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 2005 Volume 3 (3)

CILIPS Conference

Smart, successful libraries

Alastair Johnston not only identified themes, but developed them, in his fascinating Presidential Address. We present extracts here.

The phrase 'Smart, Successful Scotland' is taken from the title of a strategy launched in January 2001 by Wendy Alexander in her role as the then Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Minister. The strategy was designed to give Scotland's enterprise agencies a three year mission – and a challenge, to build a new prosperity by raising the skills and capabilities of Scotland's people. It was a recognition that lifelong learning should lie at the heart of the nation's competitiveness.

I am sure you will agree with me that libraries have already played a major role in making Scotland's people both smarter and more successful. The People's Network, for example, is acknowledged by the Lottery funders and recognised by Government as an exemplar project both for the excellence of the public services it delivers and for the quality and success of its implementation.

The ICT revolution, in terms of public access to computers and computer-based training is a phenomenon of the past ten years where in Scotland we have gone from 1 public library with 12 computers to 602 public libraries with over 4,000 machines. It is estimated that an astonishing 10 million virtual visits will be made to Scottish library websites this year. In academia the acceptance and speed of growth of ICT has been even more impressive.

Training for library staff

The installation and inauguration of the People's Network is, without doubt, the single most important development in public libraries since the introduction of open access lending in the 1920s. Over the UK almost 40,000 public library staff have completed a learning programme linked to the People's Network. It was recognised early in the process that there was no existing means of properly accrediting what was to be the biggest mass library staff training programme ever attempted. ECDL or PC Passport were available for the ICT technical skills but what about the other outcomes – areas such as enquiry techniques, knowledge of the range of resources available to help users, support for reader development, not to mention the advanced roles of Net Navigator, Information Consultant, Information Gatekeeper, Information Manager or Educator.

SLIC, at the request of the Big Lottery Fund, has been leading the development of accreditation to cover this area. Very soon we will see the launch of two new UK-wide qualifications targeted specifically at library assistants and new entrants to library work – whether paraprofessional or professional. A Certificate in Applications of ICT in Libraries which will cover the non-technical outcomes previously mentioned and the Advanced Certificate in Applications of ICT in Libraries which will cover the advanced outcomes such as Net Navigator and Educator. The introduction of these new qualifications is to be warmly welcomed and will, I am sure, be widely taken up across Scotland and the rest of the UK. A secondary benefit of these Certificates is their role in establishing a valid career structure for paraprofessional staff. One which begins to break down traditional barriers between professional and paraprofessional, and one which begins to address the skills gap which, within the next 10 to 15 years, will become a yawning chasm as around 35% of professional staff in Scottish Public Libraries retire.

A national co-ordinated strategy

In the broader context the experience of the People's Network and its co-ordinated acquisitions has led me to the conclusion that there is now a strong case for some kind of nationally co-ordinated strategy or strategies for libraries. I believe that this would lead to more cost effective services being delivered to a higher standard to even more people across Scotland. There are exciting opportunities out there for joint and imaginative partnership working within and across the sectors- the Crichton academic campus in Dumfries demonstrates that the health sector, two universities and two fe colleges can work successfully together and talks are ongoing in terms of an academic input to public library developments in the town centre and vice versa on the academic campus.

At this year's COSLA Conference Tom McCabe, the Minister for Finance signalled the way forward for local authorities. He told the conference that he was not there to cut 32 Provosts – in other words, there was not going to be another wholesale local government reorganisation - but that he did want to cut Directors of Finance, Chief Executives "and the pyramid of officials below them". He said that Councils would have to come to terms with the savings that they could generate by coming together to provide services or by not providing some services and buying them from neighbouring authorities. He reckoned that one council could provide social services for its neighbour whilst the neighbour could provide education for them both.

