Ed Vaizey proposes a national library card as part of the party's library strategy

Ever keen to provide comprehensive coverage of developments in the Conservative Party, here are details of some proposals outlined by shadow culture minister Ed Vaizey in a speech to the  London Libraries Conference at the end of last week, but which have not received any attention in the national press.

He was launching the party's library strategy, with the aim of rejuvenating the country’s public library service, and specific proposals include:

• Introducing a national library card, entitling any member of a local library to use any library in the country (whilst ensuring the scheme did not impose any unfunded liabilities on local authorities);
• Launching a voluntary Library Charter, to which local authorities would be invited to sign up. This would set out minimum standards for libraries, a community reading strategy, provide guidance on what constituted a “comprehensive and efficient” library service under the Public Libraries Act, and so provide objective guidance for the use of the Secretary of State’s powers to call in a local authority’s decision to close a library.
• Putting in a place a four-year Renaissance for Libraries programme to share best practice between local authorities, resulting in a reduction in administration costs, greater investment in books and information technology, as well as better training for staff;
• Encouraging councils to devolve budgets to local ward councillors, allowing them to decide whether to fund their local community library;
• Abolishing the Advisory Council on Libraries.

You can read Mr Vaizey's speech in full here.

Jonathan Isaby

Comments

[niconoclast]

Our public libraries have become surplus to requirement what with the proliferation of charity shops that sell cheap second hand books and discount book stores including supermarkets.More and more library space has been given over to internet use where seedy furtive looking individuals hunch over computers 'chatting' endlessly online.

The last time I went to my local library there was a large display at the entrance celebrating what was called 'Black History Month' featuring books written by such dubious characters as Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela.I cannot imagine seeing a seeing a similar display celebrating White History Month with books by Enoch Powell somehow.

Newspapers in libraries are available but only catering for those who lean to the Left ie the Guardian, Independent, New Statesman. No Telegraph, Mail, or Spectator.Trying to find any books written by Conservatives is nigh on impossible.

There is an musty odour of municipal Socialism about our public libraries and it is time these not fit for purpose fossilised intitutions were let go.

[Jimbob]

What on earth is "dubious" about Mandela?

[Matt]

Niconoclast - charity shops and cheap book stores are fine for popular novels, but they don't have the range of material that a civilised society makes available for its citizens. If a child whose parents can't afford (or choose not to buy) books they need to be able to go to a library. Ordinary people who couldn't easily buy expensive books about science, or classic novels, or the great works of history need to be able to get them for free. Your view of the political leanings of the written material available in libraries seems rather blinkered. There were copies of the Speccie in my library last time I looked, as well as the biographies of recent Conservative politicians.

Ed Vaizey's plan seems very sensible to me (especially the national library card).

[Stewart Geddes]

No, no and no.

To administer this scheme will require a national database. That extends the role of government, opens the door to another runaway cost IT project, and leaves the door open to yet another assault on our liberties through the back door and unintentional introduction of a compulsory ID card scheme

[Tony Makara]

Such a card would be good if it allowed us access to university library stocks. However I imagine that most of the mainstream libraries are much the same and a national card more a convenience than a key to new kingdoms of knowledge.

[Malcolm Stevas]

How might anyone imagine we need something called a "Minister for Culture"?

[Iain]

"Ed Vaizey's plan seems very sensible to me (especially the national library card). "

It takes no effort at all to get a library card, so a national library card is completely pointless, and anyway what is the point of a national library card, who is going to travel around the country visiting libraries?

[Julian L Hawksworth]

Some innovative ideas. Also, there is no reason why this would have to lead to a compulsory ID card scheme. Surely, it would be voluntary to hold the proposed "national library card"?

In addition, I would not be happy if this idea required me to provide unnecessary personal details. Nor, would I want it to be accessible to Government agencies which have no genuine need to know such details about me.

In order to be successful, such an initiative would have to be properly costed. After all, our country has already experienced far too many fiascos with databased schemes.

[Matt]

Iain - Fair point I suppose. It would be nice to be able to pick up books across London though. I live on the border of two different boroughs, work in another and regularly visit a fourth. Perhaps a regional library card would be a better idea (and it would certainly mean that local authorities retain their power and no national database is needed).

