I had wondered where you were!
an excellent contribution however
f
Frances Hendrix
Martin House Farm, Hilltop Lane, Whittle le Woods, Chorley, Lancs PR6 7QR,
UK
tel: 01257 274 833. fax: 01257 266 488
email: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "David McMenemy" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 2:19 AM
Subject: Re: fines:secrets and lies or shadow boxing?
> Nick London wrote:
>
> What started as a useful and practical enquiry about a feature called
> 'library elf' has turned into a long and unresolvable meander down rather
> high-minded but entirely impractical paths to do with public library
> funding
> and the veracity of time-honoured way of measuring what we do (and
> actually,
> loans *are* a very good way of measuring what libraries do, since lending
> books is what every single member of our public thinks we are there for).
>
>
> My response:
>
> Loans are an appalling way of measuring service quality. They tell you
> little of what libraries are achieving within a community and lead to a
> juvenile league table syndrome. They also lead to a temptation in buying
> what's popular against collection breadth and quality. The sooner they
> are
> gone the better for service development and our professional values. They
> are only used because they are cheap to gather together. Heaven forbid a
> profession should seek to truly understand service use and quality.
> What's
> the point when a database has all the answers?
>
> As for unresolvable meandering, if that's the case we should all shut up
> shop. Much professional debate and progress has been as a result of what
> you'd deem as meandering.
>
> Personally I'm sorry I've missed this debate, as I was out of the country.
> The abiding memory it will leave for me in reading the archive is the
> utterly disgraceful situation whereby some Heads of Service rely on fining
> library users to balance their budget, and seem content to do so. Even in
> a
> fines culture we should ultimately desire the monies gathered to be low,
> because otherwise the system is flawed and anti-user.
>
> To take the stance that taxpayers are required to fork out more cash to
> fund
> a service because the profession is clearly failing in convincing
> councillors to give them the money they need is a shameful state of
> affairs
> for us. Utterly shameful.
>
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