Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal October 2003 Volume 1 (5)

President's perspective

"Reader, I married him"

Alistair Campbell ponders the ever-increasing range of library activities.

The memory of the Edinburgh International Book Festival remains strong: record visitor figures (and queues), superb weather, and Charlotte Square Gardens populated with scores of relaxing readers, books in hands, each enjoying a unique experience within a collective loud hurrah for reading and writing. For the President's entourage it was a supreme pleasure to be engulfed by the tented village. New titles, writers and publishers found, and the opportunity given to rub shoulders with the writers and book pundits of today.

At my height I accept I don't so much rub shoulders as worship at their feet. Albeit we did literally bump into Brian Osborne, that well rounded wordsmith. I endorse Brian's opinion in the August edition that "The Book Festival is worth supporting for its own sake, and the profile and prestige that libraries and our professional body could get from being associated with it...". So let's go for it, let's sponsor an event that spells out our commitment to the book and to the enjoyment of reading.

In recent years our traditional role has been under attack as book availability has widened and as new emphases on new technologies and other media have came into play. Asda and Tesco top titles, burgeoning bookshops with discounts and decaf filtering away traditional users and attracting young people to buy, rather than necessarily borrow, have hit us hard. And arguably other essential pressures such as the People's Network have meant less focus on the centrality of the book to our purpose.

Let's not harken back to thoughts of a golden age in the 70s when book borrowing increased irrevocably year on year. The world has moved on and so have demands on libraries. I was reminded of this most forcibly when visiting my local library on a recent Saturday. The café was packed, a talk on the Western Front had an audience of 80, two teenagers were selecting greetings cards from the library shop, the art print, video, DVD and spoken word areas were busy with borrowers of all ages, two dads were reading picture books to their toddlers, while all around parents and children chose books, videos, DVDs or used the internet and CD Rom PCs. The reference area was under siege, 24 People's Network terminals were in use, the study tables were fully occupied and a grandparent was getting help with photocopying. And yes, books were being borrowed from the main lending library!

The range of activities encapsulated within that two-minute time frame demonstrates not just the capability of the library service to meet contemporary needs but also the challenges it now faces in ensuring the pre-eminence of the book and support for reading and writing.

That's why in this 150th anniversary year of the Public Libraries (Scotland) Act effective delivery of our Reader Development Strategy is so important. At a national level, Matthew Perrin put a sound infrastructure in place which, now co-ordinated by Rhona Arthur, ensures all public library authorities are involved and have a common aim. Services have grouped together to share best practice, add value and co-ordinate promotional material. These developments will widen participation in reading, increase people's confidence and enjoyment of reading and allow them to share their reading experiences, raise the status of reading as a creative activity, and crucially, build on good practice and achievements.

At a regional level the North East authorities of Dundee, Angus, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Moray have joined together in a campaign to attract those in the 16 - 24 age group who are not traditional library borrowers, but who may use the library for other purposes. The www.read.it.net publicity campaign urges the potential borrower to browse, select, borrow, read and repeat. While this campaign is primarily a public library initiative every effort should be made to get it out to schools, community locations and FE/HE libraries.

Every effort might also be made by public libraries to explore the opportunities of integrated approaches to family history research services given the work being done by the General Register Office for Scotland, National Archives for Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon. Their intention is to create a family history campus based around the General Register House and New Register House buildings in Edinburgh. This will include significant development of online resources.

At a local level they are seeking to promote the availability of family history information, possibly via local Family History Research Centres run, in the main, by local authorities. Thus search facilities provided by local registration services, local archive services and local library services might be brought together on the one site. The principle is sound, supporting local community involvement and encouraging ancestral tourism, and proposing to bring together source materials and information which have hitherto been kept separate.

Although our colleagues at the GRO may not have grasped the importance of library local collections and expertise when they first proposed such local arrangements, they now appreciate what libraries can provide, particularly when supported by the People's Network infrastructure and Scottish Cultural Portal.

Hence fruitful discussions are taking place with a view to achieving a national licence to enable scotlandspeople to be accessible via all public libraries and to achieving co-ordinated marketing programmes. Also high on the agenda is the exploration of how DIGROS with all the statutory registers of births, deaths and marriages etc might be made available to specific libraries, under access protocols. The stumbling block to this is that only registrar staff may supervise the system. Will we then require to see multi-skilled local studies staff also operating as Assistant Registrars?

Given the recent relaxation on locations where couples can be married, and given libraries ever expanding roles, the phrase "Reader, I married him" would take on a whole new meaning...

Information Scotland Vol. 1 (5) October 2003

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