Localism and community engagement have been high priorities for many public services in recent times, responding to government agendas of decentralisation, devolution and the transfer of power from the state to citizens. The UK Coalition Government's Big Society approach, for example, advocates giving local people more power over the services that they use and encourages them to take an active role in their communities through volunteering and representation on local bodies. In this book, Pateman and Williment explore the potential and implications of a community-led approach to public library services. Taking as a starting point an overview of two projects – Open to All? In the UK and the Working Together Project in Canada – the authors explore how public libraries can become more inclusive by working collaboratively with communities to develop a needs-based community-led service.
The book is divided into 12 chapters, the majority of which discuss aspects of library management from a community-led perspective, incorporating the findings and perspectives from the two studies mentioned above. Each chapter provides a helpful overview of the political and policy context within which public libraries are operating and the response of public library services as well as a range of practical examples of initiatives and programmes designed to reach out to new audiences and build relationships within the community. Chapters end with a “helpful hints” section of items for library managers and their teams to consider when planning community-led work. The final chapter provides a “Road map toward the community-led library service”, summarising the key points and elements of good practice from the preceding chapters. Although community engagement has been a feature of library service policies and development for some years now, the authors suggest that much of the activity taking place under the label of “community development” is piecemeal, focusing essentially on user consultation rather than reaching out to involve local people in partnership in service design and delivery. In this book they urge public libraries to transform themselves from institutions of social control to agents of social transformation by engaging in the co-production of library services with local communities.
The ideas and concepts underpinning this work are thought-provoking and their presentation and discussion are persuasive but the book does raise some important issues. Public libraries around the World are facing cuts to their budgets and services. a point acknowledged by the authors; on page 203, for example, there is a list of proposed library closures in England as of April 2012 and the situation has deteriorated significantly since. The community-led approach appears extremely staff intensive involving extensive outreach and contact with the community. On page 39, for instance, one of the helpful hints suggests, “After relationships are established with individual community members, ask them if they would be willing to walk through the community with you, and introduce you to other community members”. Those public librarians struggling to maintain basic services with a skeleton staff (or even a “staff” of volunteers) might wonder how they could achieve this. It is also perhaps worth pointing out that community-led libraries are very different beasts from community-managed libraries, the recent development of which in the UK has witnessed groups of volunteers from the local community assuming responsibility for the delivery of public library services. Pateman and Williment emphasise the importance and potential of coproduction; that is, professionals working alongside the community to design and develop services rather than the wholesale transfer of responsibility to groups of local people who may not be representative of the community as a whole nor terribly accountable to them. Yet, the language used to argue for these two very different approaches to library services is remarkably similar as local councils in England appropriate the language of community development to legitimise the withdrawal of the state from public service provision. Library services adopting the approaches outlined in this book should ensure that partnerships are based on the active involvement of the community and library staff.
