Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

October 2008 Volume 6(5)

Centenary

Defining moments

We continue the series on the history of CILIPS and the SLA by the late Brian Osborne. Here he looks at key moments that have shaped the professional organisations in Scotland.

In my previous articles, I have looked at services to members and branch development, education and professional training, relationships with London and legislation and advocacy. Here I would like to consider a few of the key moments over the last century which have shaped the profession and the nature of its professional organisations and the way in which the profession has been perceived.

War-time always seems to produce a laudable inclination to plan for the future and to look critically at existing systems and structures. In 1942 the Library Association commissioned Lionel McColvin, City Librarian of Westminster, to study war-time conditions and post-war possibilities. McColvin’s study took in Scotland and he produced plans for an ambitious regional library structure – a proposal which did not find support in the Council of the Scottish Library Association. It did not, however, meet with the accusations of inaccuracy which the pre-war survey by Miss Cooke had done. It had the effect of provoking the SLA into commissioning its own study of library services in the North of Scotland by C S Minto, then Deputy City Librarian of Edinburgh. The McColvin and Minto Reports put the need for more economically viable units on the professional agenda, even if the achievement of such aims had, generally, to wait until new local government structures of 1975.

In 1969 the SLA submitted ‘Standards for the Public Library Service in Scotland’ to the Scottish Education Department. This broke new ground in proposing minimum standards for the acquisition of stock, for staffing, including professional staff numbers, and it also sought to incorporate the ‘comprehensive and efficient’ requirement of the English 1964 Public Libraries Act into Scotland, under the direction of the Secretary of State guided by a Library Advisory Council and Library Advisors.

The intention was that this document would inform the thinking of the Royal Commission on Local Government which was sitting at that time. When the Commission reported, Council was concerned about the number of small authorities it proposed – about half of the district councils which would be the library authorities would be below 100,000 population – the level SLA Council considered the minimum for economic service delivery. The profession was split over this issue and a Special General Meeting in September 1972 agreed by 89 votes to 32 to back the Council’s recommendation that the public library service be assigned to the regional councils rather than to district councils. MPs were lobbied to attempt to secure such an allocation, without success. The role of school library services and resource centres and their place in the regional council education service also came to the fore at this period.

Although not formally linked to the SLA, the formation of the National Library of Scotland’s Library and Information Services Committee, LISC (Scotland) in 1982 – initially as a replacement for the NLS’s Library Co-operation Committee – was a significant step on the route to creating the long wished-for body which would raise standards and advise the Secretary of State. The problem was that although Secretaries of State might be prepared to talk to the Association, there was very little evidence that they were keen to take on the task of telling local authorities what they should spend on their library services or how they should run them. Nor was there very much evidence that local authorities – after 1975 represented by one body, COSLA, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities – had much appetite for being told by central government how to run local services. This attitude probably would have prevailed whatever the political make-up of the country but was particularly acute post-1979 with a Conservative central government and a predominantly Labour controlled local government. The SLA nonetheless invested considerable time and effort into preparing a draft Public Library Bill which would incorporate the ideas in documents such as the Charter for the Public Library Service in Scotland.

Eventually it was realised that legislation was not the way forward and with improving relations with COSLA, that body set up a working party under an independent chairman, Brian Wilson, Chief Executive of Inverness District Council, a local authority without library functions, to review public library standards. The working party, with SLA membership, reported in 1987 and its report proved to be of huge importance in driving up standards.

After the COSLA report it was difficult for local authorities to argue that the recommended standards were anything other than an expression of best practice and impossible for them to argue that the standards were an imposition by an over-bearing central government.

In 1995 the COSLA standards were revised and by that time they had been joined by a COSLA/SLA/SLIC report on standards in further education colleges and would soon be followed by a report on standards for the school library service. Concepts such as best value and self-evaluation now came to be key components in professional life. To an extent the COSLA standards model, based on input measures, has been overtaken by output and performance-based standards but their importance at the time cannot be over estimated. I had the encouraging experience of, after a number of years of not entirely successful arguments on resources with my local authority, finding councillors citing the COSLA Standards as reasons for increasing my budget.

The contribution of SLIC to the development of library services in all sectors should not be underestimated. Even if many people outside the profession, and perhaps a few within it, are not entirely clear what the difference is between SLIC and CILIPS, there is no doubt that the weight that SLIC has as an advisory body, and the authority it was able to gain in its formative years, has made it a powerful force.

An event in 1987, though limited in its geographical area, which nevertheless had a significant effect on the profession, was the five week long strike of librarians employed in schools, colleges and resource centres run by Strathclyde Regional Council. The period was one of considerable change in education with a great emphasis being placed on independent learning and the use of primary source materials. This, one might have thought, would have highlighted to employers the particular skills of librarians who were paid substantially less than newly qualified teachers. After the removal of a national professional grading structure staff in Strathclyde submitted a grading claim for school librarians to be paid on APIV/V – the authority responded with a an offer of API/II. This was rejected by the staff who went on strike and conducted a high-profile campaign in support of their grading claim.

There was considerable surprise, both among the general public and the local politicians, that such a safe and indeed invisible group had taken strike action and were picketing council offices, lobbying regional councillors and generally behaving in a way that did not fit with perceptions of librarian-like behaviour. To a degree the strike was successful – the basic grade offer was raised to APIII with APIII/IV for post with higher responsibilities – but its main impact may have been on those who organised and took part in the strike, in terms of their political awareness and campaigning skills.

In more recent years there can be little argument about the significance of the People’s Network development – largely taken forward by SLIC rather than SLA/CILIPS – but undoubtedly a defining moment in the transformation of the library service, and the role of librarians.
Brian D Osborne

Information Scotland Vol. 6(5) October 2008

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Last updated: 16-Jan-2009