Sunderland is reported to consider its libraries service a success despite widespread closures. As in Brent, Sunderland closed nine buildings without going down the community managed libraries route. Frustratingly, I can't find a link to the original scrutiny report so details are short.
Sunderland's main measurement of success appears to be book loans, which (as in Brent) have gone up. Like Brent, they seem to have greatly expanded outreach services. Some of the press reports seem to suggest that some residents actually find outreach easier. However, there is less mention of ebooks, improved online service or new buildings than in Brent.
It would be good to find more detail to see what the differences between Brent and Sunderland might be.
1 comment:
I live in Sunderland, and have had the new library reorganisation inflicted upon me. The four nearest libraries to me have all been closed, but a "convenient community venue" has been set up to replace the thousands of books I previously had access to. This consists of a trolley at the back of Sainsbury's that has an average of 10-20 books on it. These tend to be chick lit, older crime novels and self-help books, none of which interest me, as I prefer something marginally more intellectually stimulating. (So I'm a book-snob; so what?)
The recent report in our paper, which you mentioned, told us how wonderful the new library reorganisation was, quoting statistics that said borrowing was “up”. This was a much-praised measure of its success.
Perhaps someone could explain to me how you get statistics on the number of books people borrow from a supermarket trolley, and indeed, the number of borrowers?
When last I was in this supermarket, you didn’t have to sign out the sad, unsupervised selection of books it carried. So do they get their figures from the number of books they put out?
Also, since some people’s fingers are stickier than others, how do you know a book has been “borrowed” as opposed to “pinched”?
Is it then classified as an “indefinite loan” or do you call it “stolen”? I’d love to see if those statistics are up too?
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