Libraries fight for place on election agenda

Andrew Stevens, senior policy advisor at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and in charge of implementing much of the government’s 2003 framework for libraries, promised it would deliver "a major transformation" by improving the national as well as local profile of libraries. "The whole of the public library network is much greater than the sum of its parts," he claimed.
The framework may now be overtaken by changes put forward by the recent Commons select committee inquiry into libraries, on which the government must comment by early May.
Miranda McKearney, director of the Reading Agency, backed the committee’s calls for a sharper national message about libraries. "If libraries could be clear about the key areas they’re working on then they’d have a much higher profile and be much more powerful."
Stevens admitted that a lack of direction from any main government department had weakened libraries, but claimed they were now much higher up the agenda than in the past. "The big challenge for public libraries now is to get our own house in order--then we can make a better case in government."
There were calls for the changes suggested by the select committee report to be pushed onto the election campaigning agenda in its final week. John Dolan, assistant director of libraries and learning at Birmingham city council, said: "I don’t want to just hear from politicians about schools and hospitals--I want to hear about schools, hospitals and libraries."
Library consultant Tim Coates endorsed that view in a later session. "It makes sense for this [the select committee report] to become a policy document for all those standing in the general election."
Reaction to Coates’ rallying cry for better management and efficiencies in libraries (The Bookseller, 22nd April) was broadly positive despite some dissenting voices in his Thursday session. He said that response to his call for workshops to sharpen libraries’ practices had been "tremendous".