Food for thought!
From: Library and Information Professionals [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Aran Lewis
Sent: 25 January 2013 11:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Arts Council...
Conservatives usually equate the size of the state with the level of taxation, and by that measure (tax collected as % of GDP), the country with the smallest state in the world
is that haven of political freedom, human rights, ethnic tolerance, shared prosperity and harmonious inter-communal cooperation ... Burma.
Regards, Aran Lewis
Senior Cataloguer and Repository Manager
Sheppard Library
Middlesex University
The Burroughs
London NW4 4BT
020 8411 2115
From: Library and Information Professionals
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Clark, Ian ([log in to unmask])
Sent: 25 January 2013 10:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Arts Council...
I’m reluctant to plough on, but there is one thing that puzzles me about this ‘reducing the state’ rhetoric. The advantage to public
services, as if it needed spelling it, is that they are *public*. They are owned by all of us…rich, poor, young, old, native or immigrant. “Shrinking the state” effectively means taking that which we own out of our hands and placing it in the hands
of the rich few. Thus we see a shift from democracy to totalitarianism. What the ‘shrink the state’ brigade seem to fail to grasp is that they are in effect arguing for less accountability in the services we all utilise. They are, whether they realise it
or not, the New Totalitarians who have dressed their ideology in a cloak of benevolence and concern for the privacy of the individual. Most of us don’t fall for this rubbish, but a few seem to be willing to overlook the totalitarian undertones to embrace
an ideology that contradicts much of what they profess to believe.
On that note, I’m off to eat a Crunchie bar.
All my own views, not my employers etc etc
Ian Clark
Library Systems Officer,
Augustine House,
Canterbury Christ Church University
Tel. 01227 783141
Follow us on Twitter: @ccculibrary
From: Library and Information Professionals
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Steve Powell
Sent: 25 January 2013 10:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Arts Council...
I have to say that following this thread all yesterday leaves me baffled as to Zena's motivation for starting it off in the first place - but remembering
her previous post where she seemed to believe that the entire global economic meltdown was caused by Gordon Brown singlehandedly is probably a good barometer of her world-view.
The ConDems will continue to attack and reduce the state because they idealogically don't believe in it. They see no need for public services because
they, and no-one they know in their ultra-rich, tax-exempt lives needs to use or access them.
Who needs libraries when simply
everyone buys books [or downloads them], who needs the NHS when simply
everyone has BUPA?
Librarians have often been our own worst enemy - we rarely blow our own trumpets or flag up the value we add to society. It takes a potential extinction
event - and this is indeed what we and our colleagues are facing - to get the Profession startled into life.
"Then they came for me, and there was no-one left to speak out..."
Steve
These are, natch, my own views & opinions
Steve Powell BA (Hons) MCLIP
Team Librarian
[Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday PM]
Area Librarian: Ashfield & North Broxtowe
[Wednesday AM, Thursday, Friday]
Retford Library
Churchgate
Retford
Notts
DN22 6PE
Tel: 01777 708724
Mobile: 07769 243216
Children, Families & Cultural Services
Nottinghamshire County Council
From: Library and Information Professionals [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of
[log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 24 January 2013 7:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Arts Council...
Beautifully put
Katy Wrathall
On 24 Jan 2013, at 19:08, "Bye, Dan J" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Zena,
You’re not thinking radically enough.
Although you implicitly regard your view as “other than traditional”, in fact it is entirely familiar – indeed it’s the dominant narrative of our age.
You say you want a “smaller, less intrusive” State, but what the State wants is (metaphorically) “less intrusive” citizens. If you dismantle a public service whose job is to inform and educate (and, yes, entertain), and does so in a way which is responsive to what people actually want to read, then you are not undermining the State, you are undermining society. Particularly if the net effect of government policy is to bolster ever more intrusive corporate power and attack the terms and conditions of working people. “Minimal government” is only half the story when you have neoliberalism to contend with.
I think you are way too accepting of the importance of surgeons. Surgery, of course, doesn’t stay the same. Specialisms come and go. Some forms of surgery become obsolete (there’s an interesting article by David J Cohen on cardiothoracic surgeons about exactly that phenomenon). It’s perfectly possible to imagine a world where surgery is much less frequent, and what surgery there is is much less invasive. Surgeons need not be permanent fixtures in the medical landscape.
But all that aside, how interesting that you describe librarians as “supporting” surgeons and “assisting” the clinician. That may be technically correct in a proximate sense, but it puts surgeons at the centre of what is going on, and I don’t think that is right. Should not the surgeon’s role be seen as “supportive” of a health intervention in which they may actually not be the central actor in the life of the patient, who may receive continuing care for years afterwards from other health professionals – and not just health professionals. (I can remember my dentist’s face, but not the face of the surgeon who extracted my tonsils – I was unconscious most of the time). Librarians (in the NHS, or in academic libraries, or public libraries) can and do support the information needs of the patient, not just the surgeon. The surgeon needs evidence to support their clinical decisions, but the patient needs information to help develop their own understanding and make their own choices. Maybe by talking to a librarian, the patient is helped to discover the information that enables them to challenge their self-important surgeon!