Follow that thought through and you begin to see the case for libraries which are locally delivered within a community planning structure against a nationally agreed strategy and, importantly, which could be delivered in areas larger that that of any single local authority. I would envisage that such libraries would require to have a statutory basis and a workable definition of 'adequate'. Adequate, so defined, would then become the minimum acceptable level of service and be reinforced by output standards designed to measure quality of provision and backed by inspection as part of a quality improvement framework which would also deliver a nationally recognised Library Quality Mark. With the minimum level of service agreed nationally then local or regional priorities or aspirations could be expressed by enhancing that minimum – whether enhancement means 'more' or 'bigger' or 'better'. These locally set priorities would then be recognised within the quality framework. The same basic system of national strategy, community planning principles, local priorities and quality improvement could equally apply to schools, health academic and other sectors. Taken one step further, local public libraries could be the community expression of a nationally supported service – using Tom McCabe's thinking why have 32 heads of service in public libraries or 32 acquisitions librarians?

That said, it is vitally important that there are strong and direct links between local communities and the service being delivered on the ground. Many public libraries already have well established consultation systems. These could be further developed to play an enhanced and more robust role within the quality improvement framework. In that way the principles of the public library service could be as easily maintained by a nationally guided service as it can by the increasingly complex structures of present day local government in Scotland.

I would have to admit that the thought of a single purpose public library organisation delivering a focussed service, using community planning principles, becomes increasingly attractive in these days of matrix management and increasingly meaningless multi-tiered and multi-functional service groupings. I have no doubt whatever that within a single-purpose national organisation the contribution of public libraries to society would receive greater recognition by government, greater recognition by local government and greater recognition by our community planning partners. As a consequence, libraries would be better able to play their part in raising standards, in improving quality of life. And within this scenario the role of the major city libraries, the National Library and other specialist libraries, would also be crucial.

Quality and standards

Quality Improvement Standards are nothing new in Scotland. One of the most successful features of SLIC has been its ability to work cross-sectorally with other bodies to achieve mutually advantageous results. SLIC and HMIe, for example, have worked closely together to develop standards for schools library services, firstly with 'Taking A Closer Look at School Library Services' and, over the past year to update and realign 'Taking a Closer Look...' to reflect the 2002 version of 'How Good is our School'. This hard work – largely down to Marilyn Milligan and her Working Group – comes to fruition to-day with the launch of 'Libraries Supporting Learners' as part of the HMIe series of Guides to Self Evaluation.

The time is right for SLIC to explore the potential of developing a quality assurance role. It is envisaged that this would lead to libraries being eligible for some kind of branded status – 'torches of learning' was suggested by Alistair Campbell from this very platform a couple of years ago. Many of you will have had experience of the evidence-based, externally scrutinised, self-evaluation approach taken by such august bodies as the Office of the Depute Prime Minister for the Charter Mark award or SUFI for LearndirectScotland branded status. There is any amount of evidence to demonstrate that such quality systems are a credible and positive path towards service improvement.

Current thinking is that the Public Library Improvement Framework – the new standards – will look at areas such as best practice in service delivery; customer care; performance management; benchmarking; pathways to improvement; management and staff development; resource management; continuing professional development; external quality indicators; self evaluation tools and, last but not least, external peer review of improvement plans.

Quite how this Framework will be taken forward depends on a number of factors including the results of the Cultural Commission's current deliberations and the reaction of the Scottish Executive to that report and to the draft standards.

Co-operation

The case for further cooperation and mutual support amongst libraries in Scotland can easily be supported by looking no further than Northern Ireland and the ELFNI Project – Electronic Libraries for Northern Ireland – whereby the five Education and Library Boards came together with the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure – DECAL to procure a common Library Management System which would connect all 126 public libraries and 33 mobiles. At £36 million pounds this Public Finance Initiative was not cheap but has provided seamless public library services across Northern Ireland. Any member of any public library in Northern Ireland can use any library and can borrow from one and return to any other. Imagine, £80 million, [the pro-rata equivalent of the £36 million spent in Northern Ireland], being made available to provide seamless library services for Scotland – and note I said 'seamless library services for Scotland' not seamless public library services. I would suggest that the time is right for such a seamless service to be translated from a professional aspiration into a professional objective.

