Library Buildings and Services

 A row has broken out about the right count of library buildings in the UK.  The campaigners are right that it is rather strange for a government department supposedly superintending libraries in local authorities not to keep any figures of its only, but only rely on the goodwill of an individual writing Public Libraries News.  The DCMS should surely pay its Civil Servants to do some proper monitoring themselves.

However, I think they are mistaken in concentrating on buildings rather than services.  The risk of that approach is that you end up with what we are increasingly seeing of buildings being kept open in nominal terms but only as hollowed out libraries.

The most obvious way in which this seems to be done is via volunteer libraries, where the volunteers (with the best will in the world) just can't provide the same range or quality of services as paid staff.  One might also suspect that the hard grind of trying to routinely provide some sort of library service will eventually dishearten even the most dedicated volunteer.

Where libraries are kept inhouse or contracted out to someone like Greenwich Leisure, there can also be a hollowing out process.  This may be subtler _ shaving off opening hours, reducing bookfunds, allowing PC software to go out of date without upgrading, even failing to maintain the building or interior decoration _ but it will have an effect just the same.

I think that means that you have to pay attention to the outputs you want.  I say outputs rather than inputs (i.e. money spent) because measuring the money you put in or the number of staff by itself might just inefficiency.  For example, suppose a library service got a really good deal on bookstock and was able to buy 10% more books with the same amount of money as its neighbour.  If you are only looking at budget levels you will see no difference, but in fact the authority buying the cheaper books has managed to run a genuinely more efficient service that enhances the library for the users.

Output measurements like number of visitors, book loans and so are more explicitly targeted at what is good for the users.