[Felix Bungay]

Honestly I think with the current financial crisis, libraries are the last thing on the political agenda.

[Angelo Basu]

I really can't see the positive point of a national library card. Is it a solution to a non-existent problem (Vaisey's constitutents complaining that they can't get hold of a copy of de Zulueta for love or money but if only they could put an order in to the municipal library in Rochdale?).

The only benefit I can think of would be that it would make it really nice and easy to shut a lot of local libraries and make it so that only the largest regional libraries held stock. You could even go as far as just having a few regional book depositories and free up the use of current library buildings.

If you want to make it so that ordinary people have no access to a proper library it is a great way to go about it. Has Vaisey any shares in Borders or Waterstones?

[Phil Taylor]

I am not too impressed with the idea of a national library card scheme. Libraries are a local service and should stay local. Let people judge their own council by the services that it provides and the priorities it sets.

I really can't see this being a priority for a new Conservative government. If we really believe in localism then the libraries are one of the few areas of local government that are not hedged around by national law making.

I did like the idea of pushing localism further in this area. If a neighbourhood wants to prioritise youth clubs say over libraries then that is localism in action and in a near future where hard choices have to be made having Whitehall decide local priorities is plain silly.

[Iain]

Felix Bungay, yes that was my take on it, National Library cards ? Who cares? But put it down to the fact that MP's have made themselves an irrelevance on many things in what they have signed up to with the EU, and much of the rest would require facing down the politically correct so won't dare go anywhere near the issue. So we are left with Library cards for them to busy themselves with.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

The most obvious benefit is that people would be able to use nearby libraries in different authority areas - e.g. the big one in the town just over the border that they often go to. At the moment out-of-authority people often have to pay significant amounts to get membership. When I was at school I found that membership of the big library in Sutton was of far more use for coursework than my local library in Epsom (and a "regional card" would probably have been inaccessible to those outside Greater London).

[Mara MacSeoinin]

"Such a card would be good if it allowed us access to university library stocks. However I imagine that most of the mainstream libraries are much the same and a national card more a convenience than a key to new kingdoms of knowledge."

Once again, socialist whimsy trumps common sense.
Why and how should a public library card offer access to university library stocks? I can see the corridors of Cambridge University Library overrun with members of the public seeking to wrest tomes from students who need them for research; furious supervisors who aren't able to mark essays because the books aren't available; missing and damaged stock quantities expanding exponentially; the quietness of that sanctum sanctorum shattered by the mobile phone and coffee odour that Balls wants to make a feature of libraries; a chaos of additional administration for the institutions involved.
University libraries, having an exponentially larger stock including the kind of texts rarely if ever seen in public libraries, offer a limited number of readers' cards to those who have or wish to gain expertise in a particular field. Which is quite satisfactory. As for the idea of a national library ticket: a centralised database *would* need to be set up, which would be very costly. The cost of library stock would increase, I imagine, because of estimated losses or failure to returns per annum. A standardised return procedure would need to be implemented (rather like returning a DVD to Blockbusters from anywhere in the country) - again, more cost. Too much attention is being paid to IT: virtually everyone has a PC at home, so costs could be scaled back upon by winnowing out the number of silence- and concentration- shattering 'work stations' in public libraries.
But, of course, you've got to encourage people to read in the first place.

[Tony Makara]

Mara, there could be a system by which the general public could access university reading material. This would be a niche area and university libraries would not be overrun by persons looking for non-academic literature. The fact is mainstream libraries cater for mainstream tastes and fall short when it comes to certain reading tastes.

[Mara MacSeoinin]

There *is* such a system - a Readers Ticket. Under no circumstances should readers take the books out, though. There are few enough going around for the rest of us - a virtual stampede ensues when an essay is set, and most spend hundreds of pounds because of a shortage of texts; our HIstory Faculty has a one night only loan policy on the majority of its books.

[Hugh Oxford]

What an absurd non-issue.

[Yet Another Anon]

Introducing a national library card, entitling any member of a local library to use any library in the country
I support a National ID Database, but think the idea of a national library card to be thoroughly idiotic, what arrangements are there going to be for the return of books, supposing someone at one end of the country borrows a book from the other end then how is it returned, supposing people from one area start borrowing books from another at the cost to that other area and no cost to themselves, unless he was also proposing a single national library agency and national funding then it sounds like a disaster.