Stock sharing

Within England and Wales more than 80% of library stock purchasing is now controlled within Purchasing Consortia. Increasingly we have Supplier Selection being presented as a cost effective and efficient means of ensuring that library stocks are optimised towards meeting demand. Within Scotland, as the choice of home-based national library suppliers has gradually reduced to nil, we are witnessing experiments in joint procurement.

We are also increasingly having to look further afield to secure stock and make more use of electronic information as approvals become more difficult to negotiate. In this process there is a distinct danger that we lose what is, to me, an essential part of the selection process - certainly in the case of specialist works – that of 'handling the book' – no amount of information or digital images can replace that confirmation of a correct decision which comes from a human rather than an electronic scan. I would equally argue however that there is no need for this to be done hundreds of times across Scotland. Tim Coates [and I can't believe I'm saying this] is right - but not completely [with apologies to Robert Craig] – there is duplication and there are inefficiencies within our services – as there are throughout local government and across the public sectors. My contention is that a voluntary fix based on work by SLIC and the profession is much better than any imposed solution.

A balanced stock collection becomes more and more difficult to achieve as the number of printed books being published in the UK continues to rise year-on-year. New titles have grown from around 50,000 published in 1975 to 180,000 expected to be published this year.

One tiny step - and only a very small part of the solution - is to dramatically increase stock sharing between libraries right across the sectors. This will reduce duplication of selection of little used material and vastly increase cooperation and joint working between libraries. A few years ago the trend within larger public library authorities was to decentralise stock purchase funds to be as close as possible to the point of public use. My colleagues in the supply trade now tell me that they see a marked trend towards a reversal of this system and a movement towards centralised procurement with markedly reduced copy depth being one result. Given the various localised, and highly successful, stock sharing partnerships with the University of Paisley one really has to wonder whether the time has now come to look at a national acquisitions plan and a national procurement methodology.

Perhaps another potentially simple solution is to adopt and adapt practise from the dvd rental trade. Buy sufficient copies of popular titles to ensure that there is always one on the shelf – keep them for six months or so until there are always multiple copies on the shelf and then sell off the surplus copies either through the library, through a nationally organised library commercial operation or through e-bay and the internet.

If the average cost per loan in Scotland for public library lending stock is around 28.5p, as it is, and the average public library book, after discount, costs almost £8.40, as it does, then it follows that after 25 loans the residual value of the book will be approx £1.27. Sell it off at £2 and you've made a notional profit, sell it at anything less and you've satisfied the initial demand, most probably increased your membership as the users realise that they can always find the book they want to read, and undoubtedly improved your customer satisfaction rates.

The other intriguing argument for such a system within public libraries would be that it would attract a percentage of our existing non-users who current tell us that they do not use public libraries because they lack the motivation or capability to return borrowed items on time or, indeed, at all. To offer a service whereby stock was available to purchase outright, based on a descending price according to previous loans would, I am sure, appeal to this group of potential users. Looked at from another angle it is simply an extension of existing practise where withdrawn stock is offered for sale in many libraries.

Within Dumfries and Galloway we have been working for some time with one of our suppliers towards offering an on-line bookshop facility through our network of public libraries. I see this as a contribution towards reducing both the digital and social divides. It will serve those with no access to a local bookshop and it will also offer increased choice to those who do not possess a credit or debit card. It may well do both! Hopefully our on-line bookshop will be up and running within the next few months.

The library 'brand'

Today branding is the process by which an organisation, a product or an image becomes synonymous with a set of values, aspirations or states. The fact is that libraries have an equally strong brand with equally strong brand equity – values such as 'trust', 'honesty', 'neutrality', 'valued community asset' - you can make your own list. But what have we done with our brand in the past 152 years to make it as well known and as easily recognised as Ikea, Coke or MacDonalds and their golden arches ? Not a lot, is the answer. There have admittedly been one or two attempts over the years to establish a brand identity - the 'torch of learning', mentioned earlier, identified County Libraries over many years. In more recent times the Public Libraries Group produced a logo complete with a very professional Design Implementation Manual. As far as I am aware, very little if anything has ever been done to promote the universal brand - libraries. The American Library Association launched '@ your library' three years ago but the take-up, I believe, has been what the government might describe as "hugely successful in a limited way".

