Fact and Fiction: The Future of Public Libraries

More than half the population have a library card and the number of visits to public libraries is on the increase - 342 million¹, more than football matches, heritage sites, museums and theatres combined. Every local tax payer funds public libraries, which cost about £1 billion a year to run, and are among the most loved and trusted public services. But over the last few years, a heated debate has been going on about the direction that libraries should take, and about where and how resources should be invested.

It is something of a caricature, but those who are most vociferous in this debate seem to fall into two broad camps.  In one corner are the ‘book lobby’. They maintain that libraries are about books; and argue that falling book borrowings, reduced book stocks and the high back-office costs of getting books onto shelves have all led to a decline that has turned into a crisis. The solution, they say, lies in going back to basics (i.e. books) and making library services more efficient by putting more resources into book stocks and cheaper front-line customer service.

In the other corner are the ‘diversifiers’. Their position is that libraries are about more than books and need to broaden their offer. All libraries now have computers that allow people to use the internet and access electronic information sources, and they are heavily used. They say - and some of the book lobby agree with them - that libraries need to have better study spaces, to provide a wider range of media beyond the printed word, and to become more friendly so that the half of the population who don’t currently use them will be enticed through the doors.  

The ‘book lobby’ think the ‘diversifiers’ are philistines, and they suspect that their aim is to protect the vested interests of library managers rather than to serve the book-borrowing public.

The ‘diversifiers’ look on the ‘book lobby’ as obtuse and point out that many more people now buy books, so there is less need for libraries to invest in them. They ask whether books have the intrinsic moral virtue that the ‘book lobby’ seem to assume. Is a Mills & Boon or a pulp western really of more value than Harvard’s website? And why should the interests of existing book-borrowers be placed ahead of everyone else’s?

Not surprisingly, each side's argument has some merit, but both have their flaws. For the future of the public library service it is vital that the myths and realities are exposed for what they are, and that the two sides – who both passionately believe that libraries are a good thing – start to find common ground, and develop a common vision for the future.

There is no time to lose. Charles Leadbeater, in a Demos report in 2003 warned that “Libraries are sleepwalking to disaster; it is time they woke up.” Since then the pressures on Local Authority funding have increased enormously. Even though libraries are a statutory service, (meaning that local authorities have a duty to provide them), they can nevertheless be reduced and cut to the point where one day the public might abandon them, in turn leading to a loss of statutory protection. It is this worrying downward spiral that everyone who cares about libraries must avoid at all costs.

The press, sensing a fight, has been quick to crank up the hyperbole, and to attack any change in the status quo. Three articles in national newspapers have stated that 100 public libraries are under threat or have been lost. The real number of library closures is difficult to know for certain, but the latest figures from CIPFA (the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy) would seem to bear it out with 56 fewer central and branch libraries and 58 fewer mobile libraries in existence than in 2001^2. On face value this does look like a lot of library closures. But these figures mask some of the issues- namely that the remaining libraries are opening for longer and in any case some closures and opening of libraries will always be needed to reflect shifts in population and changes in where people live and work³. The important issue is service, not numbers.

The figures also tell us that, while library visits are up, book borrowings are down. One reason for that paradox is that Internet usage in libraries has skyrocketed - and yes, some of it is young people accessing Facebook and other social networks and some of it is people checking emails, applying for jobs and doing a spot of internet shopping.

Back office costs in public libraries have risen over the last 20 years – as has council tax - and there is a strong case for local authorities to bear down hard on library overheads, and to work the assets harder. Painful as it is, restructuring and reorganisation needs to take place – it is the only route to the regeneration of our public libraries. But anyone who suggests any kind of change risks the wrath of the press.

Perhaps the most important questions to debate are what public libraries are for, and what people want from them.   Is a decline in book borrowing always a problem?  Will a more radical transformation be needed in some libraries to widen their public appeal?

We believe that the views of both the ‘book lobby’ and the ‘diversifiers’ hold some truths and insights, and that they are not mutually exclusive. The problem at the moment is that both sides’ set of beliefs and values tend to swing towards one single library model – one that is more centralised. Whereas we believe that a heterogeneous approach is needed that allows for local variation.

There is not one answer to suit every local library. Adopting a ‘one size fits all’ approach would be wrong and patronising – it wouldn’t give local communities the chance to voice how their local services should be constructed. Put simply, in some places more books will indeed be what people want; in other places, they may prefer to invest in more computer access.

Libraries are one of the last bastions of ‘localness’. They are funded locally, staffed by local people and there is a real  bond between the staff, regular customers and the community at large. Of course, we do not live in a uniform country. There are libraries in urban areas that are making a real contribution towards improving literacy levels and helping build a sense of community. They find their own ways of engaging with the people who live there; meeting with and developing a greater understanding of the issues that make these communities tick. The same spirit of local adaptation to meet local need takes a different form in rural communities, where for example, small branches threatened by falling use and diminishing resources are being rescued by volunteers and the people who use them.

It is this eclectic mix of use, and how communities react to these important local services, that hold the key to future long-term planning, including tackling the tendency for libraries to try to be all things to all people. The point is that whatever the outcome, it is important to decide where the priority is and to do it well, rather than spreading the jam so thinly that everyone is frustrated.

Only local people can prioritise what they want their library to do, so that activity can be targeted to make the greatest difference for them. For example, one community may want greater contact with young people, another may focus on improving literacy, and yet another may value the mobile library that serves an ageing population.  

It is time for the public library debate to move on and move away from crude analyses of footfalls and book stocks. The ‘book lobby’ and the ‘diversifiers’ are both right – depending on where you live. If you take the view that a library is fundamentally local, then deciding what should be provided in that building is very simple: understand what the community wants, articulate the offer and then provide it – that’s how we would argue that performance should be measured.

Everyone who loves libraries – and we do, with a passion - should begin from this standpoint; one size does not fit all. The future of our libraries should lie in the hands of local people. In that way even more people will come to love and value public libraries.

John Holden, Demos
Yinnon Ezra, Director of Recreation and Heritage, Hampshire County Council