I don't see that his other proposals would achieve much either, except add pointless bureaucracy.

Why not charge deposits to cover withdrawal of books, deposit returnable minus any fines on return of the books, libraries perhaps transferred to private charities limited by guarantee autonomous from Local, Devolved and Central Government and raising their own funds.

[Tanuki]

I really am forced to the conclusion that public libraries are a relic of the past; specially when you consider Each book loan from public libraries in Camden in the year to March 2006 cost the public purse £11.50.

If we *do* still need public libraries, it would make sense to franchise their operation to a Starbucks/Waterstone's/Blockbuster joint-venture.

[Edward Huxley]

Felix Bungay beat me to it. The ship has hit an iceberg and Mr. Vaizey wants to arrange the deckchairs.

[John Coles]

Mr Vaizey is evidently underemployed, a condition faced by all of our MPs now that governing has been outsourced to the EU.
"Ed" should take on a substantive issue within his brief, like why we should continue to pay a regressive tax to support the biassed BBC.
Oh! How silly of me! That would mean that the Conservative party might be accused of having nasty policies and that would never do.

[Mark Fulford]

Libraries would appear on my "To Axe" list.

£1,157,093 of expenditure
26,000 staff

For what?

[Felixstowe Fiddler]

Just why do councils think that libraries should be buying DVDs to loan out? It is a complete nonsense - libraries are for books, particularly reference works.
Vaizey is one of those Cameroons given a job in return for swigging coffee in Notting Hill. As someone else said earlier: why do we need a minister for culture (media and sport). A complete waste of money

[RichardJ]

Frankly I'd be happy to withdraw all public funding for libraries. With the rise of the internet (with services like Bookfinder and Ebay) these once-useful institutions are being surpassed.

[RichardJ]

"Mara, there could be a system by which the general public could access university reading material."

Some university libraries do allow this. LSE library cards are not too difficult to get hold of providing you sign a form confirming you're using the materials for private research. That said if lots and lots of people started to take advantage of this I imagine they might make the requirements more stringent.

[Tom Strasz]

Free and easy access to information is vital to allow individuals to better themselves and their community. It's at the very centre of Conservative principles, I would have thought, to provide a service that all who wish to put the effort in to learning more- whether on computing, accountancy, opportunities for further education, DIY, philosophy or business enterprise- without restricting access to those able to pay the substantial costs of textbooks up front.
This is exactly the sort of hand-up that is required for those willing to make the effort to learn, rather than hand-outs. And that's without mentioning the love of learning that a well-stocked children's library can inculcate in the early years, which with any luck might put today's youth on the road to a more civilised future.

As to niconoclast's little diatribe- I'm not sure which library he's been going to, but all those I've visited in the past few years have stocked a wide range of newspapers, from the left to the right. Is it possible that the day he went in, somebody had already taken these newspapers off the shelf and been reading them? After all, it's not just lefties who use the library...

[Sally Roberts]

"£1,157,093 of expenditure
26,000 staff

For what?"

So that more people can discover the joy of reading!

I am 100% in support of Ed Vaizey's idea. Not everyone can afford to buy books and this makes them accessible to everyone. That said, I do think most libraries should be brightened up a bit and perhaps learn a few lessons from Starbucks and Borders?

[niconoclast]

Reading books is vastly overrated anyway. In order to read all critical faculties have to be suspended as one is led by the nose by the writer.Most books are 99% padding anyway and by the time you have waded through all the text you probably won't even remember the few salient points the book contains.Reading makes people stupid, introverted and anti social and if you don't beleive it try having a conversation with an intellectual.Most of them are devoid of common sense.As Orwell said of a particular idea:'It was the kind of thing only an intellectual could believe'.

Some of the most intelligent people have never read a book!It dulls the mind and makes people suggestible. It does not make people more civilised either.No people could have been more culture oriented than the Germans but it did not stop from from herding Jews into the gas chambers -and then going home and listening to Beethoven.

I have waded through the entire corpus of Shakespeare Dickens Proust Dostoyevsky ad nauseam and it was the biggest ever waste of time.

