A Survey of Library Services to Schools and Children in the UK, 1996‐97

Citation

Astbury, R.G. (1998), "A Survey of Library Services to Schools and Children in the UK, 1996‐97", Library Management, Vol. 19 No. 5, pp. 341-341. https://doi.org/10.1108/lm.1998.19.5.341.1

This is the eighth LISU annual report based on respondent‐completed questionnaires, covering local authority public library services to children and supporting Schools Library Services for primary and secondary schools. It represents very good value for money for 222 pages of statistics covering the period 1 April 1996 to 31 March 1997, including 27 tables and 17 figures/graphs, and introductory/ explanatory texts for the four main sections (Materials Funds, Summary of services 1991‐92 to 1996‐97; Staffing; Public Library Services to Children; Schools Library Services) and commentaries on many of the sub‐sections, with six appendices on population figures on which the per capita calculations are based in the report, staffing structures, the questionnaires (public libraries, schools library services), non‐respondents, and local government reorganisation.

A particularly useful feature of the report is that (with additions for new developments annually) it retains essentially the same scope, format and mode of presentation in each edition, enabling year‐on‐year comparisons to be made with regard to the progress or the decline experienced in various aspects of provision of materials, staffing and services for children. This year’s volume (Section II) makes reference to the first Library Association/Sheffield Hallam University research report (Survey of Secondary School Libraries, 1997) which provides figures for librarians in schools for comparison with the LISU report figures, and in Section III it contains some of the data from the Place for Children project based at the University of Wales Aberystwyth, and funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre ‐ a study of the qualitative impact of public library provision on children’s reading ‐ which will not be published until later in 1998.

The survey includes information on the first year of operation of the reorganised unitary authorities in Wales, Scotland and in some parts of England, where another 13 authorities were created on 1 April 1997, and therefore too late to be included in this survey. The importance of continuing to monitor developments in these authorities is highlighted by the fact that to date the trend in the new English authorities at least would appear to indicate poorer provision by comparison with the former counties. Many public library authorities are failing to meet the LISC standard of materials provision laid down in the 1995 Investing in Children Report, especially if Schools Library Service provision is not taken into account, only 13.6 per cent 1996‐97, compared to 11.2 per cent in 1995‐96. While the survey shows an increase in the estimated number of FTE library posts in schools of 5 per cent in 1996‐97 over 1995‐96 which continues the upward trend in recent years, the downward trend in the number of FTE chartered librarian posts in schools in England and Wales over the past decade also continues.

This is an authoritative, accurate and indispensable statistical resource which will even enhance its usefulness if, as indicated in the introduction, it is intended that in the 1997‐98 edition its scope will be increased in, for example, the section on Schools Library Services , to cover new topics such as issues, charging and buy‐back trends.