librarypunk - 043 - Nonprofitization of Council Libraries in the UK feat. Alan Wylie

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

https://twitter.com/wylie_alan https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB438 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Leisure_Limited Readings Public libraries are vital to local communities – Labour must fight to defend them | openDemocracy (2018) The Fight for Britain's Libraries (2021) Public-Private Partnerships Are Quietly Hollowing Out Our Public Libraries (2021) Evidence on the use of volunteers in libraries and on volunteer-run libraries (2015, pdf) The UK no longer has a national public library system | Laura Swaffield | The Guardian (2017)

I was in London in November of 2019. And it was like around the Thanksgiving week. And so that was like the week where like Oxford was getting a bunch of rain and London was getting a bunch of rain. Yeah, yeah. One of my best friends is a student at Oxford. Oh, okay. And so I was like going to visit her. I was there the other day.

It's a lovely place. Oh yeah. I love Oxford. Beautiful place. They were filming the new Willy Wonka movie. Oh my God. A little Timothy Shalmay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there was loads of these kind of fans kind of running around Oxford. I'll have to ask Bridget if she saw anything. Kind of looking for him, you know. It was kind of weird. Were they at Modlin or were they at one of the other colleges? They were at the Bodleian Library. Bodley and, oh God, I love the Bodleyan. That like Christopher Wren Chapel is so great.

Beautiful. So I know the Bodleian librarian and he was kind of telling me, oh yeah, they're filming, it's so exciting and all this kind of stuff, you know. That's like a dream of mine is to be a librarian at like the Bodleian or like one of the Modlin College libraries or something. That's like the dream of mine. Anyway. I don't think you can use American library training in the UK.

You can't? I don't think it's like applicable at all. No, probably. That's a good question, actually. I mean, you know that in the UK, you don't have to be qualified to be a librarian. That's also true in the U.S. Oh, is it? Oh, okay.

In, like, public libraries. Oh, I thought you were making a joke, Justin. I mean, kind of. Yeah, and sometimes in public libraries, you won't need it, or sometimes in academic libraries, they're getting more lax on, like, like, if you maybe have an advanced degree in whatever, like, subject you're going to be a library for. or if you're more in like tech services, they might be like, you know,

equivalent experience or something. Sure, sure. Yeah. My director doesn't have an MILS. Yeah. Yeah. And we have one of our youth librarians doesn't have an MLSS. Either she just basically qualified on experience.

Yeah. That happens a lot with like traditional catalogers as well. Sure. Is it more have, do you have experience in this? Yeah. So. Yeah, I don't think our technical services. as a manager has one either. But she's been there for 30 years, so I'm assuming she's qualified.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm Justin. I'm a scholar communications librarian. My pronouns are he and him. I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library. My pronouns are they and them. I'm Jay. I'm a metadata and discovery librarian. My pronouns are he, him. And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah, my name's Alan Wiley. I'm a public library worker. and library campaign on activist, and my pronouns are he. Standard warning that Justin will interrupt you with drops, so just talk through it. Steamroll him. Yeah.

Yeah, I like your new disclaimer, Jay. You should keep doing it because I'm never going to warn anyone. Yeah, no, anytime I listen back to an episode and the first time you do a drop on someone and they're like awkward pause and like, ah, okay, they don't know yet. This is what I expect from this podcast. So, yeah, I didn't put in a segment. Did anything weird happen that, well, that we want to talk about? Or are we going to keep everything in the DMs this week?

Yeah, nothing that I think we should talk about is what I'll leave that at. Yeah, ALA probably did something. Who knows? So, Alan, we brought you on because I've been following your Twitter for a while, and you've been talking about public libraries in the UK and their, I guess councils turning them into nonprofit-run, volunteer-run libraries. And so could you give us a brief rundown of what you do and what's the situation in UK public libraries right now? Okay.

So, I mean, what I do, I mean, I'm public librarian for a local authority in London. working a kind of medium-sized public library doing all the normal stuff, generic public librarians do really. Used to be a reference librarian, but a big trend in UK public libraries is to get rid of reference librarians and to get rid of reference libraries and to put everything online and then to cut it and then to have nothing. So that's what I do at the moment.

A lot of my work at the moment is trying to get people back into libraries because we lost a hell of a lot of people during the pandemic. And we are very, very quiet at the moment. And a lot of the stuff I'm doing at the moment is outreach work. So going into the community, trying to get people to interact with the library service and to come back into libraries because as you know councillors and politicians

love football statistics so it's all about getting those bodies through the door and so that they show up on the stats so that's what I'm doing at the moment I've been a library campaigner and library

activist for about the last 12 years on a kind of national basis. Started off, would you believe, campaigning against LSSI, who are now L-S-and-S, I believe, in Santa Clarita in California. So I was, that's how I kind of cut my teeth on kind of library campaigning and did some work with the SEIU Union kind of fighting against LSS. lobbying against the AB438 bill in California, which was basically to give communities more of a say

in the privatization of libraries and more of a heads-up. And LSS did a lot of lobbying and even brought in kind of tea party activists to lobby against that. So, yeah, that's... That's how I kind of started in library campaign. The situation in public libraries in the UK is a bit of a mess, really, very fragmented. Local authorities and councils in the UK under the 1964 Libraries Act are supposed to provide comprehensive and efficient library services. What that means has been kind of fought out on a number of court cases in judicial review.