If people want to read let them pay for it.The idea that without the State there would be no culture is just condescension of the worst sort.Theatre,opera,the Arts and literature should all be left to the market place.

[RichardJ]

"Not everyone can afford to buy books and this makes them accessible to everyone"

Go to a bookshop and read them like I used to.

"Reading makes people stupid, introverted and anti social "

You must have read every book in the British library then.

[Stefan]

There is already a sophisticated inter-library loan system in place which means that your local library is able to recall books from the British Library if they can't be found anywhere else. I remember doing this for my A-Level coursework some years ago. Of course, you can borrow (or have books delivered to your 'local') from any library in your local authority which, for places like Essex, gives quite a lot available to you.

What needs to be done is an extension of the scheme already in place.

[Malcolm Stevas]

niconoclast:
"Reading books is vastly overrated anyway. In order to read all critical faculties have to be suspended..." etc etc
You're mad.
"I have waded through the entire corpus of Shakespeare Dickens Proust Dostoyevsky ad nauseam..."
I don't believe you.

[Sally Roberts]

Malcolm Stevas, I suspect our friend niconoclast may very well be a troll. I'd suggest to him very nicely that he goes back under his bridge but sadly as he won't have ever read the story of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" he won't appreciate the joke!

[Edward Huxley]

Although I wrote earlier that there were more important things than libraries to think about at the moment, I want them kept. Read a book a week and had to stop buying because I ran out of space, so I make good use of our local library.

[Mark Fulford]

So that more people can discover the joy of reading!

Sally, isn’t it fair to say that most of the people who use public libraries have already discovered the joy of reading?

From the public library budget (I missed a ",000" off my earlier figure) you could give every single state primary school £50,000 *per annum* to spend on specialist reading resources – and still have £300 million in change.

To put that £300 million loose change in context, in 2007 the operating expenses for Lovefilm International were around £55 million – from which they provide a superb service to many million visitors annually. For your £300 million you could have 6 publicly-funded Lovebooks delivering free-of-charge book loans – and not just to people who are able to go to town-centres in the daytime.

[Richard Calhoun]

We cannot afford it therefore it should be privatised

[Tom Strasz]

I'm afraid that you must have terribly poor reading skills, niconoclast, especially if you are forced to suspend your critical faculties to follow what's going on in a story. (I might point out, of course, that reading Shakespeare's plays is an entire waste of time- as with all plays, experience it as a performance or it's hardly how Shakespeare expected them to be used.)

One might point out that sports are subsidised as much as "culture", but few suggest the middle classes should stop subsidising the culture of the working classes- despite the fact that football tickets can cost well in excess of the price of a theatre ticket. When football was in its infancy it was supported by subsidies for clubs from local councils, after all, and it still is today.

And I hardly need to point out that it was that eminent intellectual Sartre who wrote philosophical papers on his beloved boxing. Something for those ignorant working classes? Hardly.

[Sally Roberts]

"Sally, isn’t it fair to say that most of the people who use public libraries have already discovered the joy of reading? "

Fair point, Mark Fulford - but if libraries were made nicer and more welcoming places to go and Ed Vaizey's library card meant that people could visit libraries in any part of the country then perhaps many more people might swell the ranks of Happy Readers! As a "bookworm" from a very young age (my mother taught me to read at three before I went to school) I am enthusiastic about anything which encourages the love of books. I would love to see more children's story readers in libraries and would happily volunteer my services for this!

[Mark Fulford]

I would love to see more children's story readers in libraries and would happily volunteer my services for this!

Sally, we can offer you some storytime slots around ours -- 7pm, your choice of day ;-)

Seriously, yes, reading and a passion for books should be nurtured at all ages. I just don't think that libraries even remotely achieve this.

[Sally Roberts]

Mark I'd love to do this! If you are based in London then please get in touch with me by email and we can sort something out. [email protected]

[Jack Stone]

This is a sensible proposal but the major problem with libraries are that they are not open when people are at home such as evenings and weekends. This is part of the reason they are largely underused.

[Dave B]

Count me out too.

