Tom Roper's Weblog

CILIP subscriptions

More than once, Tim Coates's Good Library Blog has claimed that large numbers of public library authorities pay CILIP subscriptions for their staff. He, and one or two commenters on his posts, claim that if this were not the case, libraries would have plenty of money for resources. Further, they imply that the underfunding of public library services  under the current and previous governments is a figment of the imagination, that public libraries are in fact well-resourced, but that the money is wasted on salaries and CILIP subscriptions for overpaid professional librarians.
There is  a good case to be made for employers  supporting their staff's professional memberships.  But Tim's claims are wrong.
I and others have asked Tim for evidence. I have worked in libraries for 29 years, in a variety of sectors of the profession, and have never had my CILIP, or before 2002, my Library Association or Institute of Information Scientists, subscription paid for me. It emerges he knows of "more than two" library authorities who pay CILIP subscriptions, but  he declines to identify them. Over at Michaels's 025.04 blog*  he has set up a poll. So far 231 people have voted, and only 4% have a CILIP subscription paid for them by a public library employer.

* The name, 025.04, is a librarian's joke, it being the Dewey Decimal classification class number for library operations.

Civil war horror in library profession?

Tim Coates is all of a quiver over a leaked copy of the minutes of CILIP's Policy Development Committee Meeting, which he claims shows "civil war" in the profession. Like most leaks, the reality is less exciting, merely consisting of some mild but justified criticisms of the MLA's Blueprint for Excellence document.  I can't help feeling that if we in CILIP had a more open policy towards publishing the minutes of Council and committee meetings on the website, the question of leaks, "secret notes" and other cloak-and-daggery would not arise.

Mass-observation at the CILIP Sussex AGM

Dorothy Sheridan, Head of Special Collections and Research Services at the University of Sussex, spoke at last night's CILIP Sussex AGM, in Lewes library, on her experience of dealing with the media.
There's been a lot of interest in the Mass-Observation archive recently. Only last Sunday, the Observer carried Alex Clark's  review of the latest book to be based on Mass-Observation material, Jenna Bailey's Can any mother help me? Dorothy also talked about articles in the New Statesman and New Yorker, and how to handle the broadcast media. Dorothy has appeared on Start the Week and Woman's Hour. On television, Victoria Wood based her recent Housewife, 49 on Nella's last war, published in 1981 by the archive from Nella Last's diaries.
Mass-Observation are holding an anniversary conference on 11 May and two other events, one involving Victoria Wood, part of the Brighton festival and the other at Komedia where Simon Garfield will talk about his work in the archive.

Librarian in the Guardian

The Guardian let Ian Snowley, CILIP's President-Elect, loose on Glen Berger's play Underneath the Lintel, showing at the Duchess Theatre. Ian writes in their Another View column; Lyn Gardner reviewed it for the paper proper, and started off with a wisecrack about the Dewey Decimal system.

The play's starting point is a librarian who finds a Baedeker returned, 113 years late. Ian seems to have enjoyed the play more than Lyn Gardner; "should be filed under G for guff", she says.

Links:
CILIP president elect's page
Ian's personal blog

Idox and TFPL

Idox, who bought TFPL recruitment a year ago, are to dispose of it, saying that it is, “just not a good fit", I read in Information World Review. The TFPL blog gives the official version.
When, exactly, did enlightenment strike in the Idox board room, I wonder? How did an information industry recruitment agency change from being an attractive proposition, to an unnecessary frippery? Surely the days of predatory asset stripping have not returned? I think this news will set off a shake up among recruitment agencies generally. They offer nothing to candidates, and precious little to employers. I have heard CILIP’s own agency INFOMatch defended on the grounds that it brings income into the organisation. So too would a chain of massage-parlours or betting-shops. However, CILIP’s recent financial difficulties were blamed, at least in part, on a downturn in the recruitment market and INFOMatch's consequent failure to bring in the expected money. Interest declared: I am a former, dissatisfied, client of TFPL, and other recruitment agencies.

PS. CILIP's Library and Information Gazette runs a front-page article on the library and information recruitment "industry", though the text is not online. Why ever not? It is symptomatic of my professional organisation's half-hearted approach to using the web. "Quality, experienced candidates are at a premium". says the spokesman for one agency, 'there are jobs available in fields such as executive search and professional services at junior level which we are struggling to fill".
The lesson of the past nine months is that I am clearly not a "quality experienced candidate". The article also suggests that jobs suitable for newly qualified staff are being outsourced to India, with a consequent effect on the supply of candidates for more senior posts.
The article fails to mention the sale of TFPL at all. I suppose it went to bed before the news was known.

