Public Library Trends

July 2003

Nick Moore, Acumen

Contents

Abstract

We tend to take public libraries for granted. They can be found in nearly every community and are used by a substantial proportion of the population, particularly the young and the old. Yet the public library service as we see it today is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Despite their origins in the mid 19th century, the widespread network of public libraries is largely the product of the post-war welfare state. The demand for the service grew rapidly during the war and in the immediate post-war period. Provision to meet the demand was constrained initially by the competing demands for reconstruction. But by 1960 the service was ready to expand. The growth was consolidated by the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act and was given further emphasis by the 1962 Bourdillon standards (Ministry of Education, 1962).

The Act and the standards provided the impetus for what might be described as the golden age of public libraries. This brief period was brought to an abrupt end by the economic crises of the mid-1970s and the subsequent downward pressure on public expenditure.

The service managed to hold its own during the late 1970s and early 1980s but since then it has been in decline, with the rate of decline accelerating during the 1990s as new requirements and increasing costs stretched diminishing resources even further - to the point where the overall level of provision now falls well-short of the basic standards that were considered to be essential in the early 1960s.

This chapter began life as a short report for Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries. The intention was to provide a longer-term perspective on the development of public libraries in England. I am grateful to Resource for permission to publish this slightly expanded version. I am also grateful to three anonymous reviewers whose comments have, I hope, strengthened the chapter.

The chapter sets out to describe the growth of public libraries from the 1850 Public Libraries Act onwards. It does not attempt to analyse in any depth the pressures that conditioned the early growth, for that readers are referred to the two excellent social histories produced by Alistair Black (1996 and 2000) and to the seminal history of public libraries written by Thomas Kelly (1977). The chapter does conclude, however, with a brief analysis of the factors underlying the current position of public libraries and their implications for policy.

The origins: 1850-1900(1)

The public library service can properly be said to have begun in 1850 with the passage of the Public Libraries Act. But this legislation was, in many ways, giving legitimacy to provision that had already been made.

The antecedents

The development of libraries for the masses was part of a much wider process of Victorian social reform. The pressure for much social provision during this period arose outside the formal structure of government and was realised by a combination of philanthropy and community action. In the case of public libraries, group action, closely associated with the industrial working class was the main driver. It resulted in the provision of a range of facilities designed to support mass education, the best-known of which were the Mechanics Institutes. These had a strong educational and reforming mission - they were intended to improve the minds of the workers as well as keeping them out of the pubs.

The Public Libraries Act 1850

The Public Libraries Act 1850 provided the legal basis for the next forty years of development. Ground-breaking as it was, the legislation was remarkably timid and placed severe constraints on the emerging service.

The Act placed responsibility for the service firmly at local level, eschewing any involvement by the national government. It was limited to municipalities with populations greater than 10,000 (later reduced to 5,000), at a time when local government units were much smaller than we are used to today. Even more significant, the Act was permissive - it enabled local authorities to provide library services to the public but only if they so chose. And, at first, very few did so choose.

First the local authority had formally to 'adopt library powers'. This gave them the right to provide library services. But adoption alone did not automatically lead to provision. In a good number of authorities there was a long delay - often more than five years - between adoption of the library powers and the start of the service.

The Act also constrained the amount that even the most enthusiastic authority could spend. It limited expenditure to the product of a ½d rate and it went on to specify that the money raised could only be used for accommodation. The legislators presumably assumed that the service would be staffed by volunteers and that books would be donated. The later Act of 1855 raised the expenditure limit to the product of a one penny rate and removed the requirement to restrict expenditure to accommodation.

So, epoch-making though it might have been, the Act cannot be said to have provided a firm impetus for the development of an important public service.

Slow take-up

Perhaps not surprisingly local authorities were slow to adopt the powers offered to them by the Act. Table 1, overleaf, shows that in the 30 years following the passage of the Act only 74 local authorities had adopted the library powers, although things picked up considerably after that(2) .

Most of the authorities that adopted the Act were in the industrial areas of the Midlands and the North. Throughout the second half of the 19th century public libraries were associated with the working classes. Alistair Black, however, argues that the middle classes were strong supporters of public libraries:

Despite extensive working class use, public libraries were essentially institutions of the middle classes; provided by them; run by them, and used by them in considerable numbers. (Black, 1996 p 174)

Table 1: Adoption of library powers by local authorities in England.
1855-1920
Source: Kelly, Thomas (1977) History of public libraries in Great Britain 1845-1975 Library Association Date Authorities adopted (cumulative)
Date Authorities adopted (cumulative)
1855 11
1860 22
1870 33
1880 74
1890 162
1900 298
1910 427
1920 469

They were, however, frowned upon by at least some in the middle classes who opposed the adoption of the Act quite vigorously in many authorities.

Low-level of service

Partly because of the restrictions in the Act and the consequent reliance on donations, philanthropy and voluntary effort, the level of service provided by the early public libraries was very low:

Even at this comparatively late date (1885), only four public libraries had a bookstock exceeding 100,000 volumes: they were Manchester, which had 181,000 volumes, and Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, which were between 135,000 and 150,000. A long way behind came Salford and Sheffield, with 81,000 volumes apiece and there were four others - Bolton, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne and Nottingham - with over 50,000. Nearly three quarters of the total number, however, had fewer than 20,000 volumes, and nearly half had fewer than 10,000 volumes, which is the size, in these days (1975) of a very modest branch library. (Kelly 1977 p 32)

While mass education was the driving force behind the establishment of the early public libraries, they were mainly used for fiction reading. In most libraries over 50 per cent of loans were fiction, rising to over 80 per cent in some cases. Loans of fiction were closely followed by history, biography and travel.

The unchallengeable predominance of fiction was most disturbing to Library Committees, which could not reconcile themselves to the fact the working people (and middle-class people, too) desired to be entertained after the day's labours rather than instructed. Such a situation seemed to be a negation of the educational purpose for which libraries had been founded. (Kelly, 1977 p 85)

Despite these reservations, the idea of a library service open to all was clearly beginning to catch on and between 1880 and 1900 the number of authorities adopting the Act quadrupled from 74 to 298. Adoption of the powers granted under the Act was, however, no guarantee of progress. It took some authorities several years to move from adoption to the operation of an actual service.

Early growth: 1900-1919

The new century saw continuing pressure for social reform and the development of services of all kinds, particularly in the urban areas. One of the most significant areas for reform was the provision of education. In 1900, elementary education was the responsibility of the school boards while technical and art education was provided by technical instruction committees. Provision overall was rudimentary but it was beginning to have an effect: levels of literacy were rising and there were signs that an educated working class was beginning to emerge. Both developments stimulated the demand for public library services.

To respond to this demand, authorities that had adopted the Act began to expand what were still, outside the big midland and northern cities at least, very basic services. Other authorities continued to adopt the library powers and to embark on the process of acquiring accommodation, books and the wherewithal to employ staff.

