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 June 2004 Volume 2 (3)

CILIPS conference: Presidential Address

The power of partnerships

Moira Methven urges everyone to realise the power of their potential by forming partnerships of all sizes.

We hear a lot about partnership working these days but partnerships don’t have to be on a large scale to be effective. It may even be perhaps that the smaller ones work better, but the thing is that as soon as a partnership is entered into, your profile is raised. And we do still need to raise our profile. Notwithstanding the success of The People’s Network, and other programmes which have recognised the ability and potential libraries have for reaching people, our profile, our corporate image, is not particularly high and not particularly clear in the public eye. We know what we do and we know what we can do, but in other people’s minds what we do is shuffle books around. What we need to become is the obvious partner for any organisation wishing to connect with communities or groups, because that is where we operate. We should not be sitting behind desks waiting for people, either potential customers or potential partners, to come to us. We have to be out there making the connections, forming the alliances, raising the profile. We are good at it after all. We co-operate all the time within our own profession, for example through TAFLIN, CAIRNS, SCONE, shadowing the Carnegie and Greenaway Awards, and we co-operate with other Departments within our own Authorities. I could go on. But, according to a recent study, only 15% of people feel their local Council listens to, consults, or learns from local people, either well or very well. Surely there is a role for libraries here. Public libraries are the service with the most contact with people of all age groups, and a reputation for being trustworthy and non-partisan (possibly because a significant number of our users don’t know we are run by local authorities). We are in an unrivalled position to engage with the public. Alan Milburn MP, a leading influence on government policy, said at a recent conference

"... accountability needs to move downwards and outwards to consumers and communities. The principal drivers of public service improvement over the remainder of this decade are likely to be consumer choice and community involvement".

We may be the department most closely involved with that community but we have to remind ourselves that not all of our colleagues running Council departments are aware of this. We have to tell them that if they want to connect with communities then they will be most successful if they do it through the Libraries network. I know this from my own experience. A few years before the People’s Network came about, our Corporate Planning Department, when wishing to make City Council Information available to the public, were not convinced that libraries were the obvious place to house the computers, until I produced the figures which showed that the number of visitors to our libraries were far, far higher than any other public buildings in the city.

And incidentally, contrary to what Tim Coates says in his Who’s in Charge? report where he claims that libraries will be out of business in 20 years due to lack of visitors, Dundee Libraries visitor figures for last year stood at over 1.3 million, 120,000 up on the previous year, and I’m sure other authorities have had the same experience.

But of course to succeed in anything we need a motivated workforce. How many of you, if interviewing two people for the same post, would appoint the candidate who in reply to the question “Why do you want to work in a library?” answered “because I like people” and not “because I like books”? I know which candidate I would choose. We hear a lot about the shifting role of the librarian, but in many cases I don’t think we pay it much heed. The kind of people we want, the kind of people we need in our organisations are the ones who are prepared for change, the ones who can adapt. We need the staff who like people and who want to work with people. We need the ones who can talk, communicate, co-operate, the ones who are happy to try new things and who are open to ideas, and we need a lot more of these people if, in even the medium term, the image we want, the profile we want, and to be honest, the importance we want, is to be achieved.

But what about those staff who currently lack these skills? Well for the library authority involved the choice is simple. In the words of Jim Rohn, Business Guru, “You must modify your dreams or magnify your skills.” We are not going to compromise our dream for the future role of libraries, therefore we need to up-skill the workforce. We need library and information professionals who can not only demonstrate their effectiveness in accessing, mediating and delivering quality services, but who can also develop an ability to articulate their worth and also persuade others of the value of quality information. We certainly have the skills to extract the nuggets of gold from the buckets of dross available on the Internet, but what else do we need?

Much has been achieved through the NOF funded training, but we now need the continuing professional development framework and the library schools to provide librarians with the opportunity to equip themselves with skills for partnership working which may not come naturally to at least some of us – effective communication, marketing and strategic planning. We also need to acquire an aptitude for creating and seizing opportunities to demonstrate the library and information profession’s worth to the corporate agendas. With the necessary skills will come a self-confident, can-do attitude and an enthusiasm which will lead to success.

One way we can improve our services is by replacing the Scottish Public Library Standards, which were last revised in 1995 and are therefore not so relevant as they once were. The Scottish Library and Information Council are actively looking at ways of developing a quality improvement framework along the lines of “How Good is your School?” and based on self-evaluation, and possibly including peer review. Without the evidence base to lobby elected members, Directors of Finance, Chief Executives, and the rest, for adequate, never mind additional, resources, the blame for under-performing library services may be placed at the door of its managers and their staffs. Then, the spectre looms of a less benign partnership. That is what happened in Haringey. Something to make us all sit up and take notice – a private company recruited to manage the Libraries, Archives and Museums Service.