views, what comprehensive and efficient means, but that's what they're supposed to do. But a lot of them have kind of offloaded libraries to volunteers, outsourced libraries to charities, social enterprises, basically the kind of not-for-profit sector, or the third sector, as we call them in the UK. So since 2010, since the Conservative government got in, we've lost approximately 800 libraries in the UK. We've lost approximately 10,000 to 12,000 library workers. We've seen approximately 700 libraries offloaded to volunteers. And I'll go into a bit more detail about what that means.

later, but we've also seen libraries outsourced to, you know, charities, as I said before, social enterprises. So it's a really, really mixed bag. It's a bit of a mess. We're very hollowed out. Morale was very low. Staffing's very low. Funding has been cut. Opening hours have been slashed. Bookstocks have been slashed. So it's a very, very low. It's a very low. It's a very low. It's a pretty tough sector to work in at the moment. So yeah, I mean, that's a very brief kind of overview. You mentioned the 68 Act for public libraries. From what I understand of, like, council politics, are most public libraries run directly by councils? Yeah. Yeah, they are, yeah, under a 64 Act. 64. Yeah, that's the legislation that gives councils the power to basically,

run library services on behalf of communities, really. So yeah, councils run libraries. That's the bottom line. They're supposed to run libraries. As I said, a lot of them have kind of gone back on that and try to stretch the act as far as. possible, try to get away with what they can. So yeah, it's, as I said, it's a fragmented mess, really. Because councils can basically determine their own funding more or less. I'm not sure

some of the budgetary limits, but when it comes to like providing social housing or anything else, it seems like mostly what councils do from what I understand is make sure that Ben Collection happens. Otherwise, people in the UK will lose their shit. and society will just devolve. I just don't mess around with people's bins, definitely. Yeah. No, I mean, councils get a central government grant. So they'll get money from central government to provide local council services.

One of them being libraries. Libraries in the UK cost roughly £780 million a year to run. So it's an absolute pittance. when you divide that between 151 library authorities, 3,500 public libraries, I mean libraries run on a petence. It's something like 0.3 to 0.6% of a local council's budget were spent on local libraries. So you're really not talking about a lot of money here.

But yeah, I mean, councils provide a hell of a lot more. and they also raise money through local taxis called council taxis, which are based on property values. It's worth pointing out that libraries in the UK are a statutory service, so councils have got a legal responsibility to provide library services. We've also got a libraries minister who sits on the government and who is supposed to superintend and oversee the Libraries Act, but they don't, and that's one of the reasons why we're in such a mess.

Basically, the Tories, the Conservatives are not interested in public services. If they could, they'd privatise everything. And if it wasn't for activist campaigners and unions, then they probably would have. But luckily, there are a lot of people. out there who don't agree with them and to fight back. Yeah, there's a lot of statutory services in the United States too in like state constitutions, but you really, I mean, those are more or less unenforceable unless the federal government

decides to do something, so I imagine it's much the same. Has Devolution done anything about this? Are the public libraries in a different situation like Wales and Scotland? they were until a few years ago they were in a better state but they've kind of caught up with England and now they're in a bit of a mess as well so you've really a few years ago you didn't see many library closures or cuts in Scotland or Wales Northern Ireland's got its own library authority for the whole of Northern Ireland so they run in a kind of different way and they've kind of run their libraries a lot better

and there's been fewer cuts and fewer closures Scotland and Wales have kind of closed the gap really and there's been big battles in Scotland recently in Glasgow where I'm from originally to save libraries in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland in Wales, there are volunteer-led libraries, there are library cuts, library closures. So, yeah, devolution for a while did kind of save libraries, but it's not now.

So the thing I was really interested in, the reason I wanted to have you on was to talk about these libraries being run by non-profits. So, I mean, you talked about the privatization by companies. can get into that too, but I'm really interested in this, like having a charity come in and this kind of staff it with old busybodies. Is that more or less? And there's like religious groups? Yeah, just about. Yeah, that's a pretty good, pretty good sum up of it, really. I mean, I'll give you a bit of context. This is a big political agenda. There's a lot of legislation. There's a lot of funding goes behind this.

It all started off with New Labour and Tony Blair, really, and Communitarianism. So New Labour had this kind of policy of communitarianism. Then when the Tories got into power, it became the big society, and then it became localism. And now it's the new social covenant. So basically it's, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. You keep politics are so fucking fucking. Oh, look, look, look. It drives me crazy.

They change the names of these things all the time. What was the thing with Johnson recently that was like save big bear? Yeah, yeah, save a big man. Operation Save Big Boy. Oh, dear, dear. Where do I start with that one? I just think it's very much. But the whole kind of push to work.