The philanthropists

It was during this period that two philanthropists made a major impact on the improvement of existing services and the take-up of library powers by previously-reluctant authorities. Andrew Carnegie and Passmore Edwards did more to stimulate development than any Act of Parliament.

When Andrew Carnegie died in 1919 it was said that more than half the public library authorities in Great Britain had received grants and over 380 public library buildings in the UK as a whole were associated with his name. The grants made by Passmore Edwards had a similar, although smaller, impact.

In some cases, the grants were designed to improve the bookstocks in existing libraries. More often though, finance was made available to erect a building, thus overcoming the main obstacle facing an authority when it adopted the Act. The drawback was that much of the revenue income generated by the authority was absorbed by the cost of maintaining the buildings. And the legislation still restricted the use of rate income to the provision of accommodation. Stanley Jast, City Librarian of Manchester referred to:

... the buildings which Mr Carnegie, infinitely well-meaning but infinitely ill-advised, showered on library authorities whose funds were exhausted in the effort to keep them up.' (Jast, 1939 p 43)

One lasting effect of the philanthropy was to assist the spread of libraries outside the industrial conurbations. Most growth during this period was in London and the south east and the results can still be seen in the many library buildings that still bear the names of Carnegie and Edwards on their neo-classical facades.

Consolidation 1920-1964

By the beginnings of the 1920s the public library service had become securely established in the industrial conurbations. In the cities of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham impressive central library services had been created out of a sense of civic pride and, quite possibly, a desire to emulate or better the library of the British Museum in London.

The service was also beginning to develop in the South East and in the non-industrial boroughs, thanks largely to the funding provided by the philanthropists. But there was a notable lack of provision in rural areas. The Public Libraries Act 1919 was to change all that.

The Public Libraries Act 1919

The Public libraries Act 1919 was, arguably, more significant in the development of public libraries than the 1850 Act. Most importantly, it removed the penny rate limitation, enabling library authorities to raise more money for the service. This relaxation enabled the established services to expand to meet growing demands.

The Act also permitted counties to become library authorities. Previously libraries had been restricted to urban areas, now the way was open for counties to begin provision. And the opportunity was, in a number of cases, such as Hertfordshire, Surrey and the West Riding, seized with enthusiasm.

The pressure to introduce these two changes had been building up since the 1880s. The Library Association had produced a draft Bill in 1904 and made repeated attempts to get it introduced in Parliament. Its lobbying efforts were, however, in vain and, despite revisions in 1913 and 1914 the matter was put off by the outbreak of war. A revised Bill was finally introduced in 1919 as part of the government's reconstruction effort.

Until 1919, such services that existed in rural areas depended on voluntary efforts, with small collections of books in village halls and other public buildings. In some counties there were rudimentary bookbox schemes administered by county education authorities, using authority given to them in Article 20 of the Elementary School Code of 1907. This meant that the small collections of books were exchanged periodically.(3)

The case for the Act had been argued for many years. But it would be wrong to suggest that the Act was introduced unopposed. Thomas Kelly quotes a speech made against it by the Tory MP Sir Frederick Banbury (later the first Lord Banbury) who said, in opposing the Bill:

My experience is that public libraries are places where, if the weather is cold, people go in and sit down and get warm, while other people go in to read novels. I do not believe, speaking generally, that public libraries have done any good. On the contrary, they have done a great deal of harm, because the books read, as far as my information goes, are chiefly sensational novels, which do no good to anybody. (Kelly, 1977 p216)

Slow growth in the Twenties

Despite the lack of enthusiasm in some quarters, the Bill was passed and the 1919 Act provided the platform for a further period of development. Alas, however, the lack of funds still constrained the rate of growth.

The financial position of existing libraries was acute. They had been struggling under the constraint imposed by the penny rate limitation and it took a good while to build up the necessary flows of rate income. The situation was exacerbated by economic uncertainty and recession in the post-war period. So, growth in the established services, while significant, was slower than it might have been.

Outside the urban areas the Carnegie UK Trust provided considerable pump-priming funds to help counties establish library services. By 1919, the Trust was already supporting nascent services in 11 counties. These rapidly adopted library powers and others followed soon after. These new services were created amid a climate of rural rehabilitation designed to overcome the problems associated with the decline of agriculture.

The service gradually expanded, taking over many of the voluntary village centre and bookbox arrangements. But the resources available were still at a very low level. Staff, in particular, were in short supply with often only a librarian supported by a clerk:

There is something heroic in the picture of a librarian typing his letters and memoranda in a van doing thirty to forty miles an hour, even on the relatively level roads of Lincolnshire. (Carnegie UK Trust, 1928 p 41)

It was during this period that the first attempts were made to codify the levels of resources required for an effective library service. In 1927 the County Libraries Section of the Library Association recommended that a public library required a minimum stock of 250 books per 1000 population. But the impact of the standard, modest though it was,(4) was limited: bookstock levels struggled to keep pace with demand, as another quote from the Carnegie UK Trust report illustrates:

A widespread difficulty is the insufficient supply of books, the librarians frequently having to face borrowers - some of whom come from a distance - with the statement 'no books left'. Again, borrowers frequently wait until some other borrower turns up with a book'. (Carnegie UK Trust, 1928)

The educational mission of public libraries was strongly felt, even though it was specifically stated in the Act, and the new county library services gave a high priority to the educational needs of teachers and students and, to a lesser degree, the interests of adult learners, often through organisations such as the Workers Educational Association.

It was, in fact the WEA that established the Central Library for Tutorial Classes in 1912. Soon after, in 1916, the Carnegie UK Trust provided funds for transformation into a Central Library for Students. By 1927 it had a stock of 37,000 volumes and was making 50,000 issues a year to libraries, adult classes and to individual students

In 1930 it became the National Central Library and the foundation for the provision of inter-library lending services. The National Central Library was later to become one of the constituent parts of the British Library.

There was still a problem of service provision in market towns and urban centres in the counties. This was not really tackled until the 1930s following the publication of the Kenyon Report in 1927 (Board of Education, Libraries Committee, 1927), which was established to explore how best to complete the provision of public libraries throughout England and Wales. This marked the beginning of the establishment of branch libraries in market and rural towns, but progress was very slow.

Progress was also slow in the urban and metropolitan areas. Relaxation of the penny rate limitation was one thing, but persuading local councils to raise the extra money needed was something else altogether:

From 1914 the government raked up all our money to wage war, prices rose steeply, our income was slashed. By the time the Relief Act was passed in 1919 all town libraries had dirty leavings of bookstocks in their lending rooms. Stores were choked with books to bind or replace. Buildings were in shabby disrepair, some hardly weather-tight. Librarians, never without gold coins in their pockets in 1914, were near the bread-and-soup line. And the long-awaited relief did not come at once; instead, ever-mounting prices, the brutal Geddes axe ... About 1926 the outlook did become rather brighter. (Savage, 1952 p73)

By the mid 1920s the coverage of public libraries was almost universal The Kenyon Report (Board of Education, Libraries Committee, 1927) noted that 96.3 per cent of the population of England and Wales lived in areas covered by library authorities, but the actual provision of services was patchy: in county areas half the population lived in areas without any service and nearly 50 non-county areas had adopted the Act but had not yet made any provision.