One partnership which affected us all in public libraries was the introduction of The People’s Network. This was a partnership on a huge scale. We have had to adapt very quickly to the new circumstances that The People’s Network brought about and frankly, that was no bad thing. Nothing concentrates the mind so much as a looming deadline, and the fact that we were all in it together meant we were all talking to each other about the same things. We were exchanging thoughts and ideas, offering help. We learned from each others’ experience. We were co-operating. We were in partnership.

So what do we think of it all now? I think it has changed our own views of our libraries, and it has certainly changed the public perception of our libraries. Suddenly, for that’s how it seemed, we were offering something to a lot of people who previously thought we had nothing to offer. Some of our staff weren’t happy, and some of our users weren’t happy either, but training for staff, and understanding and acceptance from our more traditionally minded users, has resulted in us successfully introducing what is probably the biggest change in public libraries in the shortest time. I have even heard it said that we are living in the “Early Digital Age”.

Now I don’t want to talk so much about The People’s Network as about a challenge it has thrown up, and the opportunity to form a new partnership which that challenge presents. A large proportion of network users are people who, up until the introduction of banks of computers, would rarely have visited a library, if at all. Our challenge is to form a partnership with these users, and to show them that we offer much more than the use of a computer. Our challenge is to have them borrowing books, CDs, DVDs or whatever. We want them to use the periodicals, to visit us for information, leaflets, booklets, advice. If we don’t attempt to do this we miss a huge opportunity. For years now, we have expended a lot of time and effort, not to mention funds, in trying to get traditional non-library users to walk through our doors, and now they are coming of their own free will. Five years ago we would have given our eye-teeth to have our visitor figures increased like this, so don’t let us miss out on the opportunity it represents. Yes, it is demanding. Yes, we have had to rethink our policies and rearrange our staffing and our physical layouts. Yes, some misuse the facility, and yes, the behaviour of some is challenging, but that’s why, as I mentioned earlier, we need the right kind of staff. The staff who are up for a challenge.

The idea of Best Value came from the 1998 Government White Paper Modern Local Government: in touch with the people. It defined Best Value as “the continuous search by a local authority to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of all its services and activities for its community and other service users”. It made us look closely at the way we did things, and think about doing things differently. It was from then, I believe, that the concept of partnership working really began to take hold, because we saw that in many cases of service delivery improvement could be made, indeed new services provided, if we hooked up with others. And speaking of hooking up, there was a fascinating article in the April edition of Update entitled “Don’t Keep It Quiet!” This was a report on a Marketing Society event which took place in Yorkshire and in which two advertising teams from the private sector were set the challenge of marketing the public library service. One team was from Nestlé and the other from First Direct, and what they came up with makes very interesting reading.

Significantly, both teams included the word “Library” in their campaigns. What’s significant about that is that, as we ourselves discuss how we change the image of our libraries in the public’s mind, the suggestion is occasionally made that we drop the name “Library” and come up with something else. Well, as far as these marketing people were concerned, the word “Library” is a very strong selling point. It was, they believed, a valuable and well-known concept. Incidentally, the Nestlé team came up with the slogan “It’s Your Library” which is a slogan we ourselves have been using for some time. What’s the point in my telling you all this? Well, both teams were given a theoretical budget of £400,000 to work with Ian Stringer, the author of the article and who attended the event, was quick to point out to them the reality of local authority budgets.

Now, that sum of money would be impossible for us but surely it is possible for us, as individual authorities, to form partnerships or consortia with each other which would enable us to take on an agency to come up with a good advertising campaign. Surely there is some way we could bring this about. Just think of the impact a good advertising campaign would have. I believe it would be money well spent and I believe it is something we need to think about seriously. And when we have done the serious thinking, let’s get together and do some serious talking. “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” Are you willing? This really is something our profession needs to take forward in partnership!

Now, just out of curiosity, I went into Google and keyed in “Library Partnerships.” On offer were more than one and a quarter million websites. Does that surprise you? It did me. School Libraries, Academic Libraries and Public Libraries all featured highly. I scrolled through a few pages and went into a few sites just to see what was going on. I even found one website called “The Power of Partnership”. There were some large partnerships and some small partnerships, some interesting partnerships and some not so interesting. However, in just a few minutes in front of the screen, I saw ideas that we could adopt ourselves. Give it a go. See what you can find.

