November 2022 – The Library Campaign

Welcome to November’s newsletter!

November has been a busy month. Several campaigns we’ve been helping with advice and evidence submissions are progressing (one way or another) See below! There’s been useful news to update on our website or store up for the next issue of our magazine. Our Instagram, Twitter and newsletter followers are steadily increasing. This is very encouraging, as it’s still a challenge ensuring that people who need us can find us…

Click the image to see the post on Instagram

RNIB Problems with print

We have been contacted by RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People), who are keen to explore ways to work with library Friends groups. So are we! There is a huge range of things you can do to make your library service more accessible to people who have trouble reading print – including people with dyslexia, and those who just struggle to see the letters on standard keyboards… With some fundraising, you could even equip your branch with some magic, easy-to-use gadgets that alter screen formats or read text aloud. Let us know about anything you are doing already, or might be interested in doing. There are good ideas on https://readingsight.org.uk

Lewisham news. Good and not so good

Pat Richardson, secretary of Users & Friends of Manor House, recently visited the new library at the Catford Centre. She said:“The Centre is a much more accessible site and open to regular footfall. It is appealing to look at from the public realm, clean and fresh. Thanks to the air-conditioning it feels very comfortable inside. Considerable thought seems to have been given to the colours used, with bright white movable book cases. There is room to move about and access to the computer terminals is well- arranged.The book stock seemed wide-ranging, easy to locate with some shelves face-on, others spine- on. Residents should benefit from the facility, and it is now sensibly located.Being tall, I was able (just about) to see where the staff station is, but it is right at the back. It might be helpful to have some direction at the door for this. I asked staff about the opening hours, and when the facility is staffed. No doubt an information board will be put in place. “It is rewarding to see public money invested in a facility for all. Hopefully, in spite of inflation, debt and cuts in budgets the library service in Lewisham will thrive.On the other hand a recent report to a council committee proposes cutting opening hours in all the libraries to save £90,000. The idea is not confirmed yet and it’s not clear exactly what hours will be cut where, but it’s a sign of the times (The report also proposes cuts and price increases for many other council services.)The same committee received a report that says they are waiting for government ‘levelling up’ funds to revamp Lewisham Library itself. It is a ‘significant challenge’ to operate and the state of the building is a cause for concern.”

Peacehaven and Redditch

These two towns – one in East Sussex, one in Worcestershire – are keeping us busy. In each case, a flourishing local library is seen as being in the way of a big shopping centre development. In each case, the development is being handled at town/borough council level. But the library is the responsibility of the county council – the official “ library authority”In each case, there are plans to re-site the library. But they are either reassuring but very much open to query (Worcs) – or completely invisible (East Sussex). Here the local Friends group has done admirable detective work that shows clearly that the little pink box on the plans indicates a new library that would be a fraction of the size of the current one.We are sending strongly worded contributions to both consultations, and chasing up East Sussex County Council with a Freedom of Information application to find out just what its plans are. Watch this space!We welcome news from local Friends and Campaign groups about what’s happening in your patch. What you send does not need to be headline making (in the newspaper sense) – just what you have been up to or what’s happening in your area. We can’t promise to use everything but we certainly can’t if we don’t know about it!

Nottingham: many a slip…

It’s a real nail-biter at Nottingham. A brilliant campaign has been mounted to save three branches threatened with closure, which we were happy to support. It’s been a long story.It started with a new Central Library being built in a new town centre, with its fit-out costs to be met by selling the old site. Covid, and some deals collapsing, left the library service with immediate savings of £233,000 a year to make. Losing three branches was part of the proposed solution. A bad bargain, as we said in our evidence. Since then, re-structuring has reduced the required saving to just £79,000 a year.Surely Nottingham would not cause such damage for such a paltry sum? Nothing could make it clearer what value for money branch libraries are! Hopes soared when a private meeting of the ruling Labour group voted to save all three. This should have ensured the right decision at the full council meeting on 22 November. But now the whole thing has been put off, probably until next year. Save Nottingham Libraries says it “cannot get to the bottom of the reason why they are delaying”.The council enigmatically comments: “This is an important decision which needs to take account of all the feedback we received during the consultation… We are still working on preparing the full range of options… to consider.” TLC is keeping watch.

