AUSTRALIA’S GREAT GOOD PLACES: WHY LOCAL AND
OTHER GOVERNMENTS SHOULD INVEST MORE IN YOUR
PUBLIC LIBRARY
Address to a public meeting convened by the Friends of Mt Barker Community Library, South Australia 21
November 2007
Dr Alan Bundy AM President Friends of Libraries Australia
Public libraries, at only 8c per Australian per day, remain greatly underfunded. This is despite the substantial evidence
of their use and valuation by the community of all ages, and their cost effectiveness in meeting a unique range of community needs
and government agendas. Local government has the primary responsibility for public library provision and their quality in most
parts of Australia. It needs to be able to convincingly demonstrate that from its own resources it is funding and supporting public
libraries to the very best of its ability. Beyond that it needs to invest in a much stronger political effort to hold state and the national
governments accountable for their general failure to recognize and fund adequately what public libraries do for the nation. It no
longer suffices for local government to claim that it cannot afford to increase the investment in public libraries, or that rates would
need to increase to improve its libraries. The library ball is largely in its court. It needs to kick it much harder at the state and
national levels, and foster the support in that endeavour of the increasing number of Friends of Libraries groups from within the 60
per cent of people in Australia who use public libraries.
T
he modern public library is truly unique in what it does, and in the return on investment in it, which
research shows is between $4-8 for every dollar invested. Yet at only 8c per person per day
Australian public libraries remain greatly underfunded.
If countries such as Denmark can support their libraries at three times the level of Australia, Australia surely
should be doing much better than it does now.
The reasons for the underfunding of public libraries in Australia include
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there is no national strategic framework, standards or accountability for their development.
there is a lack of knowledge and recognition by decision makers at all three levels of government
about what public libraries do, can do, and should be funded to do.
as uniquely multidimensional agencies, their outcomes relate to the agendas of many state and federal
ministerial portfolios and departments — at the federal level at least seven ministerial portfolios, for
example. Public libraries do not fit readily into any single portfolio, but tend to be questionably placed
in politically and fiscally challenged Arts and Culture portfolios. They consequently lack broad
bureaucratic and political recognition.
the main responsibility for public libraries rests largely with Australia’s weakest level of government,
local government. This has proven to be too often unwilling or unable to fund them well. Local
government, and its associations, has also generally not yet been able to persuade the other two
wealthier levels of Australian government of their partnership and funding responsibilities for the
development of the Australian public library system.
The uniqueness of the modern public library is confirmed by the 160 descriptors applied to it, many more
than any other public agency or service.1 Those descriptors are useful prompts to discussion about the roles
and potential of the modern public library. This discussion is needed as part of the educative process for the
community and its decision makers about how libraries have changed and are changing, and in particular
their importance in building literate, reading, educated, connected and stronger communities. I therefore
congratulate the long established Friends of Mt Barker Community Library on providing this forum for such
a discussion. It is an exemplar for the increasing number of Friends of Libraries throughout Australia.
This address focuses on just two of those 160 descriptors. The first is the public library as the community’s
third place, after home and work; the other is the public library as a council’s shop window. They have been
chosen for this address because your council, like other councils, aspires to ‘create successful communities’
and because they are primary reasons why a library is the best investment a community through its council
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can make – for community connection from cradle to grave, and for the community’s awareness and
appreciation of progressive local government.
Social capital
The loss of social capital and community connection in western society has received considerable attention
since the research of Robert Putnam and others. In response, councils are being encouraged to become more
involved in community capacity building, as evidenced by the federal Department of Families, Community
Services and Indigenous Affairs’ Strong and resilient communities awards for local government. Friends of
Libraries who consider that their libraries are already building stronger communities should consider
encouraging their councils to nominate for these awards.2
Community capacity building does beg the question of how, and in what places it can occur, and in particular
where the whole of a community – from cradle to grave – can connect. Is it the local pub or club? The local
football club? Churches ? Schools? Shops? The answer is that all of these places help people to connect, but
within fairly narrow ranges.
The third place
The term the third place is being used increasingly to describe the building of social capital in an
environment distinct from home and work. Ray Oldenburg’s book The great, good place explains why third
places are crucial for civil society
The character of a third place is determined most of all by its regular clientele…through a radically different kind
of setting from a home, the third place is remarkably similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and
support it extends…They are the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grass roots of democracy. 3
Grass roots democracy is, of course, the special claim of local government. That claim is strengthened if it
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recognises that its public libraries belong to everyone and should be readily accessible to all
acknowledges that its public libraries are by far the most heavily used, appreciated and cost beneficial
community provision councils make
ensures that the voice of the community about them through Friends of Libraries groups or formal
council advisory committees is sought, and listened and responded to
reviews regularly, in an open and transparent way with community input, the performance of its public
libraries.
Public libraries do indeed belong to everyone, from cradle to grave. Their 12 million users in Australia –
60% of the population – are thus much more than public library users or customers – they are their owners.
This is something of which councils and library managers and their staff need to be ever mindful.
Libraries as destinations
However several things are needed if more public libraries are to truly be community destinations and
‘hangouts at the heart of the community’ as they have also been described. The Mt Barker Community
Library, assessed against the following checklist, would be found wanting in at least some of them – as
would most public libraries throughout Australia.
Their buildings and services need to
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be well marketed and signposted throughout their communities – almost certainly there are people in
Mt Barker who do not know there is a library, who provides it, where it is, that it is free to use, and the
breadth of resources and services it provides or has access to.
be well signed.
be destination places.