Overall, in small towns there were about 500 books per 1000 population and about 10 per cent of the population were library members. In larger towns, with populations over 100,000, provision varied considerably: from fewer than 30 books per 1000 population in Sheffield to over 80 in Brighton (and150 in Cardiff). Provision was generally better in larger authorities and worse in the smaller ones.

The Kenyon Report identified a real problem with small authorities. Their resource-base was low and the position was exacerbated by economies of scale inherent in the nature of library provision: to provide users with a reasonable choice requires more books per reader in a small library than in a large one. As a consequence the Report recommended 20,000 as the minimum resident population size for a library authority and a national scheme of cooperation. As we shall see, the issue of the minimum population size was to recur over the following 45 years.

Fiction still dominated lending: in the mid 1920s it represented 37 per cent of lending stock but generated 78 per cent of the issues. There was still a big shortage of books:

In those days books had to last a very long time. The junior members of the staff had their appointed days for repairing, for only when no amateur repair was possible was a book sent to the binders. Once a week a trip was made to Ruddock's back door for sixpennyworth of bookbinders' paste and with the aid of this and many dusters to tie up the completed repairs until they had dried, the stock was kept on the move. (Lincoln City Libraries, 1914-1964, 1964, cited by Kelly p 240)

Staffing was also at a very low level: 'In 1923 the staff consisted of the Librarian, six girls, a caretaker and an old age pensioner with a long white beard who looked after the newsroom in the afternoon (Lincoln City Libraries, 1914-1964, 1964 cited by Kelly p 241).

Despite this general air of gloom - the country was on the brink of the Depression, after all - it was possible to note signs of development. Special collections of music scores and sets of plays were being established, as were services for blind people, with establishment, by the Carnegie UK Trust, of the National Library for the Blind in 1915 and its expansion in 1925.

It is also possible to identify, outside the big city libraries, the beginnings of reference libraries and specialist technical and commercial libraries. In smaller towns, though, the reference library was encouraged to concentrate on local material and especially local history material.

Also apparent were the beginnings of children's libraries:

Today few, if any, but the most impecunious of libraries, fail to make special provision for children. In many instances, a distinct and separate portion of the library building is set aside for young people. Much too rarely there is a separate children's librarian, invariably (I think) a lady. Where separate rooms or buildings are not available, children's 'corners' or sections are provided. (Carnegie UK Trust, 1920 p 52)

The 1919 Act also served to stimulate the provision of school libraries: in 1925 113 library authorities cooperated with education authorities in the provision of libraries in and for schools.

In short, the 1920s were a period when the public library expanded quite dramatically, despite the financial constraints. In 1933 the Board of Education published a report comparing the position of urban public libraries in England and Wales in 1931/32 with that in 1923/24 (the year on which the Kenyon Report's statistics were based). This showed impressive growth, as can be seen from Table 2.

Table 2: Development of urban libraries in England and Wales during the 1920s
Source: Board of Education (1933) Statistics of urban public libraries in England and Wales (1931-32)
Note: The table shows figures for both England and Wales
1923-24 1931-32 Percentage change
Total Stock (000s) 12,300 16,600 35
Volumes per 1000 population 52 64 23
Total expenditure (£ million) 1.2 1.7 31
Expenditure per 1000 population £50 £67 34
Total borrowers (000s) 2,500 4,300 72
Borrowers per 1000 population 110 167 52
Total Issues (000s) 74,000 136,000 84
Issues per head of population 3.0 5.3 72

The overall figures conceal wide disparities in the levels of provision from one authority to another, with the smaller authorities providing real cause for concern.

It is also worth noting that the increase in the level of use was much greater than the increases in the level of expenditure or the number of books in stock. This implies two things, first that there was, at the beginning of the period, untapped demand that was released when provision expanded but, secondly, that the pressure on resources was also increasing and was almost certainly unsustainable.

By the end of the 1920s public libraries had been established in almost all parts of the country. Levels of provision were still pretty basic, particularly outside the main cities, but things were definitely beginning to improve, as can be seen from the longer perspective provided by Table 3.

Table 3: Early public library statistics (Great Britain): 1871-1935
Source: Kelly, 1977 Appendix VI
1871* 1881* 1911* 1935**
Total Population (000s) 21,490 24,614 34,194 40,645
Population in library areas (000s)
  Proportion of total
3,912
18%
6,219
25%
21,103
62%
40,049
98%
Total Bookstock (000s)
  Books per 1000 pop		 996
255		 1,811
291		 9,357
440		 22,855
570
Annual loans (000s)
  Loans per head of pop
  Loans per book		 3,619
0.93
3.63		 n/a 47,834
2.27
5.11		 142,875
5.11
6.25

* Data derived from the Parliamentary returns of public libraries

** Data derived from County libraries in Great Britain and Ireland: statistical report 1934-35 and Statistics of urban libraries in great Britain and Northern Ireland (1935) both published by the Library Association

This table deserves a few passing comments. First it shows clearly that the coverage of public library services was very incomplete before the 1919 Act. It also shows how modest the aspirations of the county librarians were in the later 1920s - they were recommending a basic standard for bookstocks (250 volumes per 1000 population) that had been surpassed by the urban libraries over fifty years before.

In terms of the use of the service, the data reveal fairly low intensity. At the end of the 1920s, on average, each person living in a library authority borrowed about three books a year. At their peak, public libraries in England, as we shall see, were lending books at a rate four times greater than this. Yet, the number of times each book was borrowed is roughly the same as it is now. This means that the stock was being used quite intensively but the ratio of books to population served was low. At the end of the 1920s, in Great Britain as a whole, there were probably about 500 books for every 1000 population. This is twice the level recommended by the county librarians but less than a quarter of the number that we would expect today. This low level of basic provision almost certainly accounts for the low level of use by the libraries' users.

Stagnation in the Thirties

Development in the 1930s was dominated by the Depression and by recurrent financial crises leading up to World War II. This effectively constrained the development that was made possible by the 1919 Act and that received official encouragement in the Kenyon Report:

Manchester, in order to save the cost of staff, had to close several of its now renowned Young People's Rooms and substitute children's sections in the adult libraries. At Sheffield the economy axe fell on extension services and the bookfund, and issues fell by nearly one third between 1931/32 and 1936/37. In general, however, severe cuts were not insisted upon, for the simple reason that, as the chief librarian of Hendon sadly remarked, 'our past economies have so bared the bone that, even in these hard times, there is very little meat for economy committees to carve from it. (Kelly p 256)

There is, however, some evidence of increased book issues during the period (see Table 3) - a development that is usually put down to the fact that there were so many unemployed people with time on their hands. Librarians also reported increased use, and abuse, of reading rooms.