1. Pointless - solving a problem that doesn't exist.
2. Expensive - All libraries having to update their IT to the new national system
3. Centralising - I thought the conservatives were about devolving power?
4. Creepy - a national library card, means a national database. Why does HMG need to know what we're reading?

I really, really, really hope this proposal is dropped.

[Sally Roberts]

Just for information, these are the opening hours of Hammersmith's libraries - should be suitable for most people:-

Monday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Tuesday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Wednesday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Thursday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Friday: 10.00am - 5.00pm

Saturday: 10.00am - 5.00pm

Sunday: 11.00am - 5.00pm

[Dave B]

Why do libraries need to be supervised by Westminster at all? Couldn't the Conservatives just leave them for local councils to run as their voters think best?

[Steve Tierney]

Sounds like a way to bring in ID cards under the radar to me. I'd steer well clear of this one.

Libraries are great old institutions, but they are losing relevence in the modern world. I'd leave them alone while they quietly disappear over the next 50 years or so.

[Dave B]

@Steve Tierney
Agree with your first point, but 'libraries losing relevance' I'd dispute. I find I use the library more since getting internet access, than I used to, principally because I can now search their catalogue online.

[Jack Stone]

Sally as I always thought you are completely cut off from the reality.In most of the country Libraries are not opened at the weekend and in the evening.

[Saltmaker]

Being accused by Jack Stone of being "cut off from reality”. That must sting!

[Tom Strasz]

Jack Stone, is it possible that libraries are not open in the evenings or during the weekends because they haven't the money to do so? Extended opening hours costs money, so either accept that more funding is needed, or put up with reduced service times.

[Super Blue]

"Just for information, these are the opening hours of Hammersmith's libraries - should be suitable for most people:-

Monday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Tuesday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Wednesday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Thursday: 10.00am - 8.00pm

Friday: 10.00am - 5.00pm

Saturday: 10.00am - 5.00pm

Sunday: 11.00am - 5.00pm"

Sally,

Ipswich Central Library (Northgate Street) keeps similar hours.

PS Stoll-Trone obviously doesn't use libraries much, to judge by his spelling, punctuation and factual accuracy.

[Tony Makara]

"Some university libraries do allow this."

RichardJ, thanks for the tip. Of course any such lending should not impact on people's studies, however as we all know there are books in library universities that haven't been loan out for years. If we are serious about lifelong learning then there ought to be a way in which members of the general public could apply for access to university libraries.

RichardJ, does the LSE stock Afredo Rocco? His texts are pretty hard to find outside of Italy.

[Jack Stone]

Tom straz.I do believe that Library`s should be better funded.Something that is unlikley to happen if a Conservative government freeze council tax.
Super Blue. So you will be supporting your local Lib/Dem council at the next council elections will you?

[Malcolm Dunn]

Jack gets on his computer early to make all these stupid comments.Why?

[Angelo Basu]

"With the rise of the internet (with services like Bookfinder and Ebay) these once-useful institutions are being surpassed."

Yeah, really useful for encouraging pre-school children to read and to enjoy it. Really useful for providing access to books for people who don't have much money. Browsing at a bookshop isn't the same.

Congratulations, a large proportion of the commenters here can get their free New Labour Philistine club membership.

[Super Blue]

"Super Blue. So you will be supporting your local Lib/Dem council at the next council elections will you?" - Troll-Stone.

No, I will be supporting my CONSERVATIVE-LED Council at the next elections. So much for your research: can't spell, can't punctuate, can't add up, can't get your facts right. In fact you are so hopeless that Draper must be embarrassed by you!

[Malcolm Stevas]

Angelo Basu:
"Congratulations, a large proportion of the commenters here can get their free New Labour Philistine club membership."
Opposition to publicly funded libraries is not necessarily through Philistinism or mean-spiritedness. I seem to recall that libraries, widely accessible to the general public, pre-date Local Authority involvement; and childhood literacy has never depended upon such things anyway, being more dependent on e.g. the home environment, parental attitudes, innate intellectual curiosity... My guess is that most people here, even the disturbingly large number of soggy crypto-Socialists and Cameroon trouser-fondlers, are more literate than average and certainly not anti-literature.

[Super Blue]

I meant to add that Libraries are a County issue (at least until unitary status arrives) and Suffolk County Council has about 60% of the seats.