While we're having ruminative questions on the list I thought I'd chuck this
into the pool. I'm thinking aloud here and to my knowledge none of this
reflects anything going on where I work.
The recent trend nationally has been to close down small "under-performing"
libraries in favour of big "superlibraries". Is that the right way round? In
these days of networked catalogues and circulation systems and on-line
reference materials should we be looking more at a decentralised delivery
model?
In some respects the only reason to have a main library at all is to find
somewhere big enough to fit a great pile of books and, in many cases,
habitable for support and managerial staff (or at least close enough thereto
to meet the needs of the Shops Acts). Because these are the "important"
libraries they tend to be the ones with the greatest opening hours. They
also tend to be in town centres away from where people live. Meanwhile,
people travel home from the town centres where they tend to work, have their
tea, go to their local small branch library and find it closed. Given the
choice between travelling back into town to go to the library or going home
and watching the telly a good proportion will probably do the latter.
So... say you're keeping a main library open for 40 hours a week with 10
staff (I'm keeping the sums simple) and keeping branch libraries open for 20
hours a week with 2 staff, why not redeploy the main library staff so that
you're keeping five branches open for an additional 20 hours each,
preferably at evenings and weekends? And get all those public library
standard Brownie points. Not having a big range of stock immediately on the
shelves isn't such a big deal these days: after all, if you've got a
networked cataloguing/circulation system it doesn't matter where a book
physically lives, it's available for loan anywhere on the system. Or to use
an example from the retailing field: how many items can you see on the
shelves when you go shopping at Argos? Your OPAC is your Argos catalogue.
There are probably tons of legitimate - and less so - arguments against the
idea, I can think of a few myself. I just thought it might be interesting to
poke this lemon with a stick.
Steven
Steven Heywood
Systems Manager
Rochdale Library Service
Wheatsheaf Library
Baillie Street
Rochdale OL16 1JZ
Tel: 01706 864967
Fax: 01706 864992
email: [log in to unmask]
Feeling glum? See
http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/living/libraries.asp?url=pageofun and see what
real glum looks like!
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