Despite the financial problems, the service continued to expand, particularly in the counties where the Carnegie UK Trust invested heavily in the period from 1931-35 to support the development of the county library service. The results were impressive as can be seen in Table 4, overleaf. The bookstock more than doubled and the number of loans nearly trebled. But this growth was from a very low base and was largely attributable to the charitable donations from the Carnegie UK Trust.

Shortages in the Forties

Initially, during the War, government policy was to maintain expenditure on public libraries as they were expected to play an important educational and recreational role but cost increases made the policy impossible to sustain. Book prices, for example, increased by 30 per cent between 1939 and 1942, and there was severe pressure on other resources, particularly staff.

Table 4: County library developments in Great Britain and Northern Ireland: 1928/29 to 1934/35
Source: Library Association, County Libraries Section (1936) County libraries in Great Britain and Ireland: statistical report 1934-35
1928/29 1934/35 Percentage change
Bookstock (000s) 2,300 5,400 135
Issues (000s) 17,300 47,100 172
Library Centres with:
  Under 100 volumes
Between 100-1,999 volumes
Over 2000 volumes
Total
7,377
4,323
44
11,744
3,767
12,116
253
16,136
-49
180
475
37

Note: The figures have been adjusted to exclude Eire but include the whole of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The programme of new building came to a halt and, to make matters worse, 50 central and branch libraries were destroyed by bombing. As the war drew to a close, libraries were experiencing severe shortages of staff, both qualified and untrained.

Despite these problems there was a dramatic increase in the volume of use - running at about 20-30 per cent per annum in the early 1940s (see Table 5). There was a widespread perception that more people were reading. No doubt the blackout and limited alternative leisure opportunities contributed to this.

1942 saw the publication of one of the more far-sighted reports on the public library service: the McColvin Report (McColvin 1942). The report was commissioned by the Library Association in 1941 to provide a blueprint for post-war reconstruction (McColvin was the Honorary Secretary of the Library Association at that time).

This showed that the coverage of public libraries was almost complete but that there were great variations in the quality of service. McColvin was also critical of the poor quality of most reference library work and children's library services. He also criticised local authorities for the poor staffing standards

He noted that the greatest deficiencies were in library authorities with small population bases, raising again the question of the optimum size for a library authority, given the inherent economies of scale in library provision.

Interestingly, he was opposed to the joint management of libraries and museums as he thought that it would distract librarians from their primary purpose.

In response to this analysis McColvin produced far-reaching practical proposals for a national, coordinated, adequately financed library system designed to provide complete coverage throughout the country.

The foundation was to be larger and more efficient operational units. He envisaged a reduction from 604 library authorities to 93 in the UK as a whole and the establishment of a national authority to stimulate and coordinate local effort and to provide financial assistance.

The proposals were generally accepted by the Library Association:

Any hopes we may entertain for post-war social and economic reconstruction, for sound democratic government, the improvement of educational standards, the fullness of individual living and the more fruitful employment of leisure pre-suppose free and full access to books and information. Without this opportunity none of these hopes can be realised. The necessities of both individual and communal life make the public library an essential part of the equipment of modern society. (Proposals for the post-war reorganisation and development of the public library service Library Association 1943 p 7)

Regrettably, the recommendations in the McColvin report lay on the table for many years. Had they been implemented by the post-war Labour government, we might be looking at a very different service today. But the recommendations on the optimum population size of authority had to await the 1964 Act and the local government reorganisation of 1974. The national authority, designed 'to stimulate and coordinate local effort and to provide financial assistance' was only partly realised in the creation of the Library and Information Commission and, latterly, Resource.

Re-construction in the Fifties

The 1950s were a time of reconstruction. There were real improvements in the education system. There was wave of social legislation and the makings of the welfare state. It was a time of increased leisure but also increased opportunities for using it - motor cars, television and paperbacks all became commonplace.

All these changes affected the demand for, and the provision of public libraries. There was increased demand for reference and study space, attributed to the expansion of the education system. There was a dramatic expansion in the supply of books, particularly after the paper shortages during the war.

The potential was, however, tempered by endemic economic weakness and uncertainty. Budgets were still constrained and there were continuing shortages of staff, buildings, books and other resources. But some notable progress was made:

Table 5: Growth in public libraries during the thirties, forties and fifties. Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Source: A century of public libraries: 1850-1950 Library Association 1950 and Statistics of public (rate supported) libraries in Great Britain and Northern Ireland 1958-59 Library Association 1960
1939 1949 1959
Service points 18,000 23,000 34,000
Registered Borrowers (million) 9 12 14
Volumes in stock (million) 32.5 42 71
Issues (millions) 247 312 397
Library expenditure (million) £3.2 £7.7 £18.8

Note: The figures are for Great Britain and Northern Ireland

By the end of the 1950s about 25 per cent of the population were registered as members of the public library service and libraries were issuing an average of about 7 books per head of population each year. Further, the removal of building restrictions in 1958 led to a surge of new building. This had a significant impact on county libraries and most recorded considerable growth during the decade. A good number of branch libraries were erected across the country and the library service became more readily accessible in small communities, particularly in rural areas. This building programme was matched by increased spending on books and, consequently, the size of the bookstock grew. The county libraries in this period also developed strong support services for schools.

Table 6: County library service points (Great Britain) 1946-1965
Source: County Libraries Section Statistical and policy survey of the county libraries of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 1951 Library Association 1952 and Public library statistics 1964-65 Institute of Municipal treasurers and Accountants and Society of County Treasurers 1966
1946* 1951* 1964-65*
Full-Time Branches 246 391 745
Part-Time Branches 328 561 769
Mobile libraries 6 59 315
Library centres 15,945 15,162 6,380

* Includes Northern Ireland

** Excludes Northern Ireland

The foundations of the modern public library service

By the end of the 1950s we had the foundations for the modern public library service. Just about everyone in the country lived in a library authority. The network of service points was expanding so that access problems were being largely overcome. The number of books in stock had increased to the point where there were more books than people. The levels of use were increasing.

The range of services was also growing: children were becoming established users; technical and commercial services were developing strongly, particularly in the cities; mobile libraries were motoring around the smaller communities; local choirs and drama groups were using music and play sets and a few adventurous authorities were beginning to experiment with record and even picture libraries. Everything seemed set fair for the future.

The modern public library

The emergence of the modern British public library can be traced to 1965, the year when the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 came into force. It was a time of considerable change. We had a Labour government after a long period of Conservative rule. There was an air of social renewal and expectation: the world was about to be transformed by Harold Wilson's 'white-heat of technology'. And the dramatic changes in popular culture were at their height.

Within the public library movement there was a sense that great things were about to happen.

The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964

The key was the new Act. While it was introduced by the Labour government, its origins lay in the late 1950s with the Roberts Report (Ministry of Education, 1959). The Roberts Committee was established to resolve the continuing question of library areas and the optimum population size for a library authority. The report recommended larger library authorities; resolving once and for all the recurring problem of small units, but the changes it proposed were not as sweeping as the McColvin Report. Perhaps its most significant effect was the fact that it led to the Bourdillon Report on 'the basic requirements for an efficient public library' (Ministry of Education, 1962).

