APRIL 2025 – The Library Campaign

APRIL 2025

Welcome to our newsletter round up of April’s UK libraries news!

TOGETHERNESS

We had not come across the Together Coalition before. It was founded in 2020 by the Archbishop of Canterbury and has a large and diverse range of members including the BBC, ITV, the Football Association, Sport England, British Red Cross and the Women’s Institute. It aims to “build kinder, closer and more connected communities by bringing people together and bridging divides”. Activities so far include a report on the lessons of Covid-19, the “Big Help Out” weekend to encourage volunteering (which gets some big-name support!) and a national dance project last month led by Angela Rippon.

Its latest wheeze is to appoint an Independent Commission on Community ,John Denham and Sajid Javid. First step was a call for evidence. It seemed a good idea for us to chip in, and so did Libraries Connected. We both pointed out the obvious role played by local libraries. In particular, the Campaign added, Friends groups are “a natural community add-on where people can join together in common, purposeful activities from improving the garden to running fun days”. And we both stressed that adequate funding is needed for this potential to be fully realised. We both look forward to seeing what happens next…

RUMINATIONS IN RUTLAND
Rutland is a small county, with just four libraries. So it can ill afford to lose one of them, especially one that is geographically cut off from the other three (as our trustee Alison Richards found out when she investigated). But such seemed to be the case with Ryhall library. The case is a curious one. It originates with Rutland’s success in getting two grants, from the Shared Prosperity Fund and from the ACE (Arts Council England) Libraries Improvement Fund (see elsewhere in this newsletter.) As always, one has to claim to be somehow innovative to get the money. So Rutland came up with “Living Well”. This seems to be a way to package (and expand) what libraries do anyway. The blurb says: “We want these buildings to be community and warm spaces where people can meet and spend time together, whether it’s for coffee mornings, reading clubs, youth groups or toddler sessions – whatever your community needs to stay connected.” Isn’t that what libraries already offer? The mystery deepened when Rutland consulted on its plans. Apparently the demands of Living Well were so great that suddenly, one library would have to close altogether. As always, local people were up in arms. We helped with advice, a Freedom of Information query, on-site support from Alison and letters to ACE to find out what had been agreed. But the real kudos goes to parish councillor Andrew Nebel. He unearthed the actual plans for library alterations – and found they were unnecessarily elaborate. Not worth losing a whole library to achieve. Then he did better – he called in local expertise to do an alternative costing of the plans. They were wildly excessive – £800 for a stainless steel sink, for instance. Rutland is now reconsidering the whole thing. Not before time.

NEW LIBRARIES MINISTER

Libraries Connected posted a welcome message on the X platform to the recently appointed minister for public libraries, Baroness Twycross. Fiona Twycross is a Labour peer who is now responsible as minister for overseeing policy on libraries, gambling, heritage as well as representing the government in the House of Lords regarding other DCMS matters. In a speech in the Lords, reported in Hansard, the Baroness made links between her general education and learning achieved with the help of libraries.

“I later relied on large-print books from the library when I was recovering from encephalitis as a teenager and was unable to focus on standard font size. My childhood love of books no doubt influenced my decision to undertake a PhD in Scandinavian literature, which remains one of the most enjoyable but probably least useful things I have done”And later in the same speech she said:“Libraries help give people the skills and knowledge they need to succeed through books and by tackling the digital divide, enabling digitally inclusive communities and supporting people by providing free wifi access, hosting and organising local cultural activities and working on collocating with other local authority services and agencies such as citizens advice and the post office. Libraries are crucial partners in providing vital support to families and developing children’s language development, reading skills and confidence from early years onwards. DfE research shows that reading for pleasure grows self-confidence, strengthens community participation and improves knowledge and understanding of other cultures”We wish the Baroness good luck in her post and shall support her endeavours where appropriate.

LIBRARIES IMPROVEMENT FUND
The Government, through Arts Council England, has announced the latest round of the Libraries Improvement Fund (LIF). English Library authorities can bid for a share (anything between £50,000 and £500,000) of a £5.5m pot to “invest in a range of projects to upgrade buildings and technology so they are better placed to respond to the changing ways people are using them.” The impacts and outcomes they want to see include increasing use, as well as the perception and value of libraries, increase opening hours and PCs for public use but also more commercial income. 43 library service benefitted from the last round – awards covered the range of available money from £50k upwards. It’s always good to see money going in to libraries but it would be better (in our view) if there was not a perennial bidding war. Authorities which do not win are likely to have spent many hours crafting their bids to no effect when time and money could have been devoted to other things.

BANNING BOOKS
We have been disheartened to hear growing anecdotal evidence of requests for the censorship of both LGBTQ+ books and materials as well as other cases where the race of the authors are being targeted. The Guardian published two pieces recently looking at the evidence and tracked both the differences as well as alarming similarities between growing censorship in the USA and the political forces behind this with what’s been happening here in the UK. One of the main differences is that US public libraries faces the problem of campaign groups, which are often well funded that wish to censor materials about race, sexuality and gender equality as opposed to one off individual requests.
One article explored what CILIP’s comments have been about this matter in relation to its ethical framework which guides on UK library policy. Another article, from Alison Hicks, titled ‘Trump-style book censorship is spreading – just ask British librarians’, was an opinion piece aimed to distinguish between genuine threats from social media based on statistics to the so called harmful effects of reading certain books. She writes “Social media platforms have been blamed for encouraging bullying and eating disorders, and promoting influencers who drive misogyny. Banning books will only drive young people online for answers, where they are more likely to encounter content produced by people who have no interest in equipping them with the information and skills they need to navigate the world. In this age of digital exposure and misinformation, librarians play a more vital role than ever’

AWARDS SEASON
It’s that time of year again. The longlist for the Crime Writers’ Association “Dagger in the Library’ has been announced. The Dagger in the Library is a prize for a body of work by an established writer of crime fiction or non-fiction who has long been popular with borrowers from libraries. It also rewards authors who have supported libraries and their users through taking part in library events. Nominations are made by libraries and borrowers in the UK and the Republic of Ireland and is voted on by libraries. This year’s longlist includes Richard Osman (perhaps not a surprise though he has not been shortlisted before), Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) and Barbara Nadel amongst others. The shortlist will be announced at the end of May and the winner will be declared on an as yet unknown date.

ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND LIBRARIES FRAMEWORK

The application process also opened for the new Arts Council England (ACE) Libraries Development framework. Many years in making this was originally promoted as being similar to the museums Accreditation scheme which has been around for many years. The Framework is intended to support library services in meeting the needs of their communities and “to effectively advocate for your library service at local and national levels, with community partners, national stakeholders, and local decision-makers. It will also help you to demonstrate your library service’s commitment to:ongoing improvement, innovation, and best practicelocal and national policy alignmentcross-sectoral workingstaff development and motivation”The Framework was designed by Libraries Connected and an independent consultancy. It is not mandatory for library authorities to apply to be accredited under the framework and if they are, they can be removed “if the Secretary of State in the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport considers that there has been a failure by the library authority to meet its statutory duties under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 following a local inquiry.” So that is frankly unlikely to happen, though accreditation only lasts five years at which point a new application will be needed. The Library Campaign made sure we were included in the consultation when the framework was being developed, though that was a couple of years back. We believe that the delay between then and the current announcement was caused by the need to find a mechanism with appropriate resources to administer the scheme. In any case we did not see that the involvement of users was an integral part of the assessment or indeed required in the application, which is a significant gap in our view.

UNLOCKING E-BOOKS

A couple of months ago we reported on Libraries Connected effort to overcome the (non-)availability of e-books in public libraries. Meantime CILIP has been running a project including research on e-books in all types of libraries. Sparked by concerns in academic libraries, the report they commissioned covered public and other libraries too. In brief there are problems throughout the library sectors and CILIP has now produced some material to help concerned people (users as much as librarians) to do some campaigning. There is a template letter to MPs and one for the Commons Education Committee, asking them to raise the issues and support / have an inquiry into the issue. There are also letter that can be used to get Vice-Chancellors involved in the matter and a form which anyone can use to submit a case study of their experience. While E-books are a small part of public libraries’ business there is an expectation that many books are available electronically and if libraries cannot provide them they go down in people’s expectations. The fact that it is the publishers that cause the problem by their pricing and insistence on restrictive terms and conditions, is not known, even by many library staff.

FACEBOOKROUND UP

We begin this month’s round of the latest activity of UK Friends groups with Oxfordshire’s Friends of Chinnor Library who have shared on Facebook a very pretty display of a selection of books that explore and educate about the natural world. They were also posting about the details for their upcoming community Spring craft event on the 10th of May. It’s heartening to see such small acts of local community activity during these busy times. While we are drenched in massive news stories and around such worrisome cuts to library services on a wider level. Friends of Chinnor Library are clearly a vibrant, healthy and busy group getting on with supporting their local library. Friends of Guisborough Library, North Yorkshire tagged us in their post showing off their own latest craft session. We have, indeed, seen a recent trend for these types of events across libraries in the UK organ used by Friends of Libraries Groups. We quote their post here: “Both sessions were fully attended by 12 people, who all started with a white pinch pot and made either a gnome, sheep, hare, mouse or toadstool. The creations from the first session were taken away to be fired, and then returned for the 2nd session to be glazed. Everyone was so pleased with the finished items that we are now planning to do 2 more pottery sessions in October and November. Look out for more information if you would like to join in the fun!” Friends of Lancaster Library, who run a donation based cafe every Wednesday to raise funds for their library, were this month showing off their graphic design skills with a special social media post about world earth day. We had seen several posts from friends groups about world earth day and Friends of Lancaster took it as an opportunity to mention various events that related to sustainability and environmentally friendly projects they had been involved with over the previous twelve months In Southampton, Friends of Portswood Library have had a busy Easter weekend with Peter Rabbit and MIFFY bunny mask making workshops as well as a host of other craft activities suitable for all ages. They also had someone on hand to give free computer literacy advice to visitors, and reading coaching team Read Easy Southampton & IOW were there to offer their services. Bristol’s Friends of Sea Mills Library posted about the amount of local info they have in the form of leaflets that are available air their library and make it clear they have people on hand to talk over the topics and info resources which include covering Travel, Care, Dementia, Help with Reading, Cost of Living and Volunteering. Buckinghamshire’s Friends of Burnham Library have a very busy spring schedule having hosted several events for Easter as well as advertising their upcoming seed swap for locals with green fingers, IT support workshops, an opportunity to discuss health issues, and this coming weekend a spring craft fair. It’s wonderful to keep up with what all these Friend’s groups and many more on social media have been up to and plan to do. Please get in touch if your group wishes to be featured in our newsletter.

AND FINALLY…

£4,000 FRIENDS COMPETITION There’s just time to meet out 30 April deadline for entries. We now have a gratifying number, but more will be welcome. Don’t forget – we don’t ask for elaborate presentations, just enough to show what you are doing. So far, we are truly impressed by the quality and the sheer variety of the ideas you have shared. Actually picking the winners will be a difficult task. It’s a problem we are happy to have. Full details on how to enter on our website

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.