MARCH 2025.  |
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| Welcome to our newsletter round up of March’s UK libraries news! |
| SUFFOLK – DISPUTE CONTINUES |
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| Last month we reported that Suffolk County Council has decided to bring its library service back in house after it had been run by a charity (an Industrial and Friendly Society – IFS) for over ten years. The IFS, which trades as Suffolk Libraries, has not accepted this lying down and has been supported by petitions with thousands of signatures as well as the Friends groups that mostly sprang up when Suffolk originally proposed a lot of closures. That, in turn, led to the IFS and the Friends groups have been closely involved with it. The IFS is fiercely contesting the figures that the council is using. For instance the council claimed that Suffolk Libraries spent a third of its annual bill on its head office, including senior managers. But Suffolk Libraries says all the management costs were less than 5%. The council says that all current services will be maintained but Suffolk Libraries says that many contracts (e.g to run prison libraries) are with them and can’t automatically be changed over. They also suggest that the council’s quoted costs for the transition could help fund the existing service for three years – covering inflationary costs and preserving opening hours.At the time of writing it seemed that the council was sticking with its decision, which has been supported by the staff union UNISON but questioned by three Labour MPs and the opposition Labour councillors. Attempts by opposition councillors to ‘call in’ the proposals appear to have failed.We would like to hear from those involved – Friends groups and anyone else with a dog in the fight. Email address at the end of this newsletter. |
| DID WE SCARE YOU?Have you entered our £4,000 competition? Or did we scare you off?We ask, because there has been some confusion about the 10 categories we suggested (£400 for the best in each). We meant to give you some ideas to inspire you. But some of you worried about which category was best for your entry. A few felt unable to whittle down all their activities into one neat “category.”Others pointed out that one activity might tick several boxes at once. Quite true, of course. It just shows how incredibly relevant Friends groups are! Others, again, could not quite believe how simple we have made the application process – no form to fill in, no specific requirements as to presentation. So…WE ARE EXTENDING THE CLOSING DATE TO 30 APRIL – to encourage people who have hesitated.So far, we have been blown away by the quality – and quantity – of things that your entries show you are doing. We are greedy to see more. Just tell us about something you are doing/have done – or several! If you have a useful link, or some photos, all the better – but it doesn’t matter.The 10 categories: fund-raising idea, children’s/youth activity, regular activity programme, creative project, all-day event, green project, publicity campaign, joint library/Friends project, joint project with another local organisation, anti-cuts campaign. We should also repeat that the competition is open to Friends’ groups for libraries which are part of the statutory service in England and Wales (we don’t operate in Scotland.) Full details here. Send a note to us at [email protected], by 30 April. |
| STAFF NUMBERS FALLING – VOLUNTEERS RISING |
CIPFA (the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) tries to collect figures on public library spending, use and other matters each year. |
| Gone are the days when they got returns from almost all library services – now they don’t get replies from half of them. Nonetheless they have produced some conclusions from the last survey.Some good news is that visits are rising (by 13.5%). So are book issues, though by the rather less impressive 0.5%. However, they highlighted an increase in spending overall of 2% and warn that this will not be sufficient to cope with all the pressures. And, most depressingly, they record staff numbers falling by 1.7% per 1,000 people, although volunteer numbers rose by 7%.Joanne Pitt, a Senior Policy Officer at CIPFA with a wealth of public sector and local authority experience, is quoted as saying: “We should be investing in a skilled workforce, so that libraries can continue serving communities across Great Britain.” Can’t argue with that!CIPFA is a private company and charges an arm and a leg for full access to its stats. Long-time library campaigner Tim Coates has asked if there is a spreadsheet with all the data. No answer so far, as far as we know. |
| LIBRARY OF THE YEAR |
 Ten regional finalists have been picked from the shortlist of 36 for the Library of the Year award in The British Book Awards, sponsored by DK publishers. They are Mullingar (Ireland), Midlothian (Scotland), Braunton (South-west England – picture), Hertfordshire (East England), Stratford-upon-Avon (Midlands), |
 Manchester (North England – picture), Lewisham (London) and Awen Cultural Trust (Wales) plus joint winners for Southeast of England: Winchester and West Sussex. The winner will be announced on 12 May. |
| Karen Napier MBE, CEO of The Reading Agency charity, said: “From large-scale authority-wide events, and programming with diverse local partners, to careful and targeted initiatives like a book club for adults with Down syndrome, these winners exemplify the power of libraries to engage communities in meaningful ways.” As community anchor organisations, the crucial role of libraries’ local partners in delivering these activities shone through, and the shortlisted libraries showed what the lasting legacy of their projects would look like locally.” There’s more on the story in The Bookseller including a focus on what each library did to win its title – such as Lewisham Libraries who clearly had a focus to cater to niche interests and support reading of those interests, Mullingar whose staff created schemes to support those with Down syndrome, West Sussex with its literacy classes for adults, Midlothian and Braunton who had over the past year prioritized accessibility, Hertfordshire which had a very successful summer reading challenging, Stratford had a campaign aimed at “Reluctant Readers” getting children to visit libraries who had never done so before. Manchester won for their engagement of local schools to their Blue Peter Book Club. |