The Bourdillon Report provided the framework for much of the development that took place over the following twenty years. It provided the new library authorities with the guidance they required to determine the levels of resources that they should be committing to the library service. Further, it provided the managers of the service with a series of benchmarks that they could use to measure and compare their performance.

The report sets out resource standards for the whole service. The most important recommendations were that annual additions to stock should be not less than 250 volumes per thousand population served, of which at least 90 should be adult non-fiction. There should be one member of staff for every 2,500 population served, and 40 per cent of these staff should be qualified. Thirdly, no-one, except in rural areas, should live more than one mile from their nearest library service point.

At the time, the national averages were not far from the basic standard: overall, libraries were adding over 200 books per thousand population, and had very nearly one member of staff for every 2,500 population, although the proportion of qualified staff was less than 30 per cent. Further, the network of branch libraries constructed in the post war period meant that public libraries were more accessible than they had ever been.

These averages, however, concealed wide variations, with many authorities providing levels of resources that were woefully short of the standard. The fact that the averages were close to the standard confirms that assertion in the report that these were the levels of resources required to provide a basic level of service: an authority wishing to provide a good service should aim to exceed them. They still serve as a benchmark today and stand comparison with the most recent standards published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS, 2000).

The Roberts Report and the Bourdillon Standards established the basis for the formulation of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. This, in turn, provided the foundation for the developments that have led to the modern public library service. In particular the Act, and the 1962 Bourdillon standards, introduced a decade of sustained growth and development.

The Act introduced four key changes. First, and most important, it made the provision of a 'comprehensive and efficient' public library services a statutory requirement, although it did not specify what the aims and objectives of the service should be. It required that the basic lending and reference services should be free at the point of use. In England and Wales the Secretary of State was given responsibility for supervising and promoting the service. And it set the effective lower residential population limit for a public library authority at 40,000.

The golden decade: 1965-75

The Act ushered in a decade of expansion and growth: a period that can justifiably be called the golden age of public libraries in Britain.

It coincided with the creation of London Boroughs (following The London Government Act of 1963) and this, coupled with the removal of library powers from the smaller authorities brought about some initial administrative upheaval. This was, however, accompanied by an increase in scale of resources provided by local authorities. Table 7 shows that in the ten years following the introduction of the Act, local authorities in England increased their expenditure on public libraries by over 50 per cent in real terms(5).

Table 7: Resource inputs 1965-1975 (England)
Source: Public library statistics collected and published by the Institute of Municipal Treasures and Accountants and the Society of County Treasurers, later merged to form the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.
1965/66 1970/71 1975/76
Total expenditure
  Per 100 pop
  At 2003 prices		 31,807
799
9,435		 54,438
1,777
10,811		 141,902
3,055
14,537
Expenditure on staff (£ 000s) *
  Per 100 pop
  At 2003 prices		 14,961
376
4,438		 26,950
583
5,352		 74,688
1,608
7,651
Expenditure on materials (£ 000s) **
  Per 100 pop
  At 2003 prices		 9,125
229
2,707		 12,686
274
2,519		 26,191
564
2,638

* Total non-manual staff, ie excluding janitors, etc.

** Books, periodicals, sound recordings, etc.

Note: Expenditure has been converted to 2003 prices using the government's Retail Price Index

The effect of this expenditure was dramatic. It brought about a transformation in the scale of the service, the range of facilities offered and the use made by the public. This is illustrated in Table 8, overleaf.

The picture is impressive. The number of staff grew by 40 per cent, and the training institutions were struggling to keep up with the demand for library qualifications. There was a similar growth in the overall size of the bookstock. More critically, the rate of additions per thousand population approached the figure of 250 recommended by Bourdillon. Even so, the need to build up bookstocks and to stock the new libraries that were being built, meant that the stock replacement ratio increased to 9.35(6).

Table 8: Staff, books and buildings 1965-1975 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public Library Statistics
1965/66 1970/71 1975/76
Total non-manual staff
  Staff to population ratio
  Proportion of qualified staff		 16,273
1:2,446
30		 18,787
1:2,461
34		 22,831
1:2,035
33
Total books in stock
  Annual additions to stock
  Additions per 1000 population
  Stock replacement ratio		 76,435*
9,735*
245*
7.85*		 93,783
10,440
226
8.98		 105,669
11,304
243
9.35
Service points open more than 10 hours per week ** 1,982 2,060 3,116

* Not all authorities supplied data and, consequently, these figures should be treated with some care.

** A service point is any point at which members of the public can access the public library service. They range from large city central libraries down to small, often part-time branch libraries. In addition there are mobile libraries and collections of materials in a variety of places, such as residential care homes and prisons. These are excluded from the figures in the tables.

The additional staff and books were needed to operate the large number of new buildings that came on stream during the period: the number of libraries that were open more than 10 hours each week increased by nearly 60 per cent during the decade.

While individual authorities collected their own data on the use made of their services, national statistics on use do not become available until 1975/76.(7) These show that by the end of the golden decade, public libraries in England were lending 532 million books each year and, on average, each person in England was borrowing 11.5 books each year, a rate of borrowing surpassed only by the Scandinavians.

There is little doubt that this unprecedented rate of growth can be attributed to the influence of the Bourdillon standards and encouragement and persuasion by the team of library advisers at the Department for Education and Science.

Less apparent from the overall statistics is the process of diversification of services that accompanied the general growth. There was better provision of children's library services; better support for schools, especially in the counties; better reference library services generally and, in particular the more widespread emergence of technical and commercial information services. Sound recordings collections became commonplace and most libraries established programmes of extension activities.

Retrenchment in the Seventies

The golden age did not, however, last long. The mid-1970s saw a rapid change in the rate of growth. The country faced recurrent economic crises, culminating in the oil price rises of 1975/76, high levels of inflation and economic stagnation. The government's response was to impose cuts in local authority expenditure, often requiring reductions after the beginning of the financial year, so upsetting budgets and the smooth planning of services. The local government re-organisation in 1974 also disturbed patterns of provision although it did not tend to disrupt use.

Despite these disruptions, overall expenditure in real terms was broadly constant between 1975/76 and 1980/81.

The effect of the restraint on the growth of expenditure was dramatic. The need to make cuts quickly meant that in many authorities there was a disproportionate cut in the bookfunds: expenditure on materials fell by 10 per cent over the period. Partly this was because it was easier to make quick cuts in expenditure on books and other materials, particularly if there was an expectation that the cut would be reinstated the following year. It was much less easy to cut into the biggest item of expenditure - the staff budget. Not only were library authorities reluctant to make staff redundant, they were needed in order to keep the expanded network of library service points functioning. Nonetheless, as staff moved on to other jobs or retired, posts were deleted or left vacant. As a consequence, the number of staff fell by nearly ten percent, pushing up the ratio of staff to population. An immediate consequence of this fall in the number of staff was a reduction in the amount of time library buildings were open to the public.