I would like to see a global identity for libraries covering all sectors with the capability of national, local and sectoral intepretation. I would like to see national advertising on radio, television, bill-boards and on public transport. I would like to see media campaigns to highlight local services. I would like to see libraries as easily recognised as Ikea. I would like to see professional public relations consultants being used to get our message across. I would like to see every library doing everything they can to publicise their own existence.

Perhaps we can persuade those friendly people in the Scottish Executive to lay aside only a tiny proportion of their pr budget to promote a service which attracts more users than people who vote in local government elections!

Status and qualifications

It has been recognised elsewhere that one of the key issues in relation to the status of our profession, certainly within public libraries and most probably in other sectors as well, is the status and placing of the Librarian within the organisational structure. It is difficult, if not impossible, for the case for libraries to be heard if librarians are not even in the room never mind having a seat at the table. In many organisations libraries and librarians find themselves so far down the structure, typically fourth or fifth tier, that making a case within their own area is difficult, never mind making a case to a governing body. Within existing arrangements there appears to be no easy solution to this challenge but it has been suggested that it will not begin to be solved until the issue of training for leadership has been effectively addressed.

The Framework of Qualifications might be part of the solution. The soon to be launched Certificates in ICT Applications may go some way to address the issue of career structures. What remains to be done however is to firmly link these certificates to the Framework of Qualifications and, even more importantly for Scotland, to embed these qualifications in the Scottish Credit Qualifications Framework. Without that groundwork being in place it is almost certain that Scottish employers will fail to recognise the worth of these certificates, or even worse, ignore them completely.

As you know the Framework makes changes to the structure of professional qualifications and introduces Certified Affiliate status [ACLIP] to bridge the paraprofessional/professional gap. Also newly introduced is the Revalidation Scheme for Chartered Members and Fellows. The issues facing our profession would suggest that considerable emphasis will have to be placed on ensuring that we skill and re-skill our members to allow them to best respond to the needs of their services.

The search is now on to identify sufficient numbers of Mentors to cover both the Certification and Revalidation schemes in Scotland. This is certainly a opportunity to put something back into the profession and I would applaud those of you who already voluntarily, and willingly, give massively of your own time to assist our younger colleagues. That said, I am also aware that, at the moment, there are unacceptably long delays in the processing of chartership and other applications. I am assured by the Chief Executive that everything possible is being done to minimise these delays and I would encourage anyone interested in professional education to volunteer their assistance.

Our professional body

Our profession after all is not exceedingly large and this might also be an appropriate point to release another hobby horse. Linking an earlier piece of information – the fact that ICT training was provided to 40,000 public library staff UK wide – to the CIPFA figure of 26,357 full time equivalent posts in public libraries in the UK allows me to suggest that a cross-sectoral statistic provided by LISU of 40,587 fte posts would translate into approximately 62,500 library and information worker posts in the UK. A quick check on the CILIP website reveals that they claim almost 23,000 members – a mere 35% of eligible colleagues are members of CILIP. CILIP Scotland has a potential membership of 6,875 against a reality of around 2,400 – plenty of scope for recruitment. Confirmation of this somewhat depressing situation comes from checking an individual public library authority where only 34% of the professional staff are in current membership.

It would be wonderful if those of us who are members would take this as a personal challenge and set out from here with the objective of attracting at least three new members each into CILIP during the next six months. A 25% increase in membership in Scotland would not only gladden our Director's heart and greatly strengthen the role of CILIP in Scotland, it might also even reduce your next subscription by £20 for each new member recruited if that offer is still running.

Alastair Johnston is Operations Manager, Cultural Services, Dumfries & Galloway.

Information Scotland Vol. 3 (3) June 2005

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