The thought surfaced after writing the above comment, the 1964 Act created minimum standards for the library service, but the vision of the time most certainly also included that authorities would be encouraged to exceed those standards, giving examples from around the country of exemplar library service. JBs library authority would very much be an exemplar.

It is though by no means to be sniffed at. The median training of library staff would have to be raised to achieve his objectives (carefully monitored expectations would also have to be made so as to ensure the effort was not fruitless). There would need to be a very strong sense of direction from the top also. Tim Coates has commented that he believes the vision of the 1964 Act to be a perfectly good foundation for the libraries even 50 years on, and I tend to agree it should be brought back to the fore and its core mission and vision reinforced, but also updated as necessary – examples of how a library service could exceed the minimum standards updated with current thinking such as JBs on urban design, the potential for digital and information literacy skills in our communities (and indeed the potential of this technology towards JBs ends also), R&D activities, etc. The minimum standards themselves could also perhaps be due for an overhaul, e.g., in the light of United Nations work on information literacy standards (information literacy as “a prerequisite for participating effectively in an Information Society”). There is an element of urgency in that the times are changing, and it may prove that our public libraries will need to maintain certain standards for the times in order to provide the service the public need.

This talk of standards is of course at the moment preemptory. The DCMS (who I believe are being wound up) does not seem to consider there are any standards (though authorities still have to provide a comprehensive and efficient service – I’m sure it would take no more than a postgraduate English Language student to point out the exact nature of the grammatical error here). Ed Vaizey in his recent speech to The Future of Library Services conference indicated the DCMS will be comparing similar library authorities and where one authority is not meeting standards their peers are maintaining taking action – making a nonsense of the original intention of the 1964 Act to ensure a minimum standard service for all, but authorities were very welcome to provide as much greater difference to their peers above this as they wished. My point here anyway is that talk of the standards is not wasted at this point, because the current changes to policy of this Government I am sure will be challenged at some point in the future as being a major change to the spirit of the Act. The Conservative government should have presented the changes they wished to make to the the 1964 Act given the nature of them to Parliament for voting on, the Parliamentary Ombudsman I am sure at some point in the future will if necessary duly put our democratic processes back on the rails as required.

If JBs vision was to become a reality, then it would probably take a major planning exercise and cycle of the order of 25 years and would also have to be incorporated into a wider vision (society is changing in many ways, not just our concept of urban planning). Planning would also have to build on the core vision of the 1964 Act to not be without foundations. Was the vision of the 1964 Act perhaps more practical in that it was the role of the libraries’ strategic body (the past MLA, now ACE, etc.) to continue the work that the committees started off in formulating the Act by laying the foundations of the minimum standards but also detailing performance for those library authorities to be considered to be providing an exceptional service as and when ground breaking authorities provided the exemplar.

JB has a vision to raise the culture of our communities, and it should (in theory at least!) follow from this that the needs of people are increasingly met and our society becomes a more civilized place to live. Reducing book stock instead of increasing quality reading would leave a very unsteady foundation towards this end. I’m also not convinced that JBs vision could be realised without a social media strategy, JBs vision would only be worthwhile if significant numbers of people above the numbers that currently already gain the benefits JB is aiming for actually gain those benefits – social media would allow for this (this is actually from what I read in the news recently the current preferred communications media for under 25s at the moment anyway).

Better libraries, not closed libraries (please, ACE, DCMS

I’m not sure it is for the library campaign anti-cuts groups to point out to the public that our understanding of the value of the public libraries in our communities, cities and society is very much evolving and likewise our understanding of their potential. My own expectations is for public sector librarians to be undertaking this being a part of their role as publicly appointed officers (the public’s experts in the field as it were). (Note also it is not just JB’s field of urban sustainable design that has to be factored into the modern future of the community and city library – modern information technologies have a great deal of potential towards the ends of the libraries and the cultural sector.) JB is effectively drawing attention to an issue of effective library management here.

At the end of the day the library anti-cuts campaign groups I think know why they support their library, and it is for the books and the literary culture (no one has in particular given them any other reason!). A collection of the best literature on what interests them, where they can find the most recent publications and publishing authors if relevant, I myself am also worried that as the number of books in libraries decreases (and I have seen this first hand over the decades as a library user and more recently as a library assistant) older books are being discarded leaving readers in the particular subject area without the detail of the historical context (or at least as a part of the ‘bookshelf experience’ that people I think will agree is very highly valued).

Can I suggest (based on reading library related media for numbers of years) that librarianship is not sure of what its values hierarchy is at the moment, The social, economic, technological etc. context has changed, is a safe, maintained building and well stocked library still of primary importance, or is it the time for ‘the right to the city’ and urban sustainable design to take the centre stage (and believe me JB library staff are the first to appreciate the value of design & media, usually having several hundreds of books on the subject readily accessible just as fast as they can put one down and pick another up or should libraries be focusing on information literacy and IT (and in particular R & D work in this field for the future). To what extent should plans be formulated locally? Etc. etc.

Back on the issue of management in the field, why am I (a library assistant) writing the above, instead of reading an ACE strategic level startegy document on the subject? It is they who have the spreadsheets!

I think JB has pointed out the potential enhanced cultural role of the public libraries – which is welcome. How about some formal research