Corporate report

Twenty-sixth meeting of the Libraries Taskforce

Published 4 March 2020

Date: Wednesday 11 December 2019, 13:00 to 16:00

Location: The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB

Attendees:

• Professor Steven Broomhead - Chair of Libraries Taskforce and Chief Executive, Warrington Borough Council
• Sheila Bennett - Head of Libraries Strategy & Delivery, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
• Helen Blake - Senior Manager, Policy and Scrutiny, Cumbria County Council
• Dr Neil Churchill - Director, Participation and Experience, NHS England
• Mark Freeman - Stockton Borough Council, and President, Libraries Connected (LC)
• Jenny Harland - Libraries Project Lead, DCMS
• Isobel Hunter - Chief Executive, LC
• Ian Leete - Senior Adviser, Culture, Tourism and Sport Board, Local Government Association (LGA)
• Paul Martin - Chief Executive, London Boroughs of Richmond upon Thames and Wandsworth
• Karen Napier - Chief Executive, The Reading Agency
• Peter Rippon - Executive Editor, Archive, BBC
• Louise Smith - Deputy Director Arts, Libraries and Digital Culture, DCMS
• Iain Varah - Chief Executive, Vision Redbridge Culture and Leisure, and member of Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association
• Liz White - Head of Strategy Development, British Library (BL)
• Sue Williamson - Director, Libraries, Arts Council England (ACE)
• Jenna Birley - Governance and Business Support Officer, Libraries Taskforce, ACE (minutes)
• Sean Kelly - Regional Development Officer, Libraries Taskforce, ACE
• Sophie Lancaster - Senior Manager, Libraries Taskforce, ACE
• Leah Mason - Business Administrator Apprentice, Libraries Taskforce, ACE

Apologies

• Fiona Davidson - Communications Manager, Libraries Taskforce, ACE
• Katherine Fairclough - Chief Executive, Cumbria County Council
• Diana Gerald - Chief Executive, BookTrust
• Roly Keating - Chief Executive, British Library
• Clare Perkins - Director of the Knowledge and Intelligence Team, Public Health England (PHE)
• Nick Poole - Chief Executive, CILIP, The UK library and information association

Presenters

• Annie Crombie - Director, Programmes, BookTrust
• Claire Goodall - Head of Programme Design, BookTrust

1. Welcome and introductions

Professor Steven Broomhead welcomed everyone to the meeting and apologies were noted.

Members welcomed Karen Napier to the meeting in her capacity as the new Chief Executive of the Reading Agency and Louise Smith in her capacity of Deputy Director Arts, Libraries and Digital Culture at DCMS.

2. Draft closure report

The Taskforce had reviewed a draft outline of the closure report in advance of the meeting and were invited to propose changes and further inclusions.

Members wished to highlight the main impacts and outcomes of the Taskforce’s work, but also wanted to point to some of the challenges of implementing it.

It was suggested that some form of consultation with previous members, chairs and the sector be included in the final version.

The Taskforce noted the draft closure report, and the chair asked for all final comments to be sent to Sophie Lancaster by the end of January 2020.

3. Draft exit strategy

The Taskforce discussed the exit strategy to be implemented after the cessation of the group from March 2020.

Members were asked to note that the aim of the document is to look to the future and that it includes projects from the current Taskforce action plan that are not started or will not be complete by March 2020. This work will carry forward into the next financial year.

The Taskforce was asked if it supported the proposal so far including the establishment of a sector lead body (core group) post March 2020.

Members noted the draft exit strategy and accepted the proposals thus far.

4. Research

Sophie Lancaster introduced this item and asked the Taskforce to decide on a suitable direction for further research based on desk work undertaken by the ACE Taskforce team. The purpose of this research would be to show the tangible, positive impact libraries services have on either one of 3 areas:

• literacy and reader development
• employability (including digital skills)
• health and wellbeing

Members were asked to agree on one strand to take forward initially, with the potential to research the others at a later date. Once this was decided, ACE’s research team would draft a detailed invitation to tender.

