From the Chief Executive's Desk
Well, we're now into the fourth phase of the seemingly endless Ministerial saga formerly known as the DCMS Modernisation Review of Public Libraries (in England). For new readers, the backstory starts here:
The first phase started in October last year when the then Secretary of State, Andy Burnham, announced the Review at the Public Library Authorities Conference, and we all got to work with five working groups working on five workstreams. I worked on the working group for the worksteam on the workforce, and we worked up a potentially very useful map of the skills mix needed by the modern public library service. All the work of the workstreams was gathered together and taken away to be worked up into a report, we were thanked for our efforts, and then - nothing.
Allegedly the Minister (by then Barbara Follett while Margaret Hodge took time out for family reasons) and her advisers didn't like the work done by the workstreams so they worked out a new way of working. And so the second phase began, in January of this year, with a series of "round table" meetings chaired by the Minister. Two meetings were held, I attended both, and things began to look promising. The meetings generated plenty of lively discussion and we were assured that DCMS officials were working away to pull together all the material and draft a report which would then go to a "proper" writer so that it could be published in plain and accessible language. Indeed we were invited to a third roundtable meeting in April at which, we were promised, there would be a draft report to discuss. But no report was forthcoming, the meeting was cancelled, we were thanked for our efforts, and then - nothing. Well, not exactly nothing.
By this time Andy Burnham had decided to commission the Wirral Inquiry so the third phase was the period while the DCMS Review was on hold pending the outcome of the Wirral Inquiry. Or so we thought. Allegedly work continued on the draft report behind the scenes using the Advisory Council on Libraries as a confidential sounding board. Allegedly a version of the draft report (known as "Version 7" which says something about the work put in) exists, has been seen by ACL, and was even considered for possible publication at this year's PLA Conference in October. But then - nothing.
The current, fourth, phase began at the PLA Conference when Margaret Hodge (now returned as Minister) told us that the Review had been transformed into a consultation process. After which some of us got a letter from the Minister inviting each of us to write an essay on the future for public libraries for possible inclusion in the promised consultation document. So I, and others, worked something up, we were thanked for our efforts, and then - we were invited to the launch of the consultation document this very morning, by the Minister, at the newly tranformed and reopened John Harvard Library, Borough High Street, Southwark (many thanks to the Big Lottery Fund's Community Libraries Programme for the capital). The consultation runs for eight weeks over the Christmas and New year period with responses invited by email by the 26th of January. After which the Minister will publish "the Government's Policy for Public Libraries" (the way she said it this morning sounded as if it should have capital letters) in "the early Spring" - presumably by melding together the outcomes of the consultation with the allegedly pre-existing "Version 7."
What then to make of Empower, Inform, Enrich, the consultation document launched this morning? Well, after a fourteen month build-up it's bound to be a disappointment - and so it proves to be, at least to me. If the Wirral report, published yesterday, is a sustained and compelling narrative with a clear authorial voice, the best that can be said of today's publication is that it's a miscellany of sometimes interesting bits and pieces: a brief introduction, an anthology of 29 essays by various individuals (yes, including me), a list of 23 consultation questions, a selection of very brief case studies, and a two-page "Model of Impact" linking library activities to outcomes and indicators. Perhaps DCMS should have published the two together in paperback format - The Charteris Report and Margaret's Miscellany - as a pair of Christmas stocking fillers for library lovers: serious readers could settle down with The Charteris Report while casual browsers could flick idly through the essays in Margaret's Miscellany....
Meanwhile Shadow Minister Ed Vaizey was working the room very effectively throughout the morning's event, looking cheerful and asking all sorts of people to get in touch with him. Perhaps that will take us to the fifth phase...
And then I headed off to the Online Information conference at Olympia. But more of that tomorrow. Now I've got beer to drink and football to worry about.
Please click here to keep up to date with the thoughts of CILIP's Chief Executive, Bob McKee.