Table 9: Resource inputs 1975-1980 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public library statistics
1975/76 1980/81
Total expenditure (£ 000s)
  Per 100 pop
  At 2003 prices		 141,902
3,055
14,537		 263,022
5,755
14,607
Expenditure on staff (£ 000s)
  Per 100 pop
  At 2003 prices		 74,688
1,608
7,651		 139,989
3,063
7,774
Expenditure on materials (£ 000s)
  Per 100 pop
  At 2003 prices		 26,191
564
2,638		 44,034
964
2,445

The number of new books added to stock each year fell, reducing the figure for annual additions per thousand population down to 231, against the Bourdillon standard of 250. The overall size of the bookstock grew slightly but at the cost of shifting to stock replacement ratio up to 10.25 from the level of 7.85 ten years earlier, meaning that books were replaced, on average, every 10.25 years, compared with every 7.85 years in 1975/76.

The number of service points also fell slightly after many years of steady growth. This slight decline, however, concealed a big decline in the number of hours that the service points were open: the number open for more than 60 hours per week fell by over 60 per cent.

It was a time of sudden change. Many of the hopes and expectations of the mid-1960s were frustrated and it ushered in a long period of stagnation, although its immediate impact on use was muted.

Table 10: Staff, books and buildings 1975-1980 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public library statistics
1975/76 1980/81
Total non-manual staff
Staff to population ratio
Proportion of qualified staff
22,831
1:2,035
33
20,944
1:2,182
33
Total books in stock (000s)
Annual additions to stock (000s)
Additions per 1000 population
Stock replacement ratio
105,669
11,304
243
9.35
108,392
10,578
231
10.25
Service points open:
More than 60 hours per week
30-59 hours per week
10-29 hours per week
Total open more than 10 hours per week
 
160
2,062
894
3,116
 
66
1,976
1,037
3,079
Table 11: Use of libraries 1980-1990 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public library statistics
1975/76 1980/81
Book loans (000s)
Loans per head of population
532,760
11.47
550,776
12.05

Stagnation in the Eighties

During the 1980s there was continuing pressure on public expenditure as part of Conservative government's economic strategy.

Overall expenditure grew by just 17 per cent in real terms between 1980/81 and 1990/91. This was growth of a kind but insufficient to permit any real expansion of services: public libraries were in what might be generously described as a steady state.

Table 13, shows that there were very slight increases in the number of new books added to stock (at a time when the number of new titles published each year was growing rapidly)(8) . The total number of staff grew by four per cent but the number of qualified staff actually fell by six per cent. Libraries were retaining enough staff to keep service points open but attempting to reduce the unit cost of staff. This had a knock-on effect on the quality of service that the staff could provide.

Table 12: Resource inputs 1980-1990 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public Library Statistics
1980/81 1985/86 1990/91
Total expenditure (£ 000s)
Per 1000 pop
At 2003 prices
263,022
5,755
14,607
383,127
8,196
15,192
579,946
12,497
17,123
Expenditure on staff (£ 000s)
Per 1000 pop
At 2003 prices
139,989
3,063
7,774
198,219
4,208
7,799
287,875
6,203
8,499
Expenditure on materials (£ 000s)
Per 1000 pop
At 2003 prices
44,034
964
2,445
68,522
1,455
2,696
95,940
2,067
2,833

The number of service points open for long hours continued to fall, although the overall number of libraries increased slightly.

The impact of this retrenchment began to be reflected in the use made of the service. The overall number of loans fell by nearly 15 per cent during the decade, taking the average number of books borrowed per head of population down from about 12 to about 10. During this period, CIPFA began asking libraries to report the number of enquiries they received, in order to provide a further measure of use. It was not, however, until 1993/94 that the data became reliable.

Table 13: Staff, books and buildings 1980-1990 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public library statistics
1980/81 1985/86 1990/91
Total non-manual staff
Staff to population ratio
Proportion of qualified staff
20,944
1:2,182
33
21,040
1:2,239
32
21,848
1:2,124
30
Total books in stock (000s)
Annual additions to stock (000s)
Additions per 1000 population
Stock replacement ratio
108,392
10,578
231
10.25
113,979
11,045
234
10.32
108,306
10,877
234
9.96
Service points open:
More than 60 hours per week
30-59 hours per week
10-29 hours per week
Total open more than 10 hours per week
 
66
1,976
1,037
3,079
 
35
1,947
1,112
3,094
 
21
1,955
1,178
3,154
Table 14: Use of libraries 1980-1990 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public library statistics
1980/81 1985/86 1990/91
Book loans (000s)
Loans per head of population
550,776
12.05
540,028
11.46
475,527
10.25

Accelerating decline in the Nineties

If the public library service had been stagnating during the 1980s; during the 1990s it began seriously to decline.

There was continuing economic uncertainty and pressure on public expenditure. Overall expenditure in real terms fell by over 10 per cent. Book and other material purchases bore the brunt of the reduction with expenditure in real terms falling during the decade by over 25 per cent. Expenditure on staff remained broadly constant.

Table 15: Resource inputs 1990-2000 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public Library Statistics
1990/91 1995/96 2000/01
Total expenditure (£ 000s)
Per 1000 pop
At 2003 prices
579,946
12,497
17,123
641,251
13,602
16,156
730,894
14,619
15,243
Expenditure on staff (£ 000s)
Per 1000 pop
At 2003 prices
287,875
6,203
8,499
345,779
7,335
8,712
400,586
8,013
8,354
Expenditure on materials (£ 000s)
Per 1000 pop
At 2003 prices
95,940
2,067
2,833
107,269
2,275
2,703
99.301
1,986
2,071

Not surprisingly, given the 25 per cent reduction in expenditure on materials, the number of books bought fell. By the end of the decade the rate of additions per thousand population had fallen to 184, quite possibly the lowest rate in the post-war period and well below the Bourdillon standard of 250 additions per thousand population.

But, despite the 25 per cent reduction in expenditure, the actual rate of additions only fell by 15 per cent, suggesting that the average price of books purchased fell. This was also most certainly explained by an increase in the proportion of paperback books purchased. These are, of course, cheaper but they wear out much more quickly, making it difficult to maintain the overall size and physical quality of the bookstock in the long-term. Consequently a shift to paperback purchase cannot be seen as anything other than a short-term strategy. Not surprisingly, but for the first time, the number of books in stock began to fall - by 13 per cent over the decade. This reflects the long-term decline in the acquisition of materials and the consequent quality of the bookstock.

The number of staff employed also fell, by nearly ten per cent. The proportion of qualified staff fell dramatically, down to 26 per cent, compared to the Bourdillon recommendation that 40 per cent of the non-manual staff should be professionally qualified.