The Taskforce agreed to proceed with further research into libraries’ impact on employability and digital skills.

5. Communications update

Sophie Lancaster provided a communications update on behalf of Fiona Davidson.

The Taskforce noted the update.

6. Projects update

The Taskforce received and noted updates on the following areas of work being undertaken by members and partners.

Open data

One of the main actions following the open data workshop at DCMS in August 2019 was to create technical schema for capturing library data starting with the existing draft schema as well as addressing comments captured in the meeting.

Since August 2019, colleagues from Libraries Hacked, Plymouth and Newcastle libraries had developed a number of technical schemas to support important datasets - events, libraries, loans, membership, visits and stock.

On 28 November, DCMS hosted a workshop, led by this team of developers, to:

• introduce the proposed schema in its current state, discuss next steps and how attendees can contribute as early testers
• get people creating / updating the datasets for their library service

Following the workshop, DCMS will be asking those attendees, plus others who were unable to make the session, to test the schemas rigorously over the next month, providing feedback to help further refinements.

After this has been completed and feedback incorporated, DCMS and the sector leads will take forward wider communications, working with others to start socialising the message across the sector.

Public Lending Right (PLR)

In February 2019, the PLR distributed £6 million to 22,314 authors, bringing the total awarded to authors to over £150 million since the first payment in 1979. Figures published in August 2019 showed that 7 children’s authors feature in the top 10 most borrowed authors across the UK.

The British Library hosted the 13th International PLR Conference at St Pancras in September 2019. Damian Collins, MP, Chair of the DCMS Select Committee welcomed delegates and thanked the British Library for its support for authors in many different ways. There were 97 delegates including representatives of PLR schemes from around the world together with UK PLR’s stakeholders from across the library and author communities.

In October 2019 the British Library agreed the PLR Rate Per Loan for PLR Year 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2019 with DCMS. The consultation on the PLR Rate Per Loan was published on GOV.UK in November 2019, with a view to laying a Statutory Instrument in January 2020 to implement the proposal.

The original PLR site location in Stockton-upon-Tees has closed, as the service is now managed entirely from the BL northern site located in Boston Spa in West Yorkshire (near Leeds).

Single Digital Presence

The Single Digital Presence project has recently begun working with Projects by IF, technical consultants with a history of excellence in improving digital public services and pioneering the ethical use of data. Together with the consultants, the BL is working on scoping an initial, exploratory, technical architecture, which it will present as paper prototypes by April 2020. Alongside this, the BL is carrying out a piece of work on potential governance. It will present a vision for a long-term, sustainable governance structure to important stakeholders in a roundtable scheduled for late February 2020.

Living Knowledge Network (LKN)

The LKN successfully moved out of pilot stage in April 2019, with 22 major public libraries across the UK, plus the National Library of Scotland and the National Library of Wales. A further 3 members have joined since then, with more in the pipeline for future years. Highlights this year include the simultaneous launch of the British Library’s Making your Mark exhibition in more than 20 public libraries, live screenings from the Hay Festival and the innovative Collections in Verse project with Poet In the City, working with poets and communities across Leeds.

 Business and IP Centre (BIPC) Network

Figures released in July 2019 showed that the BIPC network helped to create 12,288 new businesses and 7,843 additional jobs between January 2016 and December 2018, representing a Return of Investment of £6.95 for every £1 of public money spent. Of the new businesses created, 55% were women-led, and 31% were led by people from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background (over 6 times the national average). The BIPC service has been cited as a best practice in supporting female entrepreneurs in both the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship, and the Women and Enterprise APPG report The Future of Female Entrepreneurship.

In May 2019, The British Library announced that free training and support for entrepreneurs would be offered via a hub and spoke service across 60 public libraries in London. This is a 3 year pilot funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Arts Council England and JP Morgan. New Business & IP Centres have also now begun development in Worcester (the Hive) and Brighton and Hove libraries, with services expected to launch in 2020.