Technorati Tags: idox, jobsearch, outsourcing, tfpl

CILIP: New Business Model and Governance Review

CILIP council yesterday approved both the report of the Governance Review Task Force and that of the New Business Model Working Group. Both reports are to appear on the CILIP website, but they're not there yet. Update: the Governance Review Task Forcepaper is now up here (pdf). The New Business Model paper "may take a few days".
Update: the New Business Model paper was uploaded on 18 December and is at http://www.cilip.org.uk/aboutcilip/newbusinessmodel/

Technorati Tags: governancereviewtaskforce, newbusinessmodelworkinggroup

CILIP communities

Phil Bradley mentions the CILIP communities and says, rightly, that we should make much more noise about them.
I was part of the pilot, but it's now open to all CILIP members. I think part of the problem is that closed communities like these communities are by their nature more inward-looking than the world of blogs that Phil and I inhabit. While that may allow CILIP members to feel safe, it may also make us less inclined to talk to the world outside.

Technorati Tags: cilipcommunities

Choosing the best children's books of the past seventy years

Next year will be an anniversary for two of the more worthwhile and less commercialised book awards, the fiftieth for the Carnegie Medal for children's books and the seventieth for the Kate Greenaway medal for illustration in a children's books. To mark this CILIP, who appoint a panel of children's librarians to decide on the awards, are asking readers to vote for their favourite books from the list of past winners.
There's a form at http://carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/carnegiegreenaway70/nomination70.asp but to use it visitors have to chose from a drop-down list. If, like me, you would prefer to browse a full list before making your choice, there are lists at http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/carnegie/list.html for the Carnegie medal and at http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/green/list.html for the Kate Greenaway. I'm voting for Arthur Ransome's Pigeon Post for the Carnegie and Anthony Browne's Gorilla for the Greenaway.

Technorati Tags: bookawards, carnegie, kategreenaway

CILIP in London: Tony Benn

CILIP in London organised the evening event, a speech by Tony Benn. He entered the lecture theatre, mug of tea in hand and wearing what I thought was an NUM tie, though I was too far away to be sure.
Introduced by Peter Beauchamp, President of Cilip in London, he gave a characteristic Benn performance. He described libraries as universities which anyone can enter without A levels, and the record of the nation's experience. He pointed out how, with rapid advances in knowledge, all six billion of us go to bed each day more ignorant than we were that morning.
He said there were only three questions worth asking: what's going on, why and what should we do about it? He described his diaries and archives, telling us how a Miners Federation of Great Britain leaflet from 1935 proved invaluable many years later. His diaries now consist of some 13 million words, spoken into a tape-recorder every night; he felt he had to do it daily so as to be accurate. Crossman, he reminded us, used to leave writing his diaries till the weekend. He felt, as do bloggers, that he should not edit retrospectively, even if he later proved to be wrong. His archives are costly to maintain, not least in the cost of storage, occupying several damp garages, and he faces the problems of changing technologies, from the early wire-recordings through tapes to CDs.
He discussed freedom of information. Governments have always wanted to control what we know, and he cited the 1491 Heresy Act as an example. which forbade lay people from reading the bible. The nationalisation, as he described it, of the Church of England by Henry VIII, which was as much about control of information as the king's marital difficulties; later Milton advanced a theoretical basis for the freedom of press and after the Restoration, Charles II started the Royal Mail to be able to read his subjects' letters. The founders of Hansard were imprisoned for reporting parliamentary debates and Google is now being told by the US government to reveal enquiries to the security services. Governments want to know all about us, but what if we want to know about them? Existing freedom of information legislation is, he said, inadequate, allowing government to make charges for providing information and to suppress information it does not want to disclose. He cited the case of Walter Wolfgang, who made the best speech at the 2005 Labour Party conference, consisting of one word, "Rubbish", who was thrown out of the conference, interviewed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act and consequently can now not travel to the US.
Are there any real secrets in government, he asked? Apart from the details of the budget, personal information and details of negotiating positions, he thought probably not. The most secret document he ever saw as a minister was a centrifugal method for enriching uranium; the same week he saw this highly classified document, it was published in the New Scientist. Malice, gossip and rumour are damaging, accurate information is not. He suspected ministers do not want the public to know quite how ignorant they are, while civil servants do not wish it to be known how powerful they are. The younger generation have to live in a world where we have the power to destroy the human race, never possible before, but equally have the power to solve the world's problems, to provide free HIV drugs for Africa, to protect New Orleans from floods. to illustrate this, he quoted from a letter sent to him while he represented one of the Bristol constituencies, at the time when the Soviet Union had landed a vehicle on the moon; if the USSR could do this, asked the constituent, was there any possibility of a better bus service in Bristol? (He quoted this same example when I heard him at Tolpuddle earlier this year).

