DILON & whiteness in librarianship, my article for 'Opendemocracy' and privatisation in Herefordshire and Hertfordshire.

DILON

Firstly and most importantly - the issue of 'whiteness' in the UK library and information profession (96.7% white) is one that needs to be urgently discussed and addressed so it's great to see a new group 'Diversity in Libraries of the North (DILON)' set up which "advocates for POC/BME/non-white library and information workers in the north of England". For more about the group read this interview with the founder Jen Bayjoo.

'Opendemocracy' article

Recently I wrote a piece for 'Opendemocracy' on the fight against library cuts and the need for Labour to adopt a national policy supporting statutory public libraries and the paid/trained staff who work in them.

"Campaigners were told to "innovate don't save” and urged to "adopt a positive narrative…if you keep saying libraries are in crisis then people will start to believe it"

But groups like Voices for the Library, Speak up for Libraries & the newer Radical Librarians Collective spoke out against the cuts and the closures. We spoke out against privatisation and commercialisation. And we were ridiculed and side-lined but we kept speaking out.

Hundreds of local campaign groups were formed and spoke up too, organising hundreds of marches and protests and union and community activists even managed to organise a national demo in 2016."

Herefordshire

It's heartening to see Labour supporting Unison's campaign and petition opposing the privatisation of libraries in Herefordshire.

"UNISON believes that the public deserve the best possible service when it comes to Museums, Libraries and Archives and our policy is always to keep services in-house."


Hertfordshire

It looks very likely that Hertfordshire CC will adopt the PSM (Public Service Mutual) model for their library service. They cite Suffolk, Devon, York and Northamptonshire as successful adopters of this model but recently worrying figures have shown a 43% drop in usage in Devon and in 2016 both Suffolk and York showed drops!

Outsourcing Fundamentalism, Hasn't Herts heard of Carillion? and SCL/Taskforce backed vol-led 'libraries' conference comes to Sheffield.

Northamptonshire, along with Barnet one of the Tory outsourcing flagships, has had a Section 114 order slapped on it which basically means it can't spend any more money on public services except apparently on crucial statutory services which apparently doesn't include libraries! A Tory council collapsing under Tory austerity cuts, who would have thunk it!!
Oh and I forgot to mention that the ex-CEO of Northamptonshire CC is Dr Paul Blantern who just happens also to be the ex-Chair of the government's Libraries Taskforce. Paul is a bit of an outsourcing fundamentalist, who planned to shrink his council workforce from 4000 to 150 core staff by 2020 by outsourcing services to 4 'Next Generation' social enterprises. His council had previously moved libraries into a 'Wellbeing Community Interest Company' but also more recently had planned to cut/close libraries and hand over many of them to volunteers. When I asked him at a Speak up for Libraries conference a few years ago whether he thought that an outsourcing fundamentalist was a good choice to chair a Taskforce on public libraries he just laughed it off, hope he's stopped laughing although the £100k pay off he received from Northamptonshire might help lighten his mood.

Hertfordshire are 'consulting' on their libraries again and in the spirit of the government's 'Digital by Default' agenda misspelled 'consultation' in the link meaning that you got 'page not found' when you clicked on it, it has I'm glad to report now been fixed. Oh and the 'consultation' asks folks whether they want their libraries to be privatised or cut/closed and apparently doesn't mention that libraries are a statutory service, wonder why?

The 'Community Managed Libraries Peer Network', "a network of peers from the full spectrum of community managed libraries from independently funded libraries to those who receive local authority support" is holding its first national conference in Sheffield on 20/3/18. The network is funded by 'Power to Change', "an independent charitable trust that supports and develops community businesses in England", it's so independent that it lists DCLG & 'Big Society Capital' as partners! Basically it's just another front for the government's 'Localism' agenda, an ideological agenda that seeks to offload public services to suspect SocEnts and volunteers.
The network is not only supported by Locality (the armed wing of the DCLG and the Localism movement) and the Upper Norwood Library Trust but also by the Society of Chief Librarians (SCL) and the Libraries Taskforce! Some see the involvement of the SCL and Taskforce as a pragmatic move but i think it's absolutely shameful and indicative of the ethical void at the upper echelons of our library establishment.
Oh and holding their first conference in Sheffield is a little ironic considering that volunteer-led 'libraries' there have seen a huge drop in usage!