Birmingham Library - now and when

So it was a shock to hear in May this year that the Central Library would be closing the top three floors to the public from July to allow staff to ‘get ready’ for the move to the new library in the summer of 2013. Not only did this seem a long run-in but it was hard to see what front-line staff would be doing during the time freed from the irksome duty of dealing with the public and keeping the doors open.

On a visit to the Music Library this week I was again shocked to find that it was going to be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Once again, I wondered what on earth the staff released by this drastic measure would be doing with their time between now and 2013. It may be that they will be employed in such means as a local Transport Executive or some such body.

An email to Mr Brian Gambles elicited a classic piece of management jargon and a copy of a report to the Cabinet Member for Leisure Sport and Culture dated 2 November 2011 written by Linda Butler and entitled ‘CENTRAL LIBRARY TRANSITION – PREPARATION FOR THE LIBRARY OF BIRMINGHAM’.

In his email Mr Gambles confirms that staff numbers are down on last year but contends that the new library will require 15 percent fewer staff to provide the same level of service. He then insists that this does not mean that there will be 15 percent fewer staff. This gain in efficiency is set against the new library being 20 percent bigger than the Central Library while offering more services. Gambles will no doubt argue that automated self-service facilities need fewer front-line staff thereby releasing funds for specialist staff to manage archives or operate sophisticated digital technology.

The cabinet report called for a ‘temporary’ reduction in the opening hours for the current library – from 63 hours to 48 hours (9am-8pm to 10am-6pm Monday to Friday and 9am-5pm on Saturdays) from 1^st December 2011, and ‘further restrictions’ on access to parts of the library during the week. The report admits that the opening hours for the Library of Birmingham have yet to be confirmed but are planned to return to the ‘current’ 63 hours per week.

The report also notes that after ‘consultation’ (complaints from library users?) the plan to close floors 4, 5 and 6 completely was amended to a partial closure on Mondays and Tuesdays only. So, it seems, the scale of closure was not necessary perhaps because other parts of the library are to be closed instead.

Birmingham Central Library - artist's impression

Now Brian Gambles and a few senior staff will have been working on high-level plans for the move for several years now, but what can be done by other staff two years before moving day? The answer provided in the Cabinet Report is another piece of gobbledegook. It states:

‘Moving to the new Library of Birmingham is not a simple case of service relocation. It involves a transformation process covering fundamental aspects of service and working culture. This includes a move away from the current separate Service Area model to one where the whole organisation operates as a single unified service as described in the Future Operating Model. This requires a considerable amount of staff involvement in the planning, design, implementation and testing of re-engineered processes and new service delivery methods.’

Whatever this means, it can’t take much staff time. The statement that ‘The proposed restrictions on access to Information Services, the Music Library and Archives Searchroom will release staff time in areas of the greatest pressure on preparation of stock’ is a more convincing explanation. Mr Gambles is clearly taking the opportunity to deploy front-line staff to work on the archives. We know that there are large quantities of material that have never been looked at or catalogued because there were never enough staff to do it, or staff were not sufficiently qualified or could not be taken off the front desk. When I was writing the book on John Madin I asked the Library if I could look at the 600 boxes of papers in the Madin archive that were stored in the basement. I was told this was not possible as they hadn’t yet been examined by the library and there was no prospect of this happening without a grant from the National Lottery to employ an archivist for three years.

The lack of suitable space in the Central Library to house all the archives was often used to justify the building of a new library in which two whole floors – now being clad in gold – are environmentally-controlled. Mr Gambles therefore has no need to cull the existing archives, if that is what he is doing. He would only have to resort to that if he had to ‘make do’ with the existing library.

Central Library Birmingham

Mr Gambles could have kept staff on the front line by moving the archives to the new library as they are – unexamined and un-catalogued. Otherwise he should explain in plain English what work his front line staff will be doing behind the scenes between now and 2013 to justify their removal from the front line.