?? Promoting reading to adults in UK public libraries.

Promoting reading to adults in UK public libraries by Margaret Kinnell and Jennifer Shepherd. British Library Research and Innovation Report 72 London Taylor Graham Publishing 1998 126p ISBN 1366-8218

In his plenary address at the October 1998 Alia conference in Adelaide, broadcaster, commentator and film maker, Phillip Adams expressed his gratitude to the public librarian who led him, as a nine year old, from

   ... the kid's library to the grown ups' library ... and not only did she
   invite me some years prematurely into this other world but she involved me
   in a rite of initiation. She chose a book for me and boy, was she
   prescient.

Steinbeck's The grapes of wrath awoke Adams to issues like politics, human rights and the injustices of capitalism, for which he declared

   Thank you, thank you, librarian. I do not know your name and I cannot
   remember your face. But I remember your act of kindness, of thoughtfulness,
   of transformation

That, in a personalised nutshell, is the very issue emphasised by Promoting reading to adults in UK public libraries, an issue which will bounce right off the micro chipped backs of those technolusts in the library profession who misguidedly, equate librarianship with information management.

As is noted in the book's review of public library technology since the 1850s, things have passed beyond the incessant focus on technology `Almost full circle to a new interest in reading and reading promotion which has lain dormant for years'.

Public libraries worldwide are going through something of a renaissance but, not surprisingly, the state of British public libraries under Thatcher and Major is reflected in their neglect of reading promotion for adult users. From a 1996/97 survey, in only 30 per cent of library authorities was it possible to identify a member of the management team with overall responsibility for reading promotion. My recent editorial work on the fifth edition of the Directory of Australian public libraries (Adelaide, Auslib Press 1999) suggests that Australian public libraries have even less than the UK percentage. Similarly, I suspect that in Australia, as in the UK, insufficient attention has been paid to selecting staff with knowledge or interest in books and reading, both professional and paraprofessional. In the UK this deficiency fails to correlate with the fact that 93 per cent of the 83 per cent of UK library authorities responding to the survey stated that reading promotion was `essential, very important, or important'. In Australia it fails to correlate with the emphasis on reading in the mission statements of public libraries. The reality does not match the rhetoric, for several reasons, the primary of which the report identifies as the radical restructuring of local government in England and Wales, and a preoccupation with managerialism and technology--both factors paralleled in Australia, in some States more than others. Another factor, the report concludes, is that the emphasis in library school curricula on information management is largely responsible for the dilution of stock management and book knowledge and that

   The profession is increasingly divergent and nonpublic library sectors
   probably have less interest in the content of materials and are more
   concerned with information retrieval ...

As one of the interviewees for the study suggested `librarians can no longer be regarded as interchangeable between sectors'.

In 1990 the Australian Council published Hans Guldberg's Books--who reads them? a study of borrowing and buying in Australia. This was never followed up by a study of how reading is promoted in Australian public libraries, but Promoting reading is a catalyst, and provides a methodology, for this study to now occur. The survey questionnaire is included as an appendix and would require little adjustment for a similar survey of the 560 public library services in Australia.

However, from where such research on promoting reading should emanate is unresolved. Australia lacks the British Library Research and Innovation funding. It also lacks a library school with a solid record of public library research. The State Libraries, individually or collectively, have not done much, although of late the State Library of Queensland has commendably been active in funding and reporting on Queensland based projects of some national interest. And the Australian Cultural Ministers Council, after its flurry of funding for Navigating and 20/20 vision seems to have vacated the field of public library research. Promoting reading was led by Margaret Kinnell, Head of the Library School at Loughborough University. She has a special interest in public libraries. Unfortunately, sans John Levett at Monash, no Australian library school now has leadership with any record of enthusiasm for public libraries. This is despite the myriad needs, opportunities and funding possibilities for research, needs well identified in a broad ranging article on `Public library research' in the UK Public library journal 13(4) 1998 p49-55 which concludes

   Given that the government is beginning to accept to ascertain that the
   public library service can contribute to social policy objectives it is
   evident that, at present, the research capacity within the public library
   sector remains underdeveloped and does not extend to addressing the social
   and economic impact of the service, for example

The next Australian federal government will surely follow the Blair government's lead. There is a prospective national research niche of substance for some enterprising Australian library school to now be moving to occupy.

Promoting reading provides considerable food for thought for Australian library educators and for State and public libraries. Its list of 24 recommendations are perhaps too extended but most would be relevant in Australia, and the 78 item bibliography confirms the uniqueness of this excellent piece of applied research. That bibliography has just one Australian reference, a 1983 paper by Willard and Teece `The browser and the library' Public libraries quarterly 1983 p55-63 which identified that Sydney public library users `found libraries too busy supplying information to give help in finding interesting reading'. And that was in the early 1980s.

Promoting reading is of value for its methodology, its insights, its conclusions and for the inspiration that such research provides. The publication itself is workmanlike, is well proofed (the only typo appears to be `Severn Oaks' rather than `Seven Oaks', and the fact that it has no index is not unduly troublesome. So, full marks to the British Library for supporting yet another well executed and worthwhile piece of research.