In October, during Libraries Week 2019, over 40 libraries took part in the British Library Business & IP Centre Network annual Start-up Day campaign, delivering over 180 activities and attracting over 1,500 individuals to take part across the UK on a single day.

Universal Offers

The Universal Offers review has been completed and LC have published a comprehensive handbook and resources for team training.

Leads for the 4 Universal Offers have been appointed, and planning is underway for activity in the next financial year. Planning will also address how LC can collate national, regional and local data to work as important performance indicators to show the impacts of Universal Offer work.

Accreditation/library standards

LC are now delivering a 2 year programme of consultation on and design of an accreditation scheme for public libraries in England.

Following the first Accreditation Board meeting:

• British Library has joined the Board, represented by Liz White
• Local Government Association will join the next Board meeting as observer, and may in future take up a full seat on the Board
• Museums, Archives and Libraries Division (MALD) Wales will join the Board as an observer, represented by Mary Ellis - LC hope this will be mutually beneficial, as there is much to learn from the Welsh experience, and in turn hope this group’s development may inform thinking for the ongoing development of the Welsh Library Standards
• LC have published the ITT for the contractors to deliver the programme of work, and hope to have this organisation in place by Christmas so the work can begin in the new year

Reader development

Novels that Shaped our World launched on 8 November 2019 at the British Library.

LC will deliver a year-long festival to encourage more people to read, read more widely and to enjoy reading. This is supported by a grant of £253,000 from ACE, and a further contribution of £100,000 from the BBC. With other in-kind contributions the total resources will be over £400,000. Funding will support activity in 68 library services and there will be digital and other resources available for all libraries and Reading Agency reading groups.

The project is a major partnership between LC and the BBC, and other partners include the British Library, The Reading Agency, CILIP and the Publishers’ Association.

Regional Support Offer

LC continue to work with Activist on Phase 2 of this project, which is progressing well.

LC is piloting two parts of support programme:

• workstream 1 - Network Support (supporting development plans for small number of Libraries Connected regional networks).
• workstream 2 - Expert Bank (commissioning 3-4 demonstrator projects from individual or groups of library services)

Working with Activist with active involvement of ACE through Sean Kelly’s (Regional Support Officer, ACE) secondment and Sophie Lancaster (Senior Manager, LTF, ACE), the pilot is aiming to see whether these workstreams are useful before going to funders for long-term support.

LC will be involving members and partners in designing the pilots:

• Libraries Connected Advisory Committee already contributed following its meeting in September 2019
• Andrew Holden from Activist has interviewed regional network leads to identify development needs and opportunities and LC will now take this forward with in-depth work with a number of regions
• LC are now surveying library leaders to inform expert bank design

Public Libraries Skills Strategy (PLSS)

The PLSS is delivered jointly by LC and CILIP, and is overseen by a Board chaired by LC. The focus this year is on leadership development, apprenticeships and ethics.

Leading Libraries

LC has secured funding from ACE to deliver a 2 year leadership development programme for 15 library services in England. LC is part of a flagship ACE innovation programme called Transforming Leadership, which has funded 8 leadership programmes.

Leading Libraries was launched on 4 November 2019 with a workshop attended by about 45 Heads of Service. The workshop looked at models of leadership and supported attendees to develop expressions of interest for their service.

LC are recruiting for the contractors to deliver the programme and hope they will be in place before Christmas.

Heads of Service Network

LC is developing a community of practice exclusively for Heads of Service via the online platform Basecamp. It provides members with opportunities to share experiences and good practice and offers a safe space for members to discuss challenges and seek support from peers. This network is available to all Library Connected Heads of Services in Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

The network launched on Friday 1 November 2019 - the main Head of Service contact for each member library service received an email from Basecamp inviting them to join the group.

Heidi Bellamy, independent creative consultant, will be working with LC initially to get the network off the ground and she will carry out evaluations in March 2020. After that, it is hoped that Heads of Service will be initiating their own discussions and feel able to make use of the network with minimal curation from LC.