Table 16: Staff, books and buildings 1990-2000 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public library statistics
1990/91 1995/96 2000/01
Total non-manual staff
Staff to population ratio
Proportion of qualified staff
21,848
1:2,124
30
20,820
1:2,264
28
19,936
1:2,508
26
Total books in stock (000s)
Annual additions to stock (000s)
Additions per 1000 population
Stock replacement ratio
108,306
10,877
234
9.96
105,384
9,528
202
11.06
94,372
9,185
184
10.28
Service points open:
More than 60 hours per week
30-59 hours per week
10-29 hours per week
Total open more than 10 hours per week
 
21
1,955
1,178
3,154
 
9
1,789
1,315
3,113
 
19
1,682
1,331
3,032

As a consequence, the number of loans fell by nearly 30 per cent and the average number of books borrowed per head fell to under 7 in 2000/01 after the high point of 12 in 1980/81. This was mirrored by a fall of nearly 15 per cent in the number of visits made to public libraries. Along with this, the number of reference transactions increased in the first half of the decade, only to fall back again in the second. Table 17 shows the detailed picture.

Table 17: Use of libraries 1990-200 (England)
Source: CIPFA Public library statistics
1990/91 1995/96 2000/01
Book loans (000s)
Loans per head of population
475,527
10.25
437,158
9.27
342,914
6.86
Reference transactions
Transactions per 1000 population
45,462
980
52,548
1,115
50,051
1,001

Crisis at the Millennium

Public libraries are, by their very nature a long-term business. It takes a long time, and a considerable amount of capital expenditure, to create a network of service points: buildings ranging in size from the huge central libraries in the midlands and in the northern industrial cities down to small branch libraries in rural communities. Bookstocks cannot be created overnight: collections of popular light fiction can be purchased in bulk but a high-quality collection of non-fiction takes years to assemble, and collections of reference material take even longer. At any one time, the quality of a public library service is a reflection of the investments that have been made in the previous ten or twenty years.

Because of this, it takes a while for both improvements and deteriorations in quality to become apparent. The increases in use registered in the late 1970s and early 1980s reflected the growth in resources that took place during the golden decade after the passage of the 1964 Act. Equally, the rapid decline in use that has taken place in the late 1990s is a consequence of the constraints and reductions that have built up since the mid-1970s.

We are now faced with a public library service that is in crisis.

Resource deficiencies

It is probably not necessary to labour this point - the statistics tell their own story. Throughout the twentieth century, periods of expansion have been followed by periods of financial restraint, which have slowed the rate of growth. The position at the end of the century was particularly severe with actual cuts in the real value of library budgets. In 2000/01, the total expenditure, at constant prices, on the public library service per thousand population was no greater than it had been in 1985 - the level of expenditure had risen in the early 1990s but had fallen sharply after about 1993.

It may be argued that it is sufficient for the level of expenditure on a public service simply to keep pace with inflation. But a moment's thought shows that this is not so. As an economy expands, so there is an expectation that the quantity and quality of public services will grow accordingly.

For much of the century, the public library service did grow and expand in line with economic development until it reached a point in the mid-1960s when it could be said to have come of age.

The position since then is neatly illustrated by Table 18 which compares the changes in overall public library expenditure with changes in the United Kingdom's gross domestic product - the figures have been adjusted to allow for inflation.

Table 18: Public library expenditure and GDP 1965-2000 (England)
Source: Office for National Statistics National Accounts and CIPFA Public library statistics
GDP Index
(1965 = 100)		 Total expenditure per 1000 population
(1965 = 100)
1965 100 100
1970 116 115
1975 141 154
1980 150 155
1985 157 161
1990 188 181
1995 199 171
2000 230 162

Note. The table was compiled by taking the GDP data at current prices from the National Accounts dataset. The gross figures were then converted to 2003 prices using the Retail Price Index (See, for example) and were indexed, using 1965 as a base. For the public library expenditure a similar process was followed, using actual expenditure per 1000 population data from Public library statistics.

The table shows that for twenty years from 1965, the expenditure on public libraries rose broadly in line with the growth in the economy, as measured by gross domestic product. Between 1985 and 1990, total expenditure continued to rise but at a slower rate than economic growth. After 1990 expenditure fell in real terms so that by the end of the century it was back to the level it had reached in 1985.

Between 1985 and 2000, GDP grew by 46 per cent. If public library expenditure had grown at a comparable rate we would have been spending over £1.1 billion each year on the library service, compared to the actual expenditure (at 2003 prices) of just over £750 million. In other words, we need to increase annual expenditure by over £350 million just to put the service back on the growth path of the early 1990s.

To assess the impact of this shortfall, it is sufficient to refer back to the key benchmarks that were set out in the Bourdillon standards over forty years ago.

Table 19: The Bourdillon benchmarks (England)
Bourdillon standard 2000/01 performance
Additions to stock, per 1000 population 250 184
Ratio of non-manual staff to population
Proportion that should be qualified
1:2,500
40
1:2,508
26

Put simply, public libraries in England are not buying enough books to keep the service going. The current rate of additions is not sufficient to maintain both the current overall size of bookstock and its quality. Either the size will reduce or the currency and physical quality of the stock will decrease. The end result will be the same: the bookstock will be less appealing and people will no longer borrow books at their previous rate.

Further, while staff numbers have, broadly, been maintained, this has been at the expense of the quality of the staff. Public library managers have had to keep the numbers up in order to staff the network of service points. But untrained, largely clerical, staff have their limitations. They do not, in the main, have the skills required to offer a high-quality reference and information service; nor to provide quality readers' advice; or to stimulate reading among children; or to devise and operate extension services, to say nothing about managing what is a fairly complex public service.

The impact on both the quantity and the quality of the service is apparent in the rapidly decline book issues.

The one area where there has been little deterioration in recent years is in the number of service points. It is true that their opening hours have been reduced but we still have about the same number of central and branch libraries as we did in 1975-76. Local political pressure to prevent the closure of service points has made it difficult to rationalise the service in the face of declining resources. Given the resource position, it would have been sensible to scale back the number of service points and to work from fewer, larger, more cost-effective buildings. But this is a strategy that has not been viable - or rather, politically possible, given the local desires to retain what are perceived as community assets. Instead, opening hours have been reduced so that the assets are being used less efficiently.

It is debatable how much longer the service can continue in this way. Without a significant injection of additional long-term resources, it seems inevitable that the decline will continue and that the rate of decline will, almost certainly increase.

The policy response

Faced with the declining use of public libraries, there have been a number of attempts to put matters right. The policy response has not, however, been encouraging.

One approach was for central government to try to exert greater influence over developments in local authorities. From the middle of the 1990s, the Department for Culture Media and Sport required all local library authorities to submit annual plans, setting out what their aims and objectives were and demonstrating how they were going to deploy their resources in order to achieve the goals. By placing particular requirements on library authorities through this annual planning process, DCMS attempted to shape the development of the service. In 2002, however, DCMS abandoned the arrangement.

Linked to this centralised approach is the system of Best Value Reviews, now replaced by Comprehensive Performance Assessment, which can be perceived as another means whereby the centre monitors developments at local level.

Neither approach seems to have been able to stop the decline in the level of book issues - the most common measure of public library use.