Offloading public services to communities and volunteers in the UK is a big thing. They'll claim it's to give more power to the communities and more power to local people. But really, it's blackmail, to be quite honest with you. It's we are going to shut your library unless you run it. And if you don't run it, then the library will close. But the thing is that even when volunteers do take them over, it's like closure by stealth anyway. Because, and it's really all based on kind of access to resources, wealth, race and class, really, to be quite honest with you. because if you live in a wealthy area that's got access to all these things

and has got retired solicitors, retired bankers, retired professionals who know how to play the system, who know how to challenge things, who know how to raise funds, how to get grants, then you've got a far better chance of running a library Now, whether they are libraries is another big bone of contention. I mean, I won't even call them libraries. Because to me, a library without paid train staff and or a statutory remit isn't a public library under the 1964 Act. So, you know, they can call them whatever they want, community libraries, partnership libraries, whatever they want.

But basically, so what usually happens is a council will propose cuts, closures. There will be a campaign set up by the local community. People will be up in arms about it. Then the council will target some of the friends groups and some of the campaign groups and say, hey, look, if you really love your library, why don't you run it? And unfortunately, some of them fall for it. So you end up, and a lot of these groups are very kind of white middle class to upper middle class, retired folks, really.

So they're all the kind of same demographic. And they, you know, they've got a very kind of, they've got a very kind of, I don't know, rosy-eyed view of libraries. I think libraries are kind of a quaint thing to do, a hobby, something that might kind of amuse them for a few hours a week. And then when they actually take on the library, the reality hits them

because they haven't got the experience, they haven't got the skills, they haven't got the funding. you know, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, when I was thinking about this, I was thinking, like, if you want to know what your volunteer, who's going to be running in the library, you look at your friends' groups.

Yeah. Because that's going to be the people who are going to step up and want to keep it going. So, like, yeah, the old, nice white ladies all the way down kind of demographic. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's who the council will target. So, you know, they'll say the friends groups who up until that point will have been

saying, oh, libraries are wonderful, our patron staff are wonderful, we really love libraries. And then when they get the opportunity to run one themselves, you know, they just, you know, most of them just love the idea, you know, oh, you know, wonderful, you know, like this will be something to do, you know. it's like it's some kind of a hobby, you know? Yeah, it reminds me of the way that, like, at any library conference, they'll get a keynote speaker that's like an author or an actor or something. And their whole thing is about how much when they were growing up, they loved the library. And there was always this, like, librarian who was like an older woman who, like, unlocked the door of knowledge and discovery for them.

And it's like, even if that is true for them is just like the type. of image of what a library is and what a library is for isn't real. And I get the sense that a lot of these, like, you know, retired or, you know, people have a lot of free time, people who volunteer in libraries. That's what they think a library is and not, you know, how they actually operate day to day. I would love to see, like, an 80-year-old person trying to troubleshoot an LMS and like... Oh, God. Trying to help other people on a computer.

Well, this is one of the big concerns. I mean, volunteers having access to membership databases. I mean, what? I mean, come on. Privacy and data protection. I mean, I'm not being funny, but if you're talking about a kind of a friend's group or a campaign group who live in a sports,

small town or village, having access to people's borrowing records, having access to their personal details. I mean, I'll give you one example. In the UK, we've got something called books on prescription, which is a kind of a collection that library has that someone's doctor can prescribe a book to them. So the books are usually about those self-help kind of books about well-being and about kind of stuff like that or about...

This is what new labor did to the NHS. Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah, that's what we've got left. But, you know, imagine someone in a small village going into a volunteer run library and asking for a book on something that is personal or, you know,

do with a medical condition or, you know, a young teenager or kid going into a library in a village asking for a book, you know, on LGBTQ kind of issues or a women going into a library in a village asking for a book on, you know, kind of abortion rights or something like that. You know what I mean? It's just like, and someone in that village has got access to their borrowing record. You know, I mean, I... They're not bound by the same professional values that librarians are, basically. No, no.

I mean, it really does raise major concerns about privacy and date protection. And some library services have actually kind of tied down. their databases so that volunteers can't access certain parts of it because concerns have been raised. So they've got the basic kind of functions, you know, issuing, discharging, that kind of thing, but they haven't actually got access. I mean, you know, there are lots of concerns. That's a major one. Also, you know, there are kind of things, volunteers don't have to turn up if they don't want to, you know, I'm sure a lot of them are very committed and whatever, but you're not under contract. And there's not that kind of, you know, there's not that kind of, what's the right word, dedication, I suppose, you know.

I mean, and so also health and safety, I mean, who looks after that, you know, does the council do the, I mean, I've been in some volunteer-led libraries that, you know, the health and safety executive would close down if they did a spot check, you know, boxes lying about the place, shelves looking as if they're going to topple over, you know, kind of, it. You know, it's a real, some of them are a real mess. They're more like charity shops than libraries. I think it's how they probably imagine libraries. But I was going to ask, when, because I've tried to imagine myself in this situation where someone tells me, someone's going to take my job and do it for free, I would break everything on my way out. Like, I would just make it impossible for the library to run. Yeah. What has the transition been like when people are having to train their free replacements?