I mentioned Best Value earlier, and this is something referred to on numerous occasions in the Scottish Executive’s Cultural Strategy. It clearly identifies partnership working as the key to its success. Indeed, it states that libraries will “have” to form partnerships in order for it to succeed. We will have to form partnerships with other departments within our councils, with other councils, and with other agencies, including The Scottish Arts Council, The National Lottery Fund and The European Union, amongst others. Partnerships, the Strategy states, are “seen as crucial to the future progress and development of public libraries.” The implications for us in the document are, I think, quite profound and defining, and it’s quite fitting therefore that they should be contained in a document concerning itself with something as profound and defining as our own culture.

The Cultural Strategy is hugely important, involving school libraries, public libraries and other departments as well as academic libraries. In any talk on the theme of partnership it would have been impossible to ignore. The strategy has been followed by the Cultural Policy Statement, which sets out the Executive’s vision for access to culture and the arts in Scotland. Part of that vision involves having an infrastructure in place which is capable of delivering Cultural Strategy, and I would reiterate my challenge to the Executive regarding the funding of buildings fit for the delivery of twenty-first century services.

It is impossible to deliver a talk on the Power of Partnership without mentioning a few examples, and if the Cultural Strategy is significant for local authorities, amongst other organisations, then the National Electronic Licensing Strategy has no small measure of significance for Academic Libraries, and it will also have an impact on public and industrial and medical libraries, as well as the National Library of Scotland. The outcome of this strategy is still a bit away, but a Scottish Science Information Working Group has been established and is taking the initiative forward. What is envisaged is the on-line availability of accurate and up-to-date scientific information and data which will allow academics, researchers, teachers, inventors and others in Scotland to become more competitive, better informed, more successful. The Working Group is also looking into the possibility of the research findings from various science projects in Scotland being made freely available on the internet. Again, information like this is of potentially enormous importance to researchers and academics in this country. These ideas are big ones and will involve partnership working on a grand scale. Similar initiatives are underway in other countries, notably Finland and Canada, so why not here? As I said earlier, “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and I’m sure we all wish the working group every success in their endeavour.

Incidentally, if we need any evidence that it’s the way to go these statistics provide it, 30% of the National Library of Denmark’s requests were satisfied from electronic sources in 2002 and 60% were satisfied from electronic sources in 2003.

So what does the future hold for us as a profession? Well I’ve already mentioned my thoughts on the advertising of our services and the impact that could have. I’ve talked about the National Electronic Licensing Strategy and our involvement in that in the future, and of one other of the ongoing projects being undertaken by the Scottish Science Information Working Group. There are also the plans the National Library of Scotland has for the accessibility of its resources – that too will involve partnership working with many other libraries and institutions.

What about the accessibility of all our resources? The seeker after knowledge who happens to live on Coll or Tiree should be able to access the book or the article or the document he needs with the same ease as the person who lives just across the road from a large city library – this is more and more possible – virtually.

Sales of books are increasing. Will Hutton of the Observer suggests that this is because “Buying a book on the Internet is easier and more time-efficient than traipsing to the library, even if there were a better chance of finding what you want.” To counter this, I contend that we should respond positively to this change in behaviour, not be threatened by it. We should be developing the on-line reservation service already available in a number of libraries, and considering the introduction of a home delivery service. We should also be looking closely at the opportunities being offered by e-Books.

People could have access to information tailored to their needs twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, brokered by information workers in countries all over the world. Given the time zones that exist, this is something which should be achievable. Again this would require partnership working on a very large scale, but why shouldn’t it work? If you scale this idea down to start with you will see it is not pie in the sky. Scotland is well placed to get such a scheme up and running. It’s already underway in Denmark and in some states in America. You could see how it would not be difficult for these states to link up and for individual countries to link up. In England, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council has been awarded NOF funding for the implementation of such a scheme. There is no reason why funding could not be found to enable a 24-7 enquiry service to be set up in Scotland. It’s bold moves, forward-looking moves like these which impress Governments and funding bodies, which emphasise the value of library services of all disciplines, and which ultimately raise our profile and our worth in the collective mind of the population.

That is partnership working on a large scale certainly. For successes on a smaller scale we have our Readers’ Groups, a form of partnership working which is growing more and more popular. Why just Readers’ Groups though? Why not Listeners’ Groups and Viewers’ Groups?

If you have any doubts about the amount of partnership working going on in Scotland today have a look through the SLIC Annual Review and CILIPS Annual Report. Almost everything mentioned from Digitisation to Prison Libraries involves a partnership of some kind.

Finally, just let me say this. Large scale or small scale, the partnership possibilities are enormous, and the opportunities are there for you. Partnership working is the way forward. Don’t be afraid of it. It works.

Moira Methven is Senior Manager, Communities, at Dundee City Council. This is a shortened version of her Presidential Address given at the CILIPS Annual Conference 2004 on 9 June.

Information Scotland Vol. 2 (3) June 2004

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