UK Culture Secretary: Why Not Try Library Home Delivery?

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 3/10/2008

• Innovations needed to halt drop in lending
• Better hours and more outreach
• Would a Loyalty Card help?

Margaret Hodge, the Culture Secretary of the United Kingdom, on Thursday issued a tough challenge to the Association of London Chief Librarians, asserting that new programs like web-based lending with home delivery and libraries in shopping centers and train stations are necessary to revive public interest. Though overall library spending is up 17% over the last ten years, the number of books borrowed is down by 34%, she said: “I know you’ll plead resources, but I don’t think that’s the real reason for the decline. In my view the offer from libraries needs to be different.”

Her first recommendations were hardly surprising. She suggested that the librarians modernize their buildings and make their services “more enticing and more customer-focused,” with input from locals. She urged more outreach to local communities and better marketing of library benefits like free access, great free resources, and helpful staff. Then she challenged her audience to push the envelope by emphasizing evening and weekend hours, combinations with “other customer-focused public services,” cafes in libraries, and outreach to young men via comics, manga, and more. She even suggested “a Loyalty Card that gives users a one-day travelcard or a pair of cinema tickets for every ten visits” and even a tie-in with online bookseller Amazon.com, so people could send books they liked to friends.

While most major cities in North America have a single library system, London does not, and Hodge advised a switch to a single London library card that would allow borrows and returns anywhere. She also suggested efficiencies via sharing of IT systems among the 33 boroughs. It is unclear how much new funding would be required to institute the changes Hodge proposed, but she’s looking for results. “My challenge,” she concluded, “is to take the best of what you do and give it a national platform.”