Oh, I mean, you can imagine. I mean, you know, exactly what you say, you know, can you train up this volunteer to do your job, you know? You know, I mean... I can't even explain my job to an online break people. Yeah, I mean, you know, and can you do it in six weeks? it's just like, well, no, really. I mean, I also worry about the safety of these volunteers, not just of the like the shelves going to fall over on them.

In the United States, I think I read somewhere that like public librarians, especially like once you maybe work a circulation desk or a reference desk where they're, you know, face to face, that their jobs are some of the most dangerous in the entire country for like sexual harassment. or other types of violence coming from patrons. And I don't know if it was the same in the UK. Do you have to offer the same protections to volunteers that you might paid employees even?

Yeah. Well, I actually tweeted something earlier on, which was a survey that the main public sector union in the UK, unison did, which represents the majority of library workers. the UK and they did a survey in 2019 about the violence, aggression and abuse that public library workers have to put up with every day. And it's absolutely shocking, you know. Something like 82% of library workers have experienced, you know,

aggression, violence, abuse, you know, in their day-to-day work. So, yeah, why any volunteer would want to put themselves in that position, you know? I really don't know but yeah I mean it's we we at least we get a bit of training

at least we have built up over the years if you're an experienced library worker how to maybe diffuse situations and how to get yourself out of situations it's a part of the kind of skill

of being a library worker it's a part of the skill of being in a service where anyone can walk in the building at any time. You don't know who you're dealing with. You don't know what's going to happen. Yeah, I mean, you know, why would you want to volunteer to do that? You know, and it's getting worse, you know, because a lot of public, since they've started co-locating a lot of public libraries with other council services, so you might have a library that shares the same building

as the housing services, homelessness services, social services, children's services, whatever. There's a lot of that going on because of the cuts. So what they do is shoehorn all public services together in one building. Call it a hub and then let people get on with it. But the thing is that library workers since that's been happening, have been facing a hell of a lot more aggression and abuse because you get a lot of of people coming in who are very, very distressed, very frustrated, very angry. Yeah, so God knows why you would want to volunteer to do that. I really don't, you know, unless,

you know, it's kind of, you know, I'd volunteered in my early years to run soup kitchens for the homeless, but, you know, that was something that I chose to do kind of when I was 1920, you know, like when I was a bit kind of crazy, you know. And I thought it was a worthwhile thing to do, you know. So, yeah, I don't know. It really worries me. I saw in one of the articles you linked to us, which will be in the notes, that there's more volunteer-run libraries now than professionally staffed libraries.

How long do these volunteer-run libraries last before they just shut down? yeah there's more volunteers in public libraries than pay train staff yeah yeah so before the pandemic about two years ago there was about 50,000 volunteers working in working in UK public libraries and about 15,000 16,000 pay train staff Now there's 25,000 volunteers because it's dropped by about 50% because volunteers are usually in the vulnerable groups and during the pandemic a lot of them just dropped out and didn't want to come into the library because of COVID basically. So there's about 700, about 20% of volunteers. All UK public libraries are volunteer-led.

So there's about 700, something like that. Some councils have more than others. Some councils don't have any. Council I work for doesn't have any volunteer libraries. Some councils are keener on it than other councils. It's really a kind of a postcode lottery, really. It's a kind of fragmented kind of picture. I'll give you an example of one local authority in London

and that's Lewisham, which is a labour-controlled. Labour seem to be very keen on volunteer-led libraries, would you believe? You would think it was the Conservatives, but Labour are pretty keen on offloading public services and laying off-staff and handing libraries over to volunteers. So, Lewisham has got six different library providers. So the council is supposed to provide libraries.

libraries, but they've offloaded them to six different groups. One of those groups is an offshore arts organisation that has African mining interests. I'm not joking. I mean, so it's just like it's a free-for-all. It's like the Wild West, you know. Another one of the organisations is an ex-city guy who worked for Dell computers, I think. And he set up a social enterprise, and now he runs some of the libraries. And, you know, it's like, it's just crazy.

It's just mad, you know. And then you've got little kind of volunteer groups that have set up community interest companies, CICs, you know, that anybody can kind of set up and call themselves a charity or, you know, anything they want, really. and they kind of toddle along and do the best they can, really. But that's Lewisham, you know. So on the, you mentioned the privatization. The one company that you mentioned is the one based in California, and I think we've talked about another one that does library automation, but what's going on with these privatization companies in the UK?

Are they running the whole library, or are they doing contract staffing? Like, how is the privatization happening? Okay, so the biggest company in the UK is a company called GLL, Greenwich Leisure Limited, who started off in the London Borough of Greenwich, running leisure services and then running the library service, and then they've expanded out, and I think it's at three or four library services, about 67 libraries they run now. GLLL claimed to be a worker-led social enterprise. But they employ two-thirds of their staff on zero-hour contracts.

