Funding Cuts and Usage Decline....Which Comes First?

Generali

An interesting pair of articles from the Beeb:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35707956

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-35788332

The first article discusses the decline in library funding in the UK, the second library use falling (or at least changing).

Clearly libraries are about more than just borrowing books but should they be places where people can log on to free WiFi on their tablet rather than going to Starbucks so they're not obliged to buy a coffee?

FWIW, I love a good library and have taken one or both of the Generalissimos to one of our local libraries on at least four occasions in the last six weeks.

westernpromise

I think public libraries are like public bath-houses, where people who couldn't afford houses with bathrooms would go and rent a bath tub for an hour. Likewise, if you couldn't afford to buy books you borrowed them.

They had their uses in 1916, but in 2016 their time has passed. Libraries likewise. Books are now cheaper than at any time in history so there can be almost nobody who uses a library because they love books but can't afford any.

chewmylegoff

At £9.99 for a children's book about gruffalos or some such nonsense, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of price. I only wish we could borrow books from a library but alas the children eat them.

Mind you, I'm glad that I don't live in Australia as the cost of books there is positively ruinous in comparison. I'm not sure if they have some kind of book tax to encourage kids to go outside and play sport/ fight each other or something.

Mistermeaner

If the people want libraries then the private sector will step into the void

HornetSaver

Clearly libraries are about more than just borrowing books but should they be places where people can log on to free WiFi on their tablet rather than going to Starbucks so they're not obliged to buy a coffee?

Is free wifi really that difficult to come by nowadays?

This is a difficult topic for me. I'm a young adult, mobile, without children, and am aware of how to make efficient use of technology. None of which make me a typical library user, and I'm therefore conscious about having an opinion on a service which is not designed for me.

However, with the exception of my age, those characteristics are becoming more common. For precisely those reasons I think the people for whom a public library is important is steadily declining.

Working people have increasingly little use for them. Language-learning services are increasingly cheap and easy to access, and with fiction people increasingly turn towards brand new stuff, which is increasingly cheap to buy, (besides which it has never been the role of libraries to stock huge volumes of bestsellers on day one). Schoolchildren have increasingly little use for them, though for three to five year olds they were hugely important when I and my siblings were that age, and can well imagine they still are now. Even bottom-of-the-barrel universities have sufficient library services for academic purposes. Factual information is generally already out there on the internet. Fiction is becoming cheaper as a result of e-books and some of the big retailers being willing to go to or even below cost price for the biggest paperbacks.

I Googled for libraries within a five mile radius of my address (I live approximately 5 miles north of the boundary between Hertfordshire and London), and there are seven. Surely that's too many? Surely that's an extremely inefficient way to provide the intended service? Surely it's downright madness given that a growing minority of people - including an increasing proportion of people who are not right-wing - believe that the library service as a whole isn't an appropriate use of taxpayer's money?

However the problem is that the people libraries benefit most are the least mobile (elderly, disabled, parents with toddlers, those on the breadline for whom the cost of travel, be that by car or public transport, is a big deal). The idea of everyone having a library within walking distance is a romantic and outdated one, but the concept of public libraries is far from dead. I do think a best-of-both-worlds situation is possible (provision costing less without cutting off anyone's access to it), but it would require joined-up thinking on where to locate libraries, and how people reliant on buses or bikes to get around would get to and from them.

As politicians are genetically incapable of joined-up thinking, I've probably wasted the last five to ten minutes. But it's still an interesting discussion

Generali

I'd argue it's one of those things that the private sector finds difficult or impossible to provide.

Our local library is rammed. Mums with young kids use it during the week as do old people using the web, kids getting together to study in study rooms after school as well as working people (the library is helpfully open different hours on different days across seven days so pretty much whatever time you work you can use it).

As well as a 'normal library' they have computers, WiFi, a very good local history and genealogy section, every Sydney Morning Herald on microfilm going back to 1831, giant chess, kids' club stuff in the holidays (and in the week for the young kids), reading to kids and, bizarrely, a radiotherapy centre.

As to whether or not it offers value for money? I don't know because I haven't seen the accounts. It is certainly good and popular too. It probably helps that we have large, middle-class Chinese and Korean communities who are particularly voracious library users.

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

As to whether or not it offers value for money? I don't know because I haven't seen the accounts.

In Aus, $44.60 per capita 2013-14, NSW figure is $46.34. See:
http://www.nsla.org.au/sites/www.nsla.org.au/files/publications/NSLA.Aust-Pub-Lib-Stats-2013-14_1.pdf

Public Libraries in UK for same period, total spend £1,025,274k against population of c64.6m = a bit under £16. The UK stats do not include academic libraries, not sure if the Aussie ones do.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/infosci/lisu/lisu-statistics/lisu-uk-library-statistics.pdf
Different accounting period, but roughly 1% of UK local government spend:
http://www.ifs.org.uk/budgets/gb2012/12chap6.pdf

In the USA, for 2012, the figure was $35.47, though varies wildly by state: eg <$15 in Mississippi, through to just shy of $60 in Illinois.
https://www.imls.gov/assets/1/AssetManager/FY2012%20PLS_Tables_21_thru_31A.pdf

All currencies local.