I was interested in this comment:
“Where there is no vision, the people (librarians or no) perish. WHERE is the vision for the future that information is exciting, and to have this knowledge of finding things - and how to find things - and how to classify them once we've found them - is pivotal. Organising information logically & practically is a VITAL tool - especially online.”
But one thing that we’ve seen with the rise to dominance of Google (but the concept of “search” in general) is that, online, classifying is irrelevant to many users. “Organising information logically” is therefore precisely NOT vital, and the success of Google proves it: the Internet is not organised, and Google do not organise it; yet it is nevertheless phenomenally successfully at delivering what people want to find, despite the fact that most Google users have no idea how Google works and are, by our standards, actually using very poor if not non-existent search techniques.
This is a big challenge. And it’s entirely possible that social and technological change will make librarians and librarianship skills obsolete. More hopefully we will find ways to use our skills and values in new contexts. But that doesn’t mean librarians should meekly accept everything thrown at us as though social and technological change was an impersonal, apolitical, force over which actual people have no control.
Social and technological change involves people who constitute societies and who use technologies, and who make choices, and I would expect librarians to fight for what they believe in (and, yes, our livelihoods, no shame in that) and to try to influence the direction of change as participants rather than passive subjects.
The NHS, for example, will not merely “change”. It will “be changed”. That’s the point.
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Library and Information Professionals [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Woodley Zena (RQ8) Mid Essex Hospital
Sent: 24 January 2013 16:15
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Arts Council...
Um - I expected to be flamed, so can't say I'm at all surprised at responses, some of which are almost Pavlovian.. I do hope that anyone reading this will accept a viewpoint other than traditional.
For NHS libraries, I'd say e-trainers were the pivotal roles. Any information person with good teaching & searching skills, and who goes out & about - to clinical meetings, etc., markets the NHS library services more effectively than a sign to the physical presence - lovely though the staff are - the library is often a distant building somewhere on site. We all know that clinicians have varied technological skills - and that some prefer us to do the donkey work of finding & sending them articles. Now, be honest: it doesn't take a library degree to do this - anyone of slightly-above average intelligence can do it. Clinicians could do it themselves - indeed, NHS'Excellence' fully believe they do - but given the problems & difficulties <we> have getting beyond HDAS, who could blame clinicians for asking the library to get the desired article?
How important are librarians? Compared to surgeons, we're not. Compared to a fully qualified lawyer, we're not. But we're jolly good in a supporting role, by providing them with the right information, at the right price, and at the right time. Indirectly, then, we are assisting the clinician to best treat his/her patient by making the correct point-of-care decisions to enable a satisfactory conclusion, whether this be an unscheduled visit to A&E, or a planned operation. Those who take the time to get to know us here know our value: people don't spend much time with the staff in most public libraries, so how would our many positive abilities get through to them? How is this done?
We've had volunteers here - and I'm always thrilled when they go on to get a 'proper job'. Which is why I posited that 'intelligent management' was a prerequisite. <This is not an oxymoron!> You get a good volunteer; you have to enthuse them, keep them buoyed to give a good service - and if necessary help them with their job-hunting skills. And then you start again. The parallel is with bell-ringing, where someone patiently teaches a 14yr-old to ring well - and when s/he can do so, it's time for GCSEs, & one rarely sees them again...
As the old countryman said 'It depends where you're starting from' - Andrew Carnegie originally set up his libraries for those workers attending evening clases, desiring to better themselves. The fiction market was served by the Boots Circulating Libraries & the like. The Carnegie libraries (beautiful buildings, most of them, even if many are now showing their age) were subsumed into Public Libraries; and had to extend their range to include the latest fiction. Does everyone on this list really think it's a public library's duty (i.e. a civic duty) to provide access to '50 Shades of Grey'? Because if the overall opinion on that is positive, then volunteers will do.
It's no good bemoaning lack of money - you offer staggered working hours, like other places do. I have worked for private companies where my monthly outlay was - exceptionally - £20 on information. I had NO budget! If people want the experience of working within the public sector, they will accept contracts which include a rota of weekend working.
Where there is no vision, the people (librarians or no) perish. WHERE is the vision for the future that information is exciting, and to have this knowledge of finding things - and how to find things - and how to classify them once we've found them - is pivotal. Organising information logically & practically is a VITAL tool - especially online. But all I've read so far indicates a collection of very nice professionally qualified people, who can be a teensy bit precious! Nothing stays the same for ever. I consider I'm fortunate to have had nearly a decade within one organisation - but I've experienced redundancy 3 times, which - if it taught me anything - drilled into me that I am not indispensable, and that I must constantly change & reinvent - myself, my service, my abilities. The NHS will change dramatically over the next 3 years - as will the health information provision within it. What's here now probably won't be at the end of that time, not in its current format.
Personally, I see nothing wrong in desiring a smaller, less intrusive state. My informed historical perspective on the obverse gives me either communist or fascist alternatives, both of which I find far less desirable.
-----Original Message-----
From: Library and Information Professionals [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lesley Firth
Sent: 24 January 2013 12:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Arts Council report on community libraries
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