They have got abysmal labour relations record, staff, library staff, and one of the library services that they've run have been out in strike twice in the last two or three years because of low pay, low staffing, everything else. So they are by no means a social enterprise. But councils seem to love them. Because of that tag of social enterprise, you know, especially the labour councils. They think if someone's got the social enterprise tag, then they're kind of, you know,

they're kind of morally and ethically valid, you know. So JLL are the biggest one. there are four five big county library services that have been spun out into public to become public service

mutuals because that was another big thing the government we're trying to do set up worker mutuals but they're not worker mutuals they're not proper mutuals you know there's nothing mutual about them, really.

You know, I call them mock mutuals. So there are four or five big county library systems that have been spun out to them. And that's the main kind of players, really. LSS, who are now LSN, did come over to the UK. They opened up an office in London. They said they were going to try and win 15% of the UK public library sector. They didn't get one contract. They had to close their office and they had to come back to the US

because they counsels for some reason didn't trust them. I wonder why. There's something in here about risk of double taxation. If the library receives funding from external sources that aren't library, that aren't taxpayer funds. Could you go into that for a little bit? Sorry, what was that? Sorry. Is it a risk of double taxation if the library receives funding from external sources that aren't taxpayer funds? I didn't add that to the notes, so I was wondering what...

I read that in one of the links that was like the one from like the Scottish report, where it was like pros and cons. And one of the ones that was like potential problems was this like double taxation thing that they could actually get in trouble for or something. Yeah, I mean, really the whole kind of concept of double taxation to do with volunteer-led libraries is to do more about people running them already pay for the service through their taxis. And then by giving their time, are really being in a way double-taxed, if you know what I mean. Oh, okay. I don't understand how UK things work.

Yeah, I think that's more to do with it. It was one of the arguments that we were trying to, as campaigners and activists, trying to put to friends groups and campaign groups who were thinking of running libraries, we were saying to them, look, you already pay for these libraries. You know, really you should be fighting the council and the government to live up to their responsibilities and to provide these. libraries properly, you know. If you start running them, you're, you know, it's basically a double taxation. That, that was the kind of argument that we were using, you know. Gotcha. So it's not like

of the library doings of its taxism, but like the people who running it's them getting tax kind of double. Gotcha. Yeah, that was more of the argument. It was, it was kind of, we were trying to kind of use these arguments to persuade friends groups, not to do it, basically. basically reasons not to do it. And that seemed a pretty good one. But I mean, some of the charities who run libraries obviously get charitable tax relief. So that's one of the advantages of a charity running a library. Yeah, that report did have like pros in it as well as as cons. Yeah. I can't think of many pros, but... No, not many. It was like, here, maybe some of the perks of volunteering at a library or something.

The pros are having a library at all. Yeah. Yeah. Because if it's between that and not, then what are you going to do? Yeah, that's what we run into a lot is like we shouldn't be doing this. But what else do we do? I think that's in a lot of our episodes and just in like library discourse in general, I feel like that's a wall we hit a lot.

Yeah, that's something that's put to. me quite a lot, especially over the last 12 years. You know, what do you want us to do? What would you do if they were closing your library? And I can understand people's passion and I can understand people's fear that their public services have been closed down. But the thing is that by getting rid of paid train staff and the statutory remit, it's not a library anymore, they're closing the library.

so don't call it a library in the first place. If you want to call it a community book exchange, then fine, but just don't call it a library. Just don't call a wooden box in someone's front yard, a little free library. You know, it isn't. It would be like me putting an aspirin and a tendon calling at a community hospital, you know.

Yeah, that was actually like a point I was very interested in was like, you know, in the United States, we have all of this stuff about the little free libraries. And then I see people going like, well, libraries are about more than their books. They're about the services they offer and they're about the library ends. You can't have a library without library ends. And like being about, but then we have like, we'll both get little free libraries. You know, I'm putting air quotes around that. Where it's just like, you know, you know, in middle class suburban neighborhoods where they're not actually needed. But then I also see libraries that are opening up that don't have any librarians working in them where it's like all

automated or something. Yeah, like there's like a lot of tension between like what makes a library. Is it about the books? Is it about the people working there? Like that kind of stuff. Like I feel like that maybe ties into a lot of the problems in this issue. I mean, basically we've been trying to reclaim the word library because basically politicians and counsellors have been calling everything and anything a library to try and undermine public libraries. And we've been trying to refocus the argument and say, look, you know, calling an old telephone box full of old books, a library is kind of pushing it a bit, you know. And why don't you use your energies and your passion, A, to use your local public library, and B, to fight the cuts?

and to come together with campaign groups, unions, activists, whatever, to fight those cuts. I mean, you know, like, little free libraries kind of came over to the UK a few years ago, and I tried to talk to the UK kind of branch of it and say, look, can we talk about this? We're library campaigners, we're library activists. You know, if you want to put some books in a bookbox, great. Please don't call it a library. These are the reasons why. Also, if you're going to do it, then publicize the local public library.

Yeah, sorry, sorry. Oh, make it a compliment as opposed to a compliment to the public library. What can partnership with the local public library service? Put local public library leaflets in the boxes. you know, kind of but yeah, I mean, they didn't want to listen. I mean, they actually blocked me, really.