Generali

vivatifosi wrote: »

In Aus, $44.60 per capita 2013-14, NSW figure is $46.34. See:
http://www.nsla.org.au/sites/www.nsla.org.au/files/publications/NSLA.Aust-Pub-Lib-Stats-2013-14_1.pdf

Public Libraries in UK for same period, total spend £1,025,274k against population of c64.6m = a bit under £16. The UK stats do not include academic libraries, not sure if the Aussie ones do.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/microsites/infosci/lisu/lisu-statistics/lisu-uk-library-statistics.pdf
Different accounting period, but roughly 1% of UK local government spend:
http://www.ifs.org.uk/budgets/gb2012/12chap6.pdf

In the USA, for 2012, the figure was $35.47, though varies wildly by state: eg <$15 in Mississippi, through to just shy of $60 in Illinois.
https://www.imls.gov/assets/1/AssetManager/FY2012%20PLS_Tables_21_thru_31A.pdf

All currencies local.

So Aus spends about half as much again as the UK per capita. That chimes with my experience of Aussie Government spending which is much less than the UK's and has much more of a skew towards this sort of social provision that the private sector is bad at doing.

vivatifosi

One thing I will say on cost is that geography will have a,big impact. In the UK, where towns are closer together, it is easier not to have duplicate collections as you can refer someone to an adjacent town. Similarly you can achieve greater staffing efficiencies as fewer staff can cover more sites. In both the USA and Australia you may find a much larger library per head of population than in the UK, because it is the only library for miles. That twenty-thirty miles to the next town thing doesn't exist here.

Nevertheless, there has been real streamlining and removal of costs in the UK. Although local authorities sometimes choose different alternatives, the menu of options is broadly the same, e.g...

Closing libraries, though this is becoming less popular.
Moving to a volunteer led model for smaller, non core sites.
Increasing digital offerings, as these are cheaper.
Colocating with other government services to reduce property costs.
Moving to a different ownership model (become a trust), as the fundraising opportunities are greater.
Closing mobile services, as they may prove significantly more expensive in cost per customer served, though there is also a geographic element here.
Outsourcing to commercial organisations (hasn't really taken off yet).
Working with other authorities to share services.
Increasing commercialisation and opportunities for revenue generation within the service, e.g. coffee shops, renting rooms, selling stationery and other items.

Plus probably a couple of others which I've forgotten as it is early.

ETA.. staffing is by far the largest cost in any authority, either in the UK, Australia or USA. The public image is that most library staff are librarians and that they earn a lot if money. The reality is different. Most library staff are operational. Their salaries are low and a challenge going forward will be the increased cost of these salaries as the national living wage rolls in. In spite of the low pay, the jobs are not low skilled and take the best part of a year in training on the job to do properly, which is why volunteers cannot be the only answer.

vivatifosi

westernpromise wrote: »

I think public libraries are like public bath-houses, where people who couldn't afford houses with bathrooms would go and rent a bath tub for an hour. Likewise, if you couldn't afford to buy books you borrowed them.

They had their uses in 1916, but in 2016 their time has passed. Libraries likewise. Books are now cheaper than at any time in history so there can be almost nobody who uses a library because they love books but can't afford any.

One very important and often overlooked role of local libraries is to help drive costs out if the rest of government. In the UK, there is a drive toward a government bodies being online, whether central government, such as taxing a car or applying for a passport or benefits; or local government, such as housing and blue badge applications. If you want to drive efficiencies in those areas, you need to provide facilities for doing them. In that respect libraries are a digital bath house.

princeofpounds

I'm generally a smaller-state kind of person. But I do think that people underestimate the value of library space. Not just books - which are important - but all the other things.


Internet access has become very important. If you are poor, jobseeking, homeless etc. and don't have access to a computer, then it's a very important place to be able to go.


But the point is that it's not just about free wifi. People tend to forget that it's basically community office space. You can get free wifi if you are happy to sit on a freezing station bench in winter, perhaps, or drink unhealthy amounts of overpriced coffee. Assuming you already own a device, of course.


I realised this utility when I read a blog written by a (temporarily) homeless person, and it was very interesting - he basically had a choice between sitting in a cheap and nasty pub and going to the library if he wanted to be warm and entertained.


Every council library I have experience of (which, to be fair, is only three) seems to be remarkably well-patronised by people of all sorts of ages, but mostly children, mothers, students and the elderly, plus a few presumably unemployed.


Now I don't know what the right amount of spending on this area is. I don't think every library needs to be a mini-British Library with the world's biggest collection of books any more. Especially if equipped with digital readers.