Libraries, Bookshops and Booksellers

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Bird for the opportunity to speak in this debate. When I was a teenager and in my 20s when I could not afford to buy books, the local library—a very well-stocked library—was in many ways my window on the world, a chance to learn about other cultures. My own passion was for books on art. This was a time, too, when bookshops seemed to be thinner on the ground than even today, when we have had so many recent closures.

Today, with the ability to buy books online from Amazon, AbeBooks—which is owned by Amazon—and other retailers, there is at least in theory a greater potential for people to access books. Yet you can walk into some homes today—middle-class homes—and there is not a single book in sight. It would seem that so many people got rid of books in favour of the internet and, perhaps, e-books. This shift in culture against books will have of course affected the poorest among us, who do not have access to the internet.

There are fundamental questions about how important books and libraries are in 2016. There are questions about how literate you can be using only, or mainly, the internet and how much we ought to redefine what literacy means in the digital age. Nevertheless, the libraries expert, Sue Charteris, in a University of Liverpool newsletter in 2012, pointed to the UNESCO report that indicated that reading for pleasure is the single best indicator of social mobility, with the UK currently rated 47th out of 65 nations in this regard. Within this context, she made the observation that: “Those that need”—a library service—

“most are the ones that don’t know they need it”.

I would say that they are the ones who have not discovered reading for pleasure, which is not necessarily something that a school will teach you, at least not by itself. I echo the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, about disappearing school libraries.

It is useful to put that UNESCO finding next to this year’s widely reported OECD study on basic skills, which found that, out of 23 countries of the developed world, England has the lowest of all literacy rates for 16 to 19 year-olds. I thought that it might be interesting to compile a few statistics of my own on libraries, based on the countries in the OECD study. Finland, which is close to the top of the literacy table, has one library per 6,900 people. Germany, whose literacy levels are significantly higher than ours but lower than Finland’s, has one library per 7,900 people. The UK, at the bottom of the table, has one library per 17,000 people. Korea has been building hundreds of libraries in the last few years and is at the top of the table. Of course, these are rough stats that do not tell the whole story; nevertheless, we are going in entirely the opposite direction to Korea. We are rapidly closing libraries, which in itself will send out a strong signal to younger people about the value that society now places on libraries and, therefore, books in whatever context. And this is despite the clear love that much of the British public have for libraries and the protests about closures that we hear about, almost on a daily basis.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy found that the number of people borrowing books in the UK halved from 1997 to 2014. To a certain extent, the internet has of course been a factor—something that has affected many countries. Yet, it is how different countries have reacted to this that makes the difference. In Germany, the reaction has been to increase opening hours, including trial opening on Sundays; to make libraries appealing not just to small children but to young people generally; and to ensure that libraries lend e-books. This has all led in the past two years to an increase in the use of its libraries. In Germany, e-books represent only 6% of book sales, so the country is already trying to cover all bases. But such strategies of course require an investment which our Government seem currently unwilling to make. It should be added that, with around 80% of sales, the physical book is still the dominant culture within the UK and, recently, sales have gone up.

In the wider society, books need to appeal to everyone, not just the middle classes. Literacy will improve only if reading becomes second nature—libraries ought then to have a huge part to play. At present, however, for too many young people, libraries are desperately uncool, not just because of the dominance of the internet but because there is no investment, they are being closed and books are being sold off. It is a downward spiral and, the more libraries we lose, the more our literacy problem is going to get worse because schooling does not exist in a vacuum. Libraries are part of the wider social context. A belief in libraries is a belief in books. I emphasise that by libraries I mean public libraries, not volunteer libraries, because it has to be a belief recognised by society at large.

As many other noble Lords have pointed out, the latest statistics on closures are, of course, appalling. The BBC’s survey in March discovered that about 8,000 jobs have disappeared and some 340 libraries closed in the last six years, with over 100 more expected this year. I have no doubt that the statutory requirement for libraries as set out in the 1964 Act has been breached in some—perhaps many—local authorities. Paul Maynard MP seems to thinks so about library services in Lancashire. But the fact is that libraries, like local museums and cultural services generally, are in the front line of cuts that affect all public services and get worse every year. I certainly do not blame most local authorities for what is the fault of central government. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bird, that we absolutely need to get rid of austerity. But if we did that, we would also no doubt plough back funding into not just libraries but all else which alleviates poverty such as proper welfare and proper social care, because in the end, of course, illiteracy is caused by poverty. The closure of libraries is itself a form of poverty: it is the poverty of access to culture, literacy and reading for pleasure.

My final point about libraries particularly concerns living authors. I thank the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society for the briefing on this. Without authors there would be no readers and we would not have libraries full stop. Volunteer libraries are part of the great British spirit but I believe very strongly that they should not be a substitute for properly funded public libraries. Nevertheless, book counts towards PLR remuneration could easily be made at these libraries, otherwise authors will lose out, and the Public Lending Right Act 1979 can be amended to include them. PLR should also be extended to remote e-book lending. Do the Government have plans to introduce this change into the upcoming Digital Economy Bill?