DECEMBER 2025  Welcome to our newsletter round up of December’s UK libraries news! This newsletter should reach you on Boxing Day so please accept our Season’s Greetings and best wishes for the New Year. THAT COMPETITION – WINNERS ANNOUNCED  At last we are wrapping up the saga of our 40th anniversary competition. We have learned a lot – sometimes the expense of those who entered… We underestimated the admin time it took to deal with 40-plus entries in a multiplicity of formats. Also the difficulty of squeezing their activities into our 10 categories. Some outstanding groups just didn’t fit. But we thought we must stick to what we had laid down. In the end, so many entries really impressed us that it was impossible to do justice to all. We have turned all the results into a special issue of our magazine. We have crammed in mentions of as many Friends groups as possible, prize winners or not. So everyone can see what (almost) everyone did. If you are a member of TLC, you should get two print copies very soon or ay have had them just before Christmas. If not, it is already on our website. The prize money came from a couple of bequests. We wanted to disburse it to Friends groups, and the competition seemed a good way. It actually was, in that we now have a stock of great stories illustrating how amazing Friends groups are. We can use that. But we don’t want to do a competition again! If we get hold of some money in future, we want to find a better way of distributing it to Friends groups… Any ideas? Picture above : Watlington library’s Christmas Window 2025. Designed and painted by Jen Skene THE LIBRARY CAMPAIGN AGM After the competition results were announced we had planned to hold our Annual General Meeting. Perhaps because the first part of the event necessarily overran (we had some severe technical difficulties), the attendance was not good enough to achieve a quorum by the time we got to the AGM. Andrew Coburn (Treasurer) gave a oral report on the 2024/25 accounts as he was unable to screen share. They were healthy (for us) and showed a small operating surplus but we are running a deficit budget for 2025/26. Owing to the lack of a quorum the existing trustees will carry on in post (they are listed on our website) and we will have another go in the new year. LOAN CHANGER   Library services all took the same hit during the Covid lockdown. But some are recovering better than others. Research for Libraries Connected by a consultancy called Independent Mind used data from 34 services to analyse what has happened since the pre-Covid ‘baseline’ year 2019-20. Case histories show what’s been done in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Staffordshire, St Helens, Lewisham and Doncaster. Overall, loans in 2024-5 were 14% higher. But some services have had ‘huge growth’, while others are still not back to pre-Covid levels. Growth has been mostly in the digital formats: e-books, e-audio and particularly e-press (22% of all loans in 2024-5). In 2019-20, 87% of loans were print; in 2024-5 only 65%. Print has never got back to pre-Covid levels. It recovered steadily up to 2023-4 but since then it has declined a little. Blip or trend? Visits, meanwhile, are also still below pre-Covid level, but growth is steady with no recent decline. The pandemic had an instant and lasting effect on choice of format. Pre-Covid, 82% of loans to adults were print; the year after (2020-21), 64% were digital. Things have ‘re-balanced’ since then, but digital is still 50%. There has also been a shift from fiction – 73% of loans in 2019-20; 63% in 2024-5. Most of the fiction (82%) is still loaned in print form. Only 14 of the 34 services had any decent demographic information about their users, rather surprisingly. So there’s no comprehensive analysis of who borrows from libraries or why. And what about the 15 services that outperformed the average? Seven had spent more on stock. Other factors were identified, all of them simple common sense. But we especially liked the paragraph lauding ‘community engagement, partnerships and outreach’. This includes working with communities ‘to offer, and in some cases co-design and deliver, services and support’ that people actually want. Including choice of stock. What won’t do is ‘just relying on [people] to visit libraries’. What works is ‘providing books by stealth’. In other words, luring them in with other services and promoting books alongside. Just what Friends groups are all about… THE HODGE REPORT After taking office, the Government commissioned Baroness Margaret Hodge (an ex-Arts minister amongst other hats), to do an independent review of the Arts Council of England (ACE). It has just been published. The terms of reference of the review cover everything from the purpose and structure of ACE to how it works both with Government and with organisations it is supposed to serve /assist. Bearing in mind that ACE took over from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and should therefore be a source of advice and support for libraries as well as some funding, the report could be significant. When looking at libraries, the review highlights the issue that we know about – that library authorities and staff have to put a lot of work into bidding for relatively small amounts of money knowing that they may well not be successful in their efforts.  People who have to work with ACE also apparently see it as undervaluing libraries and being difficult to work with, for all the potential benefits There are 21 recommendations, some with sub-paragraphs. For libraries the most important one is that they (libraries) should be removed from ACE’s purview and given to the British Library. Or, if that is not acceptable or found workable, that ACE and DCMS should discuss with the library sector other ways of working, CILIP (the professional body) and Libraries Connected (which works with senior Public Library managers) have issued a statement that says: “Moving these functions to the British Library would incur significant resource and opportunity costs, creating a lengthy and disruptive transition at a time when the sector needs clarity and stability. This would be particularly challenging for the 18 library sector organisations currently within ACE’s Investment Programme. The move would do nothing to address the fragmented structure surrounding libraries or the funding challenges faced by the sector – on the contrary, it is likely to reduce the total amount of funding available to libraries.” The British Library welcomed “the recognition of the British Library’s track record of collaborative work with partners across library sector and Arts Council England.” and said “We look forward to working with DCMS and our partners to explore these proposals further within the context of a long term and sustainable settlement.” We