Wow. Yeah, it's been a bit. I mean, there's all, you know, as you mentioned, there's been all that research about how the kind of emergence of Little Free Libraries is kind of linked to gentrification. I know in places like Detroit

there's been a kind of pushback against them. You know, how they claim to kind of be in book deserts, but the majority of them are in well-off, kind of usually white kind of middle-class areas who can afford to buy books, who have got access to, books and information. So really are they living up to the claim that they really, they really put forward? But, you know, that's a whole, we could take up a whole podcast on that

one, you know. I've had so many arguments about that. It's unbelievable, you know. I mean, it even got on the BBC a couple of years ago, because I had the, I had the temerity to criticize a little free library in Bristol. And people went crazy. I was getting threatened and called, oh, you wouldn't believe what people were calling me. You know, and it even got on the BBC, you know, because people were up in arms about it. How dare you criticize, you know, this kind of worthy kind of, you know, thing. But there's a lot of kind of, I don't know, you know,

there's a lot of kind of, yeah, it's a lot of... Ideology. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It reminds me of all of the, whenever, you know, people get up in arms because there's a dumpster full of, you know, old books that are, you know, outdated or whatever. They're still perfectly good. And it's like, I, I, that's a matter of like professional judgment, not community judgment, really. Yeah, yeah. It's the whole weeding kind of argument, isn't it, you know? I mean, you know, stock work and kind of weaving the stock, you know, you all know,

as a part of, you all know, as a part of our jobs, you know, and that's what we do. It's how you keep collections up to date and attractive and how you keep them relevant, you know. Yeah, I wonder how, I mean, you may or may not know more about this, but I wonder how they do, like, their collection policies or their selection at these volunteer libraries, because... Who knows? Yeah, it's just no consistency, right? Just vibes.

Just vibes. Well, who knows? I mean, you see, the thing is that some of them have support from the local library service. So some of them have a librarian that comes in once a day and does stuff like that. Other ones don't, don't have any support. There are a few hundred of the 700 who are totally independent. and have no financial or professional support from the library service. So what they do with their collections, I do not know.

I have got no idea. A lot of them rely on donations. So, I mean, that's another big worry. So do they censor their collections? Do, you know, if you had a religious group who were running a library, would they have books on certain subjects that they didn't agree with? God, I mean, it's a minefield. I mean, who knows what they do?

You know, it's one of the big concerns, you know. The whole equalities thing as well, you know. Who's keeping an eye on not just the stock, but who, within the communities that these so-called libraries are in, who feels excluded, who is being excluded, who doesn't feel welcome, who for different reasons. That's a big worry. Yeah, I imagine a lot of the collection in places

is just done by app, sort of the whole thing with Hoopla the other day, there's like neo-Nazi books and Blah. I'm like, I'm not surprised at all that that happens because, like, you buy bundles of books, and it probably looks a lot like the collection development at the first library I worked at, where there wasn't really a collection development person. We didn't really buy books except e-books, so we're just like, whatever's in the bundle. That's what we got.

Yeah, I mean, I'll be the first to admit that a lot of public libraries now don't have kind of collection development teams, stock teams. Stock librarians, a lot of them just rely on supplier selection and get the top 100 and top 10, you know. So, yeah, I mean, public libraries are guilty of that as well. But, you know, at least at the branches, there are paid and trained kind of staff who can look out for things like that and who can pull things off the shelf or put things on the shelf or include things that aren't included and talk to the community

about how they would like to be represented and try and make things better to make things more inclusive and to make people more, to make the place more welcoming, you know. Is there any sort of movement to like keep track or like study how any of these like volunteer libraries are doing throughout the future?

Because it's still a fairly recent thing. They're right, this kind of changeover. So you just don't really know how any of them are turning out, how long they'll run, you know, what their policies are. Is there any sort of like maybe if we keep track of this for the next five years, we can say, well, look, these volunteer libraries aren't doing all of these services. Is the, what is it, the efficient and... Oh, yeah. Or is that just too much work for library activists? Yeah, it's too much work for library activists.

There have been studies done by library academics in the UK. There's also been kind of case studies done by the kind of developmental body for libraries, the Arts Council in the UK. by the government department who has the remit for libraries the DCMS have done case studies but how much you can trust those case studies because they're done by

organizations that have got a vested interest in the ideology and the kind of rolling out this model so yeah I mean a lot of the case studies kind of look at our wonderful volunteers, what would we do without them? If we didn't have them, the library would be closed, aren't they doing a wonderful job?

You know, some of the academic studies have been a lot more helpful. But yeah, it's very hit and miss. It's very hard to know. There's so many of them popping up. It would take a team of people, you know, kind of a full-time job just to keep a an eye on all of them and what they're doing. And also the independent ones don't have to be kind of transparent about what they're doing. You know, they don't have to answer questions if they don't want to.