Questions from the floor:
How public libraries could comp[ete with other local government services for resources. Tony reminded us of the introduction of museum charges, and said public libraries should be defended, being universities for so many people.
What will happen to your archive when you die? Someone will take them over; and he has been talking to the British Library
Would you encourage others to keep a diary as you do? He felt that most political memoirs were worthless, citing Douglas Hurd and David Blunkett's efforts as examples. He uses his archive every day
Why do so few young people vote? He thought it was not apathy, but that people no longer feel represented but managed by politicians.
I there were greater transparency in government, would ministers be more cautious? No, he thought. Some claimed that it might undermine cabinet cohesion, but he thought rumour, gossip, malice [of which there must have been a great deal in the Wilson cabinet, and indeed in every other-TR] were worse. These battles have to be fought in every generation, there is always the possibility that the victories won by Milton and Hansard, Milton could be reversed.
What about the History Matters campaign? He felt a historical understanding to be essential, though not the history of the rich and powerful. For example the lessons of the first British imperialist adventure in Afghanistan in 1834, new Labour have the illusion that history began in 1997
He mentioned Paul Robeson's visit to SOAS, where we met, the English Revolution, and the Tolpuddle martyrs.
How can public libraries stay free in the face of threats of privatisation from the World Trade Organisation. He thought the privatisation of libraries awful: democracy is revolutionary, citing the example of Birmingham where power at the polling station developed public services, by contrast now any one with a few million can buy a city academy.
Does he read other people's diaries? No, he uses books mostly for reference and finds writing terribly slow. Authenticity doesn't always come out of a book.
Are you a member of your public library? I use it, but I'm not registered. He uses the House of Commons library and has high praise for the staff there, though he is conscious of an old tradition there, where the librarians seem to be guarding against theft. There is a high desk he likened to that at a police station.

His speech has also been described by Ruth Rikowski. Readers may care to compare her account and mine http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Tony%20and%20Caroline%20Benn

Technorati Tags: freedomofinformation, tonybenn

CILIP Member's Day: the afternoon

I've listened to a number of President's addresses over the years, delivered by presidents of CILIP (those of Maggie Haines and Debby Shorley stick in the mind as particularly fine examples) and of the precursor organisations, the Library Association and the Institute of Information Scientists; as an employee I have also heard several Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons presidents hold forth. There is a speech day atmosphere to these sorts of events, and, as with school speech days, unless a Maggie or a Debby speaks, the proceedings are usually dull. This year's presidential address, given by the current office-holder, Martin Molloy a public librarian from Derbyshire, chair of the Reading Agency and the government’s Advisory Group on Libraries, managed to be both dull and unpleasant..
Having said that he considered the important thing about CILIP to be the professional support and friendship it offers, he then made veiled and nasty attacks on other office-holders. He asserted that the role of President was undefined, (puzzling in itself, as in recent years I understand that the job has indeed been closely defined, as the presidential section of the website used to describe), that not enough people came forward to do it, that few vote in the elections, and that while the office should command respect, he implied that some presidents may use the office to advance personal careers and agenda, an extraordinary and irresponsible statement to make, and one which clashed oddly with his final statement, an appeal to support CILIP and its presidents. The rest of his speech was commonplace and uninspired.
The sourness caused by this was dispersed by the awards of fellowships, which showed the breadth of the profession, including public,m government, school, art , health and university librarians, as well as trainers, someone from the British Library and a bibliographer. Honorary awards went to Karen Blakeman, Maggie Haines, John Hobson, Sharon Markless, Karen Usher and Margaret Watson.
As for the AGM, annual general meetings provide lean pickings for the blogger. There were 107 members present, and we stumbled through a report on CILIP's work and the accounts. Edward Dudley made some points well about the way in which the current distribution of funds favours parts of the country with fewer members against the metropolis. The snappily named New Business Model Working *arty will consider this, promised Bob McKee, the Chief Executive.
Most of the AGM was taken up with finance. Nigel McCartney gave a clear account of the difficult position we find ourselves in, as the number of members declines and income from CILIP enterprises is unreliable. The £2 million deficit on the pensions fund has been resolved by mortgaging the headquarters and form now on CILIP will have three year rolling budgets and a business plan.

As described in the morning workshop, subscriptions for 2007 will move towards harmonised rates, finally achieving that in 2008. For most individuals, there will be a 3.5% increase [though in fact members on higher salaries will in fact have a reduction-TR] and the prompt payment discount will be abolished. An amendment on overseas members' rates was not put.

Technorati Tags: fellowships, martinmolloy, puppy