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.

Ignite, redux

In February I spoke at Ignite London 4 about 'Why Libraries are Great'. Richard Johnson (@chichard41) has been working on the videos from the event, and has just released the video of my talk, hurrah!  So here it is:


Why Libraries Are Great - by Katie Birkwood from chichard41 on Vimeo.

And for those who haven't already seen them, here are the stand-alone versions of my slides:

Just a Room Full of Stuff? Why Libraries are Great / Katie Birkwood

View more presentations from Katie Birkwood

Some other talks I enjoyed were Charlotte Young on Art Bollocks, Andrew Betts on Standards, Maxwell J. Roberts on Tube Maps, and Paul Clarke on the Pythagorean Comma.

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?

Out of the echolib and into the fire

On Tuesday evening I spoke at Ignite London 4 about 'Why Libraries are Great'. The Ignite motto is 'enlighten us, but make it quick'; all speakers have to use the Ignite format of 20 slides or 15 seconds each, making presentations that are exactly 5 minutes long. So that they make sense without a speaker, I've added some extra slides and text to these:

Just a Room Full of Stuff? Why Libraries are Great / Katie Birkwood

View more presentations from Katie Birkwood.

There was a live audience of 300+ people, most of whom weren't (to my knowledge) librarians, and plenty of whom seemed to enjoy and understand what I was saying:

Since I uploaded my slides yesterday lunchtime they've been viewed 700+ times, and are currently featured on Slideshare's Education page.  Video of the speakers will be added to the Ignite website soon, and should reach a few more people.  So all in all, I think this counts as an echo chamber escape!

Ignite was a real blast. A big thank you to the organisers for choosing  me as one of the speakers, and for their hard work in making it run so smoothly.  Probably my two favourite presentations were Andrew Betts' 'How standards changed the world' (from Roman swords to time zones to aircraft to the magic of A4 paper) and Paul Clarke's 'Music is mostly about cheating' (the Pythagorean Comma lucidly explained in 5 minutes - magic!).  A special mention also to Maxwell Roberts' beautiful tube and metro maps.

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.