So, yeah, it's difficult. I don't think there's a complete picture of what's going on. We know the numbers. We've got a good idea about the numbers. The actual what they're getting up to and how they're doing it is a completely different kind of completely different matter. Yeah, and one of the, I think it was the article that was linked about the LSN group, like they're using taxpayer funds, but they don't have the response, you know,

they don't have the obligation to be transparent if they were actually a public entity as opposed to private privatization. Yeah, and that's another one of the big things is that it's a kind of a, an erosion of transparency and local democracy really. Companies like LSNS, companies like GLL, don't have to answer freedom of information requests. They can cite commercial sensitivity, and they can get round it that way.

So yeah, the whole thing about transparency is a big concern. Yeah, I'm sorry if everyone sounds such a downer, but I've been doing this kind of every day, kind of 24-7 for the last 12 years. And it's just like, I mean, it kind of makes me despair the situation in the UK sometimes, you know. Sometimes reality is a downer. And also, I'm yawning because my afternoon meds make me really sleep. Oh, no, sure. It's not you, I promise. I'm on Gabapin.

I wouldn't be the first time. But, yeah, I mean, I'm often accused by the library leadership and the professional organisation in the UK of not, you know, of not kind of spinning a positive narrative. But I'm a trade unionist. I'm an activist. I'm a campaigner. I work in a public library every day.

I see the shit that goes down. and really as a campaigner and activist to me it's it's about being truthful not trying to spin some rosy-eyed kind of view isn't everything wonderful and aren't we all doing a wonderful job you know so you can't solve problems until you know what they are well exactly and also the public

might not even know what's going on or if they're noticing, like, oh, maybe the services are declining, they might not know why or that it could be fixed. Maybe they just think that's how it's supposed to be. And so until you, like, wake people up with, like, a harsh truth about how bad things are, then you really can't get any solidarity with them or get solidarity from them, rather. This is a big thing on, like, academic campuses right now with, like, professors striking of,

like, we have to get students supporting us because they actually don't know why what's going on as bad or what our conditions are or anything. So sometimes you just have to be a downer. It's important to be truthful with people. We get people coming into the library saying, you know, I had someone coming a few weeks ago. Where's your housing law section? I mean, I nearly fell off my stool, you know, spat my tea over the thing. Where's our housing law section? I said, you know, libraries have been cut for 12 years. We haven't got a law section. You know, we basically haven't. I mean, we've got some self-help guides.

But the reference library got cut, the law, collection got cut, you know, everything. And it's like saying to people, you ain't going to get that in a public library. We've had 12 years of cuts. And a lot of managers get very, very nervous when you're that honest with people. And, you know, we're told sometimes, oh, you know, no, no, you can't say that to people. What? You must be joking, you know. This is the community.

This is the public. You've got to be honest with them. It's no use to bullshit in them. You know, it's just not a good way of, not a good way of dealing with the situation, you know. Yeah, I think one thing I did with my supervisor was put a list of things that we can't do until we hire more people. And I was like, here, you can use this to show your boss. to see if we can get some more. But yeah, I mean, it's a good strategy to do with the public too.

I was just curious. I know we should be wrapping up soon, but I'm just curious, do I have library boards in the UK, like boards that oversee, that are like community run? No. Good. No.

You don't want them. The mutuals do. So the mutualized services do. They have boards who can oversee. see the service. Normal council-run public libraries don't. What they have is councillors. So local councillors who are elected onto the council committees.

So they're the ones who have got the kind of say in power over the libraries. And you've obviously got the head of library services. Some of them are not even called that anymore. some of them are I don't know I don't know what they're called some of them are kind of leisure managers and not even called

heads of libraries anymore there was a time when the borough librarian or the head librarian was kind of respected you know but not anymore it's kind of libraries are kind of some library services in the UK are stuck in with cemeteries

you know it's kind of and this is another thing how libraries are kind of positioned within local authorities and councils in the UK is crazy you know some of them are in with education some of them are in with leisure some of them are in with parks some of them are in with cemeteries some of them it just shows you how kind of low a profile public libraries have in the UK and one of the reasons for that is that we don't really have a proper national strategy we don't really have a proper national publicity campaign there isn't even a national website for libraries in the UK and in a in a England anyway. Scotland, Wales and Ireland are different, and Northern Ireland are different in England. We don't have any library standards. Nope, you said it, it's Ireland now.

Yeah, well, no backcies. Well, that's another argument. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'd like it to be a United Ireland, but there we go. Showing my Republican roots there. Well, when the queen comes out of her chrysalis, if y'all aren't actually doing a weekend dip at Bernie's thing with her, then like, if something could happen. Oh, God, we've got this whole golden jubilee for the queen thing. Don't get me started, please.

Geez, I'm going to go up to the highlands and hide in a cave somewhere, you know. I'm just hoping Scotland gets independence so that I can get a passport. horton bugger off up there, you know. This is just going to be sickening for the next few months, you know. And the latest thing is that they're going to spend 12 million pounds and give every child

a book about the queen. Oh, for fuck's sake. Yeah. They can't fund the libraries, but they'll give everyone a book of like the parasite in chief in her like idiot hat. A lot of kids go to school hungry. And, you know, that would fund millions of free school meals, but they want to give each kid a book about the Queen's Golden Jubilee.