LC are also planning the connection between the Heads of Service Network and the Expert Bank, to ensure everyone is making best use of contributions made.

Apprenticeships

Julie Bell from Lancashire is working with CILIP to plan some apprenticeship readiness workshops, to explore the new apprenticeship for LARKIMs (library, archive, records management, knowledge and information managers) which will take place in 2020. The workshops will have a practical focus to explore the use of apprenticeships in public libraries, and the mechanisms and processes involved.

EveryLibrary

CILIP is working with The EveryLibrary Institute to implement a programme of public library advocacy. They are now transitioning into phase 2 for the Libraries Deliver platform. This focuses on 2 connected activities:

• training for public librarians in ‘How Local Government works’ and how to build local support networks
• shifting the editorial tone away from politics/general election and towards human interest stories which illustrate how libraries are changing lives

Working internationally

‘Working Internationally for Libraries’ is a 2 year programme supported by ACE, promoting relevant, accessible and valuable international collaboration for public libraries in England. The project will provide a platform to promote and celebrate successful international projects through:

• parliamentary engagement activities and advocacy
• establishing a Working Internationally for Libraries conference
• establishing a grant programme

The project will run in partnership with the BL, British Council, and LC. In its first phase, the project will focus on English public libraries to develop a programme of activities including grants and travel bursaries, an international conference, and a showcase of successful international projects.

CILIP wants to inspire librarians and support them in their efforts to gain international exposure. It believes that this will not only bring innovation and new practices into libraries, but will also establish librarians as leaders in building cultural relations.

PrivacyAware – data privacy training and badging for public libraries

CILIP is developing a proposal for the Carnegie UK Trust to seek a small additional investment to prepare the PrivacyAware product. The aim remains to provide basic training and checklist resources for public and other librarians on privacy awareness in their services and to award a ‘kite mark’ recognition for organisations that have completed a self-assessment process. This will be launched in April to June 2020.

AI and Machine Learning for librarians

CILIP has been awarded funding by Health Education England to implement a review into AI, Machine Learning, Robotics and Process Automation and their impact on the library and information profession. Its aim is to deliver a set of insights and recommendations to drive future skills development and to provide training materials (online and face-to-face) for library staff during 2020.

Professionalism Review

CILIP is implementing a review of Professionalism and Professional Registration in the Library and Information Sector under the leadership of the British Library’s Liz Jolly. The review will provide evidence in support of a comprehensive overhaul of professional registration, with the aim of opening up access to the profession without undermining the robustness of the sector’s professional skills base. It is also likely to include a refresh of the Professional Knowledge and Skills Base as the profession’s Sector Skills Council. The work will conclude in October to December 2020 with recommendations implemented for 2021.

7. DCMS Libraries team update

The DCMS Libraries team provided an update on its work.

The Taskforce agreed to record its thanks to DCMS Libraries Team for its work to secure funding for libraries through the recently announced Cultural Investment Fund. It was also noted that there would be a further update on this programme in March 2020.

8. BookTrust

BookTrust introduced the redesign of the BookStart baby bag and shared the contents of the bag with the Taskforce. It talked through reasoning for the change and why the new items were more suitable and useful for babies and parents.

BookTrust opened the discussion for comments about the new baby bag.

It was noted that the new BookStart baby bag provided a tactile experience. It was also suggested that this new bag could be incorporated into Rhymetime within libraries. Overall, the feedback for the redesign was positive.

9. Minutes of the previous meeting and matters arising

Members noted the minutes of the previous meeting held on 11 September 2019 at The Curve, Slough, which had been agreed by correspondence.

It was noted that in the discussion of the Library Blueprint document, third sector organisations such as The Reading Agency and Book Trust were omitted from the map of supporting organisations. It was suggested that this could be amended in online versions of the document.

10. Any other business

There was no other business.

11. Date and location of next meeting

Wednesday 18 March 2020, Local Government Association Offices, London.