TELL YOUR LIBRARY STORYKathryn Peak, an academic at Kings College London, is writing a short history of libraries in the UK and has asked for the help of library staff and users. The book will cover all sorts of libraries. Kathryn wants to know why public libraries matter to you. “You can be as practical or as emotional as you like. This book is about telling the human story of libraries and that’s why we want your ideas, thoughts, and memories,” she says “We expect libraries to be part of our towns and villages as a statutory provision, but they also fulfil a more nebulous ideal; libraries with public access are considered to uphold values of democracy and inclusion, equality and community. Library champions on social media commonly voice the personal meaning of a library: the impact the local library had for them as a child, as a young person, as a student, as a parent. Libraries get under our skin in the best possible way.”You can find the full story, including details of where to send contributions, which must be in by the end of June, here. |
| LIBRARIES CHANGE LIVES / GREEN WEEKS |
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| CILIP has announced the dates for this year’s Libraries Change Lives (LCL) and Green weeks. LCL will run from Monday 2 June to Sunday 8 June 2025. We know from our recent, very useful meeting with CILIP’s new (ish) CEO, Louise Coiffait-Gunn, that there will be parliamentary reception to give library people the chance to nobble (sorry – influence and talk to) MPs and peers about the importance of libraries as they did last year (above.) Green Libraries Week will be from Monday 27 October to Sunday 2 November 2025. It will bring together a campaign and celebration to focus on climate change and sustainability. 2025 will also see the return of the Green Libraries Conference.It is intended that both weeks will now be fixed at these times of the year. This will help with planning and give us all targets to aim at. |
FACEBOOKROUND UP |
| Friends of Lancaster Library have posted a photo of their shiny new banner in situ and drawing visitors’ attention to their activities and community cafe. It’s great that the public will be made aware of their local friends group and they make the point on their banner that their group is a great way to make friends whilst helping out their local library. Save our Libraries Essex (SOLE) posted quotes from this BBC article which published the facts about UK-wide library closures and the effects that they are having upon UK communities. As usual, the Essex group has been very busy online promoting their meetings to keep the public informed about their campaign and most recently advocating for Colchester SOLE which was holding an event that Essex Library service had not advertised – a coffee morning for friends groups and the public to attend to discuss the refurb plans. West Yorkshire’s Friends of Batley Library posted about their stories and crafts session for parents with young ones, their rhyme time and upcoming arts and craft day this coming Saturday March 29th. We also note that every Monday they have a “Meet, Try, Learn” session which gives the public a chance to experiment with learning a new craft and get creative with local people in their area. Further north, in Redcar and Cleveland, Friends of Guisborough Library have been on trend with keeping library users up to date with Borrow Box – the app that allows users to borrow ebooks and audiobooks. Their post went into lots of detail that served as beginners guide to using the app. Friends of Chinnor Library, Oxfordshire were celebrating having had a refurbishment a year ago. They posted a list of what had changed for their library including some encouraging stats such as their 26,198 books having been borrowed in the last twelve months. They facilitate many events at their library including rhyme time, coffee mornings (289 cups of coffee/tea served since the refurb), and story times. On top of all this, they run a jigsaw puzzle exchange – an inspiring idea for people who might have just finished a jigsaw and are keen to start on another! Suffolk group Friends of Lowestoft Library celebrated the recent Suffolk Libraries Day (not unrelated to the story above and the picture there is of Lowestoft Library) with a basket weavers’ workshop and display of local basket weaving and its history local to Suffolk. Hull’s Friends of Western Library have been posting about a broad range of topics including keeping their followers up to date with activities in other local groups in their community such as an Easter wreath making workshop, a theatre workshop for neuro-divergent young people, as well as their very own regular street dance keep fit activity workshop. |
| AND FINALLY… |
| KEEP YOUR AARDVARK OUT OF THE LIBRARYMost library services have a set of library byelaws, specifying what you can and cannot do in the library. The government has recently published a revised template to make it easier for library authorities to maintain these as technology, society etc moves on. The latest version came out recently.Those with long memories (or old library books) may remember bookplates or labels with extracts prohibiting people with infectious diseases from entering the library. That provision has gone but there remains “No person may bring any animal into the library, other than an assistance dog”. Perhaps more interesting for groups campaigning over library issues, or indeed anything else, is the bit that reads “No person may, without the consent of a library staff member, intentionally display or distribute promotional or other written material (e.g. posters or leaflets) on library premises. Materials displayed or distributed without such consent will be removed.”You have been warned. The document linked above is a template and may not have been used as is by any library authority. But you can ask… |
| Please get in touch with us if your local library is under threat, you have a Friends group that you wish to promote or you would like advice about how to start a Friends group for your local library – currently under threat or not. Feel free to ask any questions about what Friends groups get up to. We have now created an archive of our previous newsletters, which you can view here – check it out if you haven’t already and share the link as it’s also a place for new subscribers to sign up. If you are new to getting our monthly newsletter this is a way to see what we’ve been getting across since we started this newsletter in Autumn 2022. |