Propaganda is more important. You know, I tell you one book I'll be weeding if it comes into my library. How much is like, because I know, I don't fully understand how, like, the queen, but there's also voting and stuff happens. How much does, like, do local elections or anything, like, affect, like, how libraries get funded and whatnot in the UK? Because that's something I'm always in, like, very radical leftist circles here. You get a lot of people who don't vote, and I, you know, I'm never going to shame someone for, like, not voting. But one thing I do try to say is, like, if you vote for one thing, like, try to look at CLA, like,

what local things you could vote on would affect libraries. Because often, like, you know, if you've got library boards or something, like they just get overrun with, like, right-wing, conservative, like, angry moms and stuff. Otherwise. No, I mean, the only thing you're really voting for is the color of the party. So, I mean, you're either voting for Labor counselors or Tory counselors or Lib Dem counselors. Now, Labour is supposed to be in support of public services and libraries, but it doesn't work out that way. There's a lot of labour.

There's not like individual bills or anything you would put on. Gotcha. No, no. There's the overriding act, really. And then local councils have their own library bylaws. But the library bylaws are basically the same for each council. It's a bit like you're not allowed to put your wet socks on the library radio. or that kind of stuff, you know, or, you know, you can't, you know, I don't know, you can't bring in fried chicken or something, you know, those kind of bylaws, you know what I mean, but so.

Yeah, so it's basically, you're voting for the party, really. And as I said, Labor is supposed to be in support public libraries, but a lot of Labor councils have been just as bad as the conservatives and cutting and closing them. So, I don't really know what you're voting for anymore, to be quite honest with you, you know. Yeah. I can't wait until you do austerity to the police and then have volunteer police,

because what I know about British people is they would love to do that shit for free. Oh, some of them do. We have community police officers. I love that, like, a bit of Fry and Lori bit about the privatized police, where it's like my car got stolen. It's like, well, if you buy this membership, we'll find it this quickly. Totally normal island.

Oh, yeah, you have volunteer community police officers. That's outstanding. Well, I guess we have that too, but they usually just shoot their other cops, so they're not really a danger to normal people. Yeah, well, thank God. Thank God they haven't got guns. At the restaurant I used to work at, there was the cops, the community, community

oh god what was it community like observation patrol or something like that that would give out parking tickets it was just the most ridiculous thing like seriously and parked in front of my place of work you're giving me a ticket yes okay I hope you feel good

like about that big man like yeah I mean years ago before I got involved in kind of campaigning in the US the only things I ever heard about U.S. public libraries was being shocked

that people could take guns into libraries in some states. I know it's not all states. And the other thing that used to come up all the time was fleas in public libraries or bedbugs. Bed bugs. Bed bugs.

That's it. Yeah. Bed bugs. I didn't know about this. I live here. I have to admit this. They were the only two things I ever used to hear before I got involved in kind of, you know, campaigning and stuff, you know.

But taking guns into libraries, I mean, what the hell is that about? You know, I mean, if I saw someone come into a library with a gun, I'd be pressing the panic buttons and locking myself and all my colleagues in the workroom, you know, I mean. It would be a good bit to do that in the US. too. I just hit the panic button and run into the office. Yeah.

Madness. Yeah. So we try to end on an action-oriented question, and since you're an activist, this might be an easy one for you. But what should people be doing to support your work? Well, apart from using libraries,

they should be talking to library workers and kind of making partnerships and links with their local library service. I would say join a friend's group, but that's a bit problematic sometimes. But yeah, link into local campaign groups, unions, that kind of thing. Don't just wait for the cuts to happen, but actually start talking to public library workers and start becoming kind of active. in your community, really.

I want to see like Pits and Perverts concert, but like for libraries, that's what I want to see. Yeah, definitely. Get Bronsky beat back. Definitely, yeah, that would be great. Yeah, that would be great. Can we make Blobby a

library icon? I think that would really gain some meme power for libraries in the UK. Yeah, didn't. Who was it? Was it SEIU one time had a big dinosaur or something, didn't they? Was it the privatization beast or something like that? I remember seeing that at their anti-privatization demos or picket lines or something.

Something like that, yeah, or blobby or whatever. Just no famous authors or anything talking about how they love libraries. Yeah, yeah. Lobby will never be cancelled. I need to be careful because I know a lot of authors in the UK and they've been very supportive towards libraries, but if I have to hear another kind of anecdote, kind of laden story about, you know, safe havens or something,

you know, I'll scream, you know. And are like, by you being on this podcast, are we like libel, or we like, will, like, the UK libel laws, like, apply to us right now? Like, am I going to get in trouble? for like calling the Queen of Parasay or technically we're published in the US. Okay.

Yeah, you won't get locked in the Tower of London. Don't worry. Because I know they're like really strict about that over there like more so than here. It's a place of publication because I know this because I listen to some UK podcasts and whenever they have Americans on, the Americans are like, oh, I can say that

for you and they're like, no, you can't. It's where it's published. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. So, all right. Thanks so much, Alan, for coming on. I really appreciate it. And thanks very much for inviting me.

I've really enjoyed it. Thanks. Good night.