine also out this week!

Also a thank you to Ned Potter for being so loudly pleased about the article.  He's chuffed to be mentioned in a Guardian article, and I'm chuffed that he liked it. Smiles all round.

And finally...

This isn't about libraries, but it is about making the world a better place. A friend of my has written a truly brilliant blog post. I've tried to summarise it, but I can't manage it. Just read it and be inspired to be a better person. Or something.

What does Update say about CILIP?

[Update, 1 July 2010: Elspeth Hyams, Editor of Library and Information Update, has asked that I post this response.  Please do take a look.]

A theme in some quarters of the CILIP Conversation, and certainly of our conversation in Cambridge, has been the perceived inadequacies of the CILIP publications.  I must confess to not being an avid reader of either Gazette or Update, although I do try and flick through each issue to keep up with what's new.  I don't think that the content is necessarily as engaging or relevant as it might be, but I haven't yet managed to form any definite ideas about what I think would be better.  This post is about the medium itself, and what message it conveys.

It's the online versions (CILIP membership required) of the publications that have attracted my attention, and not in a good way. I shan't enter into debate about whether its better to have CILIP publications in hard copy or online, except to say that there certainly should be an online version available.  And given that there is an online version, it really ought to be good.  As one of the main means of communication of CILIP with its members, I really expect the magazines to embody some of the ideas and principals that librarians and information professionals are implementing and promoting in their work.

Do Update and Gazette currently meet this ideal?  To my mind, no.  Last month I took some time to read through Update online, and I found several things which I think could, and should, be done better.  They fall into two broad headings: interface and searching.

Interface

• The Flash interface might look flashy, but I really don't understand what we as readers gain from having animated page turns, and even the sound of the page rustling as it flips over.  This kind of effect is just naff, as far as I'm concerned.  We all know what turning a page looks and sounds like, and the content would work just as well, if not better, without it.
• The Flash presentation isn't just a bit naff, it's also slow.  Not everyone has a high-speed connection to a high-speed computer.  Making people wait for pages to load will just lead to them not reading the magazine.
• The interface isn't just naffly presented and slow, it's actually inaccessible to many.  Flash isn't supported well on all operating systems (honk if you use the latest Ubuntu release), won't be installed on all computers (and in a work setting, it might not be possible to have it installed), and readers with motor and/or visual difficulties might not be able to use it at all: there don't seem to be keyboard shortcuts for all the functions, and Flash can't be interpreted by screenreaders.

I'm clearly not the first person to have raised these concerns with CILIP, as they are partly addressed in the online Update FAQ:

3. I access the internet at work where we don’t have Flash and I’m not able to install it. How can I access Update?
Flash is an industry standard software solution. Some organisations require their staff to make a valid case before they will install Flash on networked computers, so this is a good opportunity to do so. Update Digital delivers high-quality information of direct relevance to members’ work activities, and access to it is restricted by log-in.
If it is not possible to have Flash installed on your network computer, it may be possible on a laptop or netbook. Otherwise access may need to be from your home pc or laptop. Longer-term we are investigating whether Update can be provided online via Apple’s iPhone/ iPad or Smartphones.

4. I have a disability (e.g. visual impairment/poor motor control) and find that I cannot use Update Digital. How can I access Update?
You can zoom in and magnify the text by clicking on the page. You can also print all the pages by going to Menu and choosing Print pages. When the thumbnails have loaded, choose Select all to print all the pages. Our software developers are working on speech-activated controls and text-to-speech, but these are not yet available.

I find these answers dismissive and patronising. CILIP ought to be making obvious efforts to make its magazine content available to as many of its members as possible, seeing as they have paid for it, rather than implying that members' complaints are unwarranted. There are other 'industry standard' solutions that could be used for the dissemination of online magazines that have better accessibility options for disabled people, and which are more widely supported.  The suggestion that CILIP have people working on making the current interface accessible via speech-activated controls and with text-to-speech capabilities is confusing.  These are solutions that are already available in other platforms (an HTML version of the magazine, for example) why are CILIP trying to re-invent the wheel? 

Searching
Assuming you can gain access to Update in the first place, can you find what you're looking for inside it?  Well, the online-only issues have a clickable contents list, although those issues that appear in print form too, don't (although the weblinks in those versions can be clicked).  But even without a clickable contents list, finding items in an individual issue isn't too onerous.

Electronic publications really have the edge over print when it comes to searching archives: the possibiliy full-text searching ought to make it possible to find whatever you want.  This isn't really the case with Update online.  For starters, two different search boxes appear depending on where you are in the interface.  When you're in the archives page, click the 'search' button in the bottom right, and a small, Google-style search box appears.

But when you're looking at a particular issue, click on the search button now at the top right, and a better search box is brought up, with options to limit searches and witha  help screen explaining different search possibilities including phrase searches and truncation.  Optimistically, and interested in what CILIP had to say about the recent merger of archives bodies, I entered a search for 'Society of archivists' with limits of 'all editions', and requesting the results bedisplayed 'by edition'.  I was hoping that 'by edition' would give chronological sorting, but alas, not.

The results appear to be grouped by edition, but the order of the editions is obscure: some Masters supplements, Jan-Feb 2010, March 2009, September 2009...  It carried on like this on the second page of results, although today the same search returns no results at all.  If there's logic here it's too advanced for me.

So, what does Update say about CILIP?  In the context of high-quality retireval and display options available for many online publications, Update Digital say to me:

"We're not interested in reaching our full audience, and we don't want you to be able to find anything in the archive".

No wonder librarians and information professionals are so infuriated with CILIP!

[Update, 1 July 2010: Elspeth Hyams, Editor of Library and Information Update, has asked that I post this response.  Please do take a look.] 

Q: How is a library like a charity shop?

A: Both can easily be run by volunteers!

Or so said Alan Downey, one of the authors of the KPMG report 'Payment for Success - How to shift power from Whitehall to public service customers', on this morning's Today Programme.

Now, I'm not a public librarian, and I haven't the time or the intellectual capabilities to write the cutting analysis this deserves, but I would like to make few points in a slightly ranty fashion:

1. Mr Downey makes running a charity shop sound like a piece of cake.  I doubt that it actually is.

2. People aren't falling over themselves to run charity shops as he suggests - several in the neighbourhood in which I live (not the classiest end of Cambridge) have recently closed, or are open only restricted hours.

3. Even given that running a charity shop isn't simple, running a successful library, especially in the areas where they are currently undervalued, is probably significantly more difficult.

4. If libraries (and other currently public-sector services) are going to be run in volunteers in the future, where are the skilled volunteers going to come from once the current crop of probably retired trained former-librarians has run out?

So, what to do? Many people are tweeting about this, which I suppose engenders a feeling of collective dismay (much better than being miserable alone). I suppose I'd like someone (CILIP? the MLA?) to make a hard-hitting statement about the value of libraries and the importance of professional librarians, but I'm not so hopeful.  Maybe I'll contribute to the CILIP Conversation ('Defining our professional future') on this topic once I'm feeling a bit more coherent.

Edited to add: Better rants have been written by Elspeth Hyams and Bethan - go and check them out.

Further addition: There's a post and discussion about this on the CILIP Information and Advice Blog and at Optimus Librarian.