Westminster Library newsLinda Hardman of the Friends of Church Street Library in Westminster reports:“The group was formed about 10 years ago following a Lottery-funded revamp of the library – we had to prove continued community use. We had to prove continued community use.

A few years ago the council began a process of regeneration which adversely affected the library. It was never threatened with closure, but the new library would be a third smaller. The Friends then joined with the Neighbourhood Action Forum to campaign for a new library of the same size or larger.Church Street is one of the poorer areas of Westminster. The library is a real community hub providing advice sessions, computer access and many events in addition to more traditional services. The loss of space would have severely curtailed many community activities. As many local people do not have internet access at home, free computer use is also essential and space is needed for terminals.The Friends held many meetings and petitioned councillors and library managers. Labour won Westminster City Council in May this year and the proposed regeneration is being re-planned. The library’s square footage will not be quite as much as the existing space but is considerably more than the original proposal, and the new library will directly front the main shopping area of Church Street.The regeneration scheme will take at least 10 years so, even though the library is in the first part of the scheme, it will be at least 2025 before we know if the Friends’ campaign has been a success. But we are very pleased with the decisions so far. The regeneration team, local councillors and library staff are very much keeping us in the information loop.Even under the Conservatives, Westminster Libraries were one of the best funded in the country, though over the years some library space has been lost. The Friends group has always supported the local staff. We commended them for their work during Covid: the library stayed open for booked computer use, as did one other branch in Westminster. The library also operated a click and collect scheme for book borrowing.As the library in Church Street is so supportive of the local area the Friends group will continue to do all they can to protect the essential services provided.”

Local Government funding

Just before the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the Conservative leaders of Kent and Hampshire (two of the biggest local and library authorities) warned that without government support they may have to issue section 114 notices – the local authority version of bankruptcy. They suggested that getting rid of some statutory obligations might help. Unspoken but implied – this could include libraries.Their concern is the rising pressure on social care for both adults and children, plus inflation in general. The autumn statement gave some relief, mainly in the freedom for local authorities to raise council tax a bit more than the previous limit. However this is not thought to be enough by most commentators, so the incentive to cut other services, including libraries, is likely to increase again.Friends groups should scrutinise local authority budgets, which will be under discussion already. We would like to know about any library related changes – cuts and closures, or any good news.

LibraryON

Three members of The Library Campaign attended the online web briefing of the British Library’s new digital platform LibraryOn. It was interesting. They explained the ten-year strategy for their massive project of creating an online digital and app service that aims to connect library users with their local libraries and promote UK libraries in general.That’s a cause that we can definitely get behind. There was talk of the new service launching to coincide with next year’s Libraries Week, discussion of how the library sector should react to library buildings being used as so-called warm banks, brainstorming about the sometimes difficult task of envisioning libraries and their spaces, how they are perceived visually and how they are actually used day to day, as well as how library staff will be able to have their say in terms of content, feedback, and ideas.

Just before the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the Conservative leaders of Kent and Hampshire (two of the biggest local and library authorities) warned that without government support they may have to issue section 114 notices – the local authority version of bankruptcy. They suggested that getting rid of some statutory obligations might help. Unspoken but implied – this could include libraries.Their concern is the rising pressure on social care for both adults and children, plus inflation in general. The autumn statement gave some relief, mainly in the freedom for local authorities to raise council tax a bit more than the previous limit. However, this is not thought to be enough by most commentators, so the incentive to cut other services, including libraries, is likely to increase again.Friends groups should scrutinise local authority budgets, which will be under discussion already. We would like to know about any library related changes – cuts and closures, or any good news.

Since our last mailout to you, the UK is still recovering from a rollercoaster few weeks including experimental Trussenomics and the beginning of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, which has seen swathes of fact-checkers fired from their jobs. However one thing did not change as reported on our recent blog post. That’s the fact that we do NOT have a new libraries minister. It’s still Lord Parkinson! This gives us a rest from adding to that tally, which has been creeping up in number almost yearly….

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