Before reading on, please be warned, this is a bit of a rant!
*************
Oh no ... far too simplistic! Why do we always imagine there's a simple
alternative?
While I very much (well, hugely really) agree with a great deal of Robert's
critique, I'm far from convinced that he's indicating viable & "better"
alternatives!
We very much do seek to serve "the public" and a multitude of cutomers ...
and we very much do so. But of course we are hugely constrained in the ways
Robert describes.
On the other hand, we operate within a funding model that for all it's
deficiencies & insufficiencies does provide a relatively stable funding base
that allows us to provide a wide and evolving range of library services
meeting a very wide range of user needs & interest and a good deal of which
are quite unproven to be likely to survive within a commercial environment.
It's just not on to assume that one can have a wide service mix provided on
anything other than some sort of command & control basis without moving to a
commercial market economy & surely the whole point of our existence is to
provide that which the commercial market economy cannot ... either now, or
in MT's days. And be assured, there has been every opportunity for the
"commercial market economy" to put it's hand up and have a go.
Taking on board Frances' later comment regarding the potential instability
of local government, i.e. our current funding base (if not altogether
source) whither indeed the Public Library Service??
How about upending the approach to all this and arguing not from our
weaknesses but from our strengths and achievements and potential and most of
all, enormous backing from the general public?
Short answer has to be to continue to fight like hell for recognition,
sustainability, and improved funding. But to get that we really have to move
much more energetically to co-operating at the "industry level" to develop
common tools, services & standards within a modernisation framework that not
only shamelessly cribs good ideas from other sectors including the
commercial sector. And we have to demonstrate/prove how our services support
other sectors (Health/Learning & etc.) and contribute to the emerging
holistic approaches (e.g. child-centred/early years/Surestart) and develop
allies in those sectors to argue the case for us where it matters.
As long as we're "prepared" to operate largely at the struggling local
authority level we are very vulnerable to being incapable of significant
major/strategic country/region wide changes unless someone does require us
to. (Hmmnn ... but even in the case of the PN ... didn't our EARL
Partnership approach and visioning have just a tiny weeny bit of influence
here?) On the other hand, I have to agree, would we as a generality have
become so closely involved in SureStart if we hadn't been written into the
initial guidanced as a required partner? But then, what caused us to be
written in in the first place?
Now where were we ... oh yes, how to get somewhere better than where we are
- yes, this is "Overdue" but not by way of imagining that the answer is
anything as long as it's not through a local authority - there is a very
real competitive command & control world out there, far more so than that
experienced within a local authority!
Times run out ...
Mike
Mike Maguire
Group Librarian S & E Devon
Devon Library & Information Services
tel 01392 384223
fax 01392 384228
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.devon.gov.uk/library/
Unless otherwise stated the views expressed are
personal and not necessarily those of Devon County Council
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frances Hendrix [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 14 January 2004 15:49
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Command and control (was FW: Is this the end for OPACs?)
>
> No one could say it better. This really is the problem, the facts and the
> solution
>
> thanks Robert
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Robert Harden" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 2:47 PM
> Subject: Command and control (was FW: Is this the end for OPACs?)
>
>
> > As often happens on this list, the discussion about OPACS reveals a
> > deeper problem. The talk of cultural retail outlets set me awondering
> > about whether we're seeing reality as clearly as we ought.
> >
> > It's about time public libraries, as presently constituted, stopped
> > pretending that they exist to satisfy their customers. It can only lead
> > to disappointment for all concerned.
> >
> > Public libraries are in the control and rationing business. It's no use
> > wishing, or behaving as if, it were otherwise. It's the core of their
> > mission. Eking out limited resources to optimise their social benefit
> > is what libraries do. They can do it with a smile or they can be
> > sour-faced about it. But giving the generality of customers what they
> > want when they want it has never been a goal with any realistic chance
> > of being attained.
> >
> > Internet terminals are a case in point. Whether or not the library has
> > dumb OPAC terminals wouldn't be an issue if there were enough
> > all-purpose terminals to go round. For all sorts of reasons public
> > libraries just aren't flexible enough to respond in that way to what
> > customers want. As arms of local government, they do not control most
> > of their key assets and satisfying the priorities of library customers,
> > actual and potential, comes a long way down the pecking order after
> > satisfying the priorities of the local council's policy makers.
> >
> > Libraries operate in a command economy, as the People's Network neatly
> > demonstrates. Internet terminals were installed in libraries en masse
> > because the government wished it so, not because libraries themselves
> > were responding to customer demand.
> >
> > In the present scheme of things a public library is unable to behave
> > like a customer-led business. If it is desirable that it should, there
> > is one big obstacle to be overcome first. And that is local government.
> > Take public libraries out of that command and control environment, and
> > there is a chance that they will be able to respond to the changing
> > requirements of their customers. Any service enterprise that fails to
> > do that, has a short future.
> >
> > Robert Harden
> > ______________________
> > [log in to unmask]
> > www.harden.dial.pipex.com
> > ______________________
> >
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