Library Politics

Since moving from Qld to NSW I have been struggling with the close relationship with Council councillors and libraries. The Public Libraries NSW association is divided into Zones - our library service is part of the North East Zone. Our Zone has a full Zone meeting twice a year and a managers meeting twice a year. I attend the full Zone meetings and the Regional Librarian attends the managers meeting. The meetings are held in May and October - one on the coast and one inland - usually inland in May (cold) and coast in October (so we can swim!!).

My Council has a councillor who is nominated to be the library representative. The councillor attends the Zone meeting with me. This is the same in all the member Councils of Public Libraries NSW association. The same councillor also attends the association conferences with me.

This was very new to me. I am unsure if the same happens in other states but I believe the reasoning behind this is so that the other Council councillors are aware of what is going on in the library world and they can lobby for us. Councillors have better access to local members of parliament and are used to speaking the speak. So does this happen in other states?

Now I mentioned before that there are two public library associations in NSW - Public Libraries NSW (formerly Public Libraries NSW - Country) and Public Libraries NSW Metropolitan (my linking is not working correctly so http://www.nswmpla.org.au/). For many many years there as been negotiation back and forth between the two associations to merge and become one voice. I am not fully aware of the history so I can't comment too much - although I do believe that there are less councillors involved in the metropolitan assocation then in the country association.

Since the negotiations continue to fail - Public Libraries NSW decided to open membership beyond country libraries and invite all public libraries in NSW to join. Apparently there has been some movement of metro libraries from their association to ours.

The other thing I found interesting after moving here is the attitude towards ALIA. I noted that even though some of the country librarians are members they don't necessarily think that ALIA supports public libraries enough.

I have noted that ALIA has done some pretty good lobbying on behalf of public libraries in the past few years. It did help that there was a public librarian as the President but I feel that this has continued. When prompted I can't get a list of what they think ALIA should be doing - just that they don't feel they are doing enough.

Personally I think ALIA has been doing quite a lot for public libraries - especially in getting our representation on the table for things like the NBN, NYR2012, and the Library Initiative to name a few. There has been some successful lobbying for library funding in other states - not sure why NSW has not been tackled, especially when our state funding is the lowest in Australia. Maybe we, as a state, haven't put our hand up to ALIA for assistance - again I'm not sure son can't comment.

There was a comment made recently at our association AGM concerning the represenation of public libraries in the recently published Book Industry Strategy Group final report http://www.innovation.gov.au/Industry/BooksandPrinting/BookIndustryStrategyGroup/Documents/BISGFinalReport.pdf
Especially when it came to this quote from the report:
"But the very concept of a public library is currently under threat and may appear to some readers as remote as the medieval monastery, especially when they can access the contents of the Library of Congress from their iPads. The Fisher Library of the University of Sydney plans to eliminate 500,000 books from its collection. The University of New South Wales Library is converting library space to lounges, which are more friendly to people using ereaders. It is difficult to imagine any government in 2011 committing large sums to the construction of new libraries."

It was asked why this quote, especially the last sentence was included in the report and why the representatives of public libraries did not disagree with this statement. As many of the NSW public libraries apply for building funding via the State Library Development Grants - having this quote circulating around probably doesn't assist the case in getting funding for new libraries.

The reply was that there was an opportunity for public libraries to respond to the draft report but there were few submissions received. There was then the comment that many people didn't see the call for submissions - so really who is to know who is at fault?!? Often the call for submissions allows little time to put one together. Do others agree?

Anyway, these are the political things I struggle with since moving to NSW but I am interested to learn about what happens in other states - even in other industries.

Do you think it is a good idea having councillors involved? Do you think we should have less associations and one that speaks for all? Do you think ALIA does a good job in speaking for all?