Bwahahaha!

[blahflowers]

lucy_anne has cheered me up by pointing to this report. Haven't got any further than the executive summary on page 2, but already my mood has been lightened immensely by:

This report recommends areas of action for the attention of councils. In particular it calls on councils to commit themselves over a number of years, and, without increasing overall funds, to:
a) Treble expenditure on books and reading material.
b) Increase opening hours by 50%.
c) Institute a program of library redecoration and redesign.

Councils should, by careful planning, be able to achieve this reallocation of resources by improved productivity and the introduction of new systems and methods of working.

I mean, the fuck?!


I notice that Tim Coates has never actually worked in local government or the library service anywhere in this country which would go a long way to explain the insanity of his proposals. Therefore you have the mix of the creed of government (it doesn't matter which government, on this they always say the same) that libraries can do better without any injection of cash. But to then suggest improvements that can only be made with money...

How can we treble expenditure on books and reading material (and I wonder what reading material he has in mind that aren't books, magazines?) without any more money? Does he think that current library budgets are divided into 1/4 media funds and 3/4s workers caviar? Where is the money going to come from to pay for opening extra hours? Some of our libraries are, as it is, open for around fifty hours or more a week, staff work an average of 36 hours a week. If you want us to be open more you're going to have to increase funds for staffing, as things are the libraries in the borough are open for an hour or less than they are open for the public. You won't get staff who work ten hour days to work even longer. And the only way that we can pay more for more staff if you don't give us extra money is by taking it from the books budget which is magically four times as effective as it is at the moment.

When it comes to library redecoration and redesign, any library authority that has a standing budget for redecoration that goes beyond replacing a cracked shelf is probably guilty of a misuse of funds. I'm not totally sure on this, but I think it's council policy that something like refurbishing a publically used building has to be voted and agreed on by the local council. They HAVE to allocate funds. If I'm right, and I accept I may not be, libraries can't control their refurbishment budgets.

The depressing thing is that my managers managers will probably read this and throw it at us in a panic, insisting we do ten impossible things before opening time. It's like when we ask the public what they would like changed about the library, they always say "more stock" or "longer opening hours", they never get asked the best supplementary question "so how much are you willing to pay for this then?"


Actually, I've worked out how to cover the cost of this. It will need a tiny change in the law, as the Library and Museum Act of 1850 prohibits us from charging for the loan of books. But with that gone, a simple charge of about £1000 per book should give us the revenue stream necessary to realise Tim Coates library wet dream.

Comments

[lozh.livejournal.com]

When your boss said June for that pay rise, did (s)he happen to mention a year too?