wait to see what the Government reaction is. They have said that a full response will be published in the New Year. QUICK – STRATEGISE We’ve had word that the Department for Culture, Media & Sport is working on a libraries strategy. We will be sending evidence, of course. Strategies, visions, frameworks and the like come and go. As do libraries ministers. But a new strategy would be a definite and public push for the government to do something. The current minister, Lady Twycross, is well thought of in library circles. She wants something wrapped up before May, for obvious reasons. She also wants libraries to get support from other departments that they benefit (education, health, employment, benefits etc etc). That’s been an ambition for decades, without success. Good luck to her. LIVERPOOL STRATEGY  Strategies are obviously catching! We were pleased to see that Liverpool City Council is launching a new library strategy to carry them through to 2031. It follows a consultation in the summer. There are ten ‘goals’, the first of which is to increase awareness of the service, followed by one on promoting the benefits of joining and using libraries. The other goals are equally laudable and although we have not yet read all 100 pages of the strategy document that went to the Cabinet this month, it seems they are trying to do the right thing. Page 425 in the link above Separately we have been contacted by a Friends Group who have been asked to get very (too much?) involved in developing a strategy for their council. They ask us what a good library strategy looks like. We don’t have many examples so, if your service has done one, we would like to see it. A LIBRARY CARD FOR EVERY NEWBORN? Currently, parents have to go along to their local library to sign up their infants to become library members. Under a new policy proposal put forward by think tank the Cultural Policy Unit (CPU), who previously did work for the Fabian Society, babies born in the UK will automatically be issued a library card which may, for many, spark an interest in taking their child along to the library, as well as making life a little easier in terms of admin for those already planning to bring in their young ones. Authors Richard Osman, Kate Mosse and Sir Philip Pullman have signed a petition in favour of the policy, with Mosse appearing on BBC radio 4’s Today programme to speak about the proposal. The BBC news website quoted Mosse: “A lot of people still feel that [libraries are] not for them” but said automatically giving out cards could show that “every single young child that’s born is welcome.” Isobel Hunter, chief executive of Libraries Connected, was quoted in the Bookseller magazine: “This important new policy report shows that public libraries are engines of social mobility, with a critical role in supporting children and families from birth. Libraries are a low cost, high impact service – investing now will save money in the long term and help all children thrive for the start.” This idea may have been rolled out in a few areas but The Library Campaign is pleased to see the promotion of this proposal which has been floated for many years. ROUND UP  Oxfordshire’s friends groups have been busy, like so many across the country, with Christmas and holiday-themed events. Friends of Chinnor Library have been hosting seasonal story time sessions, including one with a visit from a special reader – Santa Claus. In the same county, the Friends of Watlington Library (a competition winner – see above) hosted their own festive story time for young ones and a crafts session in their library. In Lancashire, Friends of Lancaster Library (FOLL) posted a very grateful message that read. “FOLL wants to wish all our brilliant volunteers, cafe customers, supporters, and partners a peaceful and happy festive period. Thank you all for being part of the Friends of Lancaster Library and the library community! FOLL are really excited about creating even more diverse opportunities for central Lancaster library users to enjoy taking part in next year.” Friends of Batley Library, Kirklees, have been posting about what regular busy Mondays are for them, as on the same day, they regularly host a craft-making session for people of all abilities, and then move on to hosting choir practice in the library in the evenings. They’ve also found time this December for a Christmas concert! A very vibrant friends group and another competition winner! Save Coventry Libraries have been suggesting to their social media followers the great idea that a library card is an excellent last-minute Christmas gift, and we couldn’t agree more, if you happen to know someone who has yet to have one. Save Our Libraries Essex – SOLE voiced concerns about who is being put in charge of the Essex Library service, as the interim post holder has apparently no experience with running library services. They posted that: “When Juliet Pirez, a qualified Librarian, was appointed, it gave us confidence that the council’s leadership was committed to libraries. But all too often, those running library services elsewhere have brought in those without library experience, perhaps from the private sector, to the most senior leadership roles. And they come in to further cut libraries, and to further commercialise the service.” A very active group, they have been posting a lot over the last month, keeping up awareness of potential threats to Essex libraries but also praising the reopening, after a year closed for refurbishment, of Colchester Library The Isle of Wight’s Friends of Freshwater Library report that they had a busy and excellent Saturday as they hosted their elf-shaped Christmas card-making event. They posted several photos of children who attended the event, standing in front of their library’s Christmas tree. They also give a nod to the new year with their announcement that it shall bring a new reading challenge and book bingo for library members to participate in. AND FINALLY… BURNING LIBRARY  No, not the latest headline from Trump’s USA but a new book that looks like fireside fun for library-lovers. Burning Library (John Murray Press) is by Gilly Macmillan, a Sunday Times and New York Times best-seller. It’s described as ‘a race against time through ancient manuscripts where every revelation comes with a price and nobody can be trusted’. It starts, of course, with a murder. Then Dr Anya (not Dan!) Brown is recruited to the… er, ‘exclusive Institute of Manuscript Studies at St Andrews’. Little does she realise she is really being employed by a scary secret sisterhood. She is soon, of course, busy deciphering long-hidden clues and travelling all over the place… 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. Copyright (C) *2023* *The Library Campaign*. * Registered Charity No: 1102634 * All rights reserved. |