The 1962 Bourdillon standards clearly had a significant impact on developments in the 1960s and 1970s. It was hoped, therefore, that the publication of new standards in 2000 would provide local politicians and service managers with the guidance they required (Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2000)(9) . In reality, the document was a disappointment. It set standards that were, in many respects, below the level specified by Bourdillon 38 years earlier: the standard for the number of annual book additions per thousand population, for example, was set at 216, compared to Bourdillon's 250, and it offered no concrete advice on staffing levels.

In 2002 the Audit Commission published its analysis of the Best Value reports that related to public libraries (Audit Commission, 2002). This side-stepped the question of the actual amount of money required to deliver a modern public library service. Instead it suggested that the problem was one of resource allocation and if only library managers handled their budgets more effectively they would be able to reverse the decline in use.

More recently, the Department has issued a policy document that attempts to set a framework for future development (Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2003). This encourages public library managers to focus on:

three areas of activity ... at the heart of the libraries' modern mission:

(Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2003, page 7)

The document, however, has nothing at all to say about levels of resources and their current adequacy or inadequacy. It does not offer the hope of any additional resources the librarians could use to deliver these new services, nor does it offer any suggestions about what activities might be dropped in order to free up resources for redeployment.

The Framework for the future has since been followed-up by an action plan from Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries (Resource, 2003). The document sets out a series of ten work packages that are designed to bring about the transformation set out by DCMS. To support the action plan, DCMS has made available £3 million over three years. It does not, however, do anything to address the basic shortfall in resources.

The DCMS Framework for the future was produced with the assistance of Charles Leadbeater from the think tank Demos. Following its publication he took the unusual set of publishing, with assistance from the Laser Foundation, a polemic in which he argues that the problem is caused by lack of strategic leadership at the centre and at local level (Leadbeater, 2003). He advocates a focus on a few inspirational goals and 'a stronger capacity to deliver'. This would be brought about through the creation of a National Library development Agency (in this he echoes on of Lionel McColvin's 1942 recommendations)

The most recent policy document to be issued has been published by Resource and is the result of research by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Resource, 2003). This tries to suggest that the problem is one of design and vision.

All these recent pronouncements share one thing in common: they ignore the fact that the service is being starved of resources and that its ability to do anything new and innovative is severely constrained by inadequate finance.

Uncertain aims and objectives

The service is also bedevilled by uncertain aims and objectives. Like the BBC, public libraries can be thought of as having a mission to inform, to educate and to entertain. The educational mission has always been important yet, as we have seen, the early reformers were disappointed by the tendency of public library users to read fiction in preference to educational material (always assuming that fiction is not educational, which is a contentious issue in itself).

In the growth years after the 1964 Act, the recreational mission became more politically acceptable, there was even a school of thought that recreational use was necessary as it provided the impetus and momentum for the maintenance of a distributed network of service points.

In more recent years the information element of the mission has come to the fore. Certainly the number of reference transactions has increased but it is hard to escape the conclusion that public libraries have not been able to secure for themselves a key role in what we now call an information-based society.

It is interesting to reflect that, at the outbreak of the Second World War, the government saw public libraries as important agencies for education and entertainment. They did not, however, perceive them to have a role as information providers: to meet that need, they set up the Citizens Advice Bureau service. More recently, particularly during the late 1970s and 1980s, public librarians tried to develop public libraries as a community information resource but they failed to make much impact.

The present government has helped to clarify the role of public libraries with its overall goals of reducing social exclusion, promoting lifelong learning and regenerating local communities. More recently, the Framework for the future (Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2003) has sought to clarify the goals, reducing them to three. But it has not backed this with the long-term resources that are required to re-orientate the service.

Where resources have been provided they have been short-term: the DCMS-Wolfson awards are a good case in point. These financial incentives undoubtedly served to stimulate ideas and innovation but they seldom led to sustainable changes in practice; for the simple reason that there are insufficient resources available to maintain the basic service, let alone to move into new areas.

The pursuit of technology

Closely related to this is the pursuit of new technology or, more particularly, the introduction of the Peoples Network. This is undoubtedly bringing about change. It is possible that access to networked computers will introduce a new generation of users to public libraries and will encourage existing users to use the libraries' resources in different ways. But there are major questions about sustainability.

Until now the equipment and training has been provided from external sources, principally the New Opportunities Fund. The impact has been dramatic. In 1991 there were 976 public-access computer terminals in public libraries. Ten years later there were nearly 14,000 and there are undoubtedly many more now. This is a considerable advance, but each of those terminals carries a revenue consequence. At the rate at which they are being used, they will almost certainly need to be replaced within three or four years and there will need to be a continuing expenditure on training. This will create a further call on the library system's core resources and there are few signs that this call will be satisfied by the provision of additional resources.

Which returns us to the question of resources and the amount of money that is required to maintain a modern public library service. An annual expenditure of about one billion seems to be needed in England. This may be an over-estimate. It is, however, quite clear that it is significantly more than we are now making available.

References

Footnotes

  1. The description of developments in the period from 1850 to 1965 draws very heavily on one source: Thomas Kelly's definitive History of public libraries in Great Britain 1845-1975 (Library Association, second edition 1977).
  2. It is not easy to specify how many local authorities were able to adopt library powers. In 1850 English local government was a mess. The basic unit of administration was the civil parish and there were over 15,000 of them. There were also 178 municipal corporations in the larger urban areas. By 1900 the administrative system in England and Wales had been reorganised into the structure that was to last for most of the 20th century. The cities and largest urban areas were governed by 90 county and metropolitan boroughs. There were 62 county councils, 535 urban district councils, 472 rural district councils and 270 non-county boroughs. The 15,000 plus parishes remained.
  3. The problem with small collections of books is that users soon read all the books in the collection that are of interest to them. To overcome this, the books in the collections need to be exchanged, thus introducing a new selection. In the early days of provision in counties the books were kept in boxes that were moved around periodically.
  4. The recommended figure of 250 books per 1000 population was, indeed, modest: the Bourdillon report of 1962 recommended a figure of 2,500 books per 1000 population and an annual rate of additions of 250 books per 1000 population.
  5. A full set of tables showing the changes from 1965-66 to 2000-01 are appended.
  6. The stock replacement ratio is important. It is a measure of the freshness of the stock. A stock replacement ratio of 10 means that, on average, each book stays in the library for ten years before being replaced, by which time its appeal has diminished considerably. An overall stock replacement ratio of less than eight is generally thought to be desirable.
  7. The reasons for this are complex. The problem with adopting a single measure of use, such as the number of books borrowed, is that it tends to conceal more than it reveals. Public libraries provide an amalgamation of different services and there was a reluctance to publish data on loans for fear that it would be misinterpreted. The government's Committee on Library Statistics agreed reluctantly to collect and publish loan data on the insistence of the then Department of the Environment that was seeking to establish performance measures for local government.
  8. In the early 1970s, about 30,000 new titles were published each year in the United Kingdom. By the early 1990s the figure exceeded 100,000. It is now over 125,000.
  9. The first publication was a consultation document. It was re-issued in 2001 (Department for Culture Media and Sport, 2001)