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be very visible – with the inside transparent from the outside, and the outside transparent from the
inside.
provide generous parking, particularly as people stay longer in better libraries.
be centrally located, preferably where people meet or shop. This is a disadvantage which all councils
with joint use libraries on more remote educational campuses – such as Mt Barker – need to work hard
at minimizing.
an easily visible and accessible entrance for all ages – Mt Barker’s entrance is not visible, or easily
accessible by older people and those with disabilities in particular.
be spacious and attractive – Mt Barker Library as a 10 year old facility is already outmoded in some
respects and is responding to a population growth of 2% a year. The population of over 32,000 by
2011 will test its space, design and ambience and may need consideration of more than a single library
location in Mt Barker.
be welcoming to all ages – are teenagers, for example, really attracted to the Mt Barker Library?
be able to provide space and time zones for different user cohorts.
have generous display/gallery areas.
provide toy libraries – Mt Barker’s is one of the best in Australia
provide local studies areas – Mt Barker has good provision.
provide lounge areas, meeting rooms, learning centres, homework centres, JP rooms, Friends of the
Library room, and parenting rooms – Mt Barker lacks most of these.
provide coffee shops/ self help refreshment facilities.
provide Xboxes, playstations and arcade and other games to attract teenagers to their other resources,
and provide a safe third place for them.
provide well supported and well advertised services to the homebound, an increasingly important
quality of life provision as Australia’s population ages. Mt Barker like, unfortunately, other libraries
around Australia, is not yet staffed and resourced adequately for such an important service, and
therefore does not actively promote the service. It does not meet the Australian Library and
Information Association’s national guidelines for such provision.
recognise that early childhood and adult literacy development and fostering a reading, informed and
knowledgeable nation of lifelong learners remains, and will remain, the core business of public
libraries. The lifeblood of public libraries is their print collections, on which most Australian states are
spending far too little, despite the fact that recent years have seen ‘a dramatic expansion in reading
and the market for books’.4 In the last 25 years there has been an understandable preoccupation with
information technology and electronic resources in libraries. There are strong international and
Australian indications that the pendulum is swinging back to what libraries have always been about –
helping readers. The UK, for example, is investing very heavily in bookstart programs, reader
development and bibliotherapy – including books on prescription. Many libraries are now developing
reader development strategies to ensure that their staff have the education, knowledge and resources to
advise users on their reading choices and options – something which ironically is greatly assisted by
the wealth of information now available through internet and other resources.
provide specialist library and other professional staff such as children’s and young adult librarians to
work with schools, local studies librarians, reader development librarians and outreach librarians.
open seven days a week(especially Sunday), most evenings and on most public holidays – Mt Barker
is rapidly becoming an exception in not opening on Sunday, the only time in the week in which many
young families will have the opportunity to use and enjoy the library together.
All of the above already exist in public libraries somewhere. Toy libraries, for example, make eminent
complementary educational sense in public libraries as those libraries increasingly provide bookstart
programs to encourage parents to read to babies as a critical aspect of early childhood literacy development
and parent-child bonding. Yet it also makes eminent equity sense that the funding of those toy libraries
should permit them to be as free to use and borrow as other library resources, and independent of any
capacity of parents to pay.
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Australia still underinvests in the critical early formative years of its children. Denial of free access to quality
toy libraries is but one example of that underinvestment. Some councils, such as West Torrens in South
Australia, recognise this.
New libraries are now incorporating proper coffee shops, sometimes run by local café operators happy to
capitalise on the heavy traffic a public library experiences. There is no reason to be coy about asserting that a
decent coffee shop should, in 2007, be an integral part of any reasonably large public library.5
As another example of community connection, libraries are increasingly recognising that they can offer
young people a special, if unconventional, library experience and are focusing on them in their services and
marketing strategies. The Mt Barker Community Library for instance does not only have a good toy library
for children but was providing arcade games as a marketing attractor to young people to explore the library’s
other resources. This interesting low cost initiative appears to have been stopped.
In New Zealand the City of Christchurch’s outstanding youth focused New Brighton Library has resulted in
less graffiti and vandalism in its low socioeconomic area; and the youth focused Munno Para Shopping
Centre Library in South Australia has seen a reduction of local problems with youth – they are all good
investments by their communities and councils. Communities, local government and public libraries neglect
the full range of their young people at considerable current and longer term cost to the community, and to
those young people as individuals. Public libraries need to employ youth workers and other community
services professionals to ensure this occurs in cooperation with other agencies supporting young people. Mt
Barker once did so, but apparently now does not.
Not all library users are happy about, or understanding of, this evolution of the public library from essentially
a quiet book lending and reference information agency to community anchor, community hangout and the
community’s third place after home and work. But it is a worldwide evolution which commenced 50 years
ago and will continue. Sometimes, older library users at community consultations preceding the planning of
a new library will just want in their new library a peaceful and comfortable place with easy to reach shelves
and a good up to date book collection. That is understandable but the reality is that the public library must
continue to evolve to meet the challenges of a clientele broader and more diverse than that of any other
public institution. It is here that Friends of Libraries, and Young Friends of Libraries, can help councils and
library managers to inform and educate the whole of the community – and especially its decision makers –
about the public library’s potential as the community’s hub, or as Australian social researcher Hugh Mackay
has described it, ‘the new village green’.
What the research is showing
They should be confident in doing so. An increasing number of research reports and surveys, international
and Australian, are confirming that unique public library capacity to connect and build communities. A
major Australian example was the 2005 Victorian report Libraries/building/communities.6 This interviewed
10,000 people, and identified that many of them wanted more money to be spent on their libraries. From
South Australia came the August 2005 report Investing in the community: South Australia public libraries
adding value. This noted that
Libraries are often sited separately and not considered an integrated part of the council’s services. Taking on a
community building function challenges the roles that libraries play and provides a key opportunity for libraries
to justify the strategic role they play in communities. Libraries can be the place to achieve these strategies for
councils.7
Your library is one of the few individual libraries worldwide to have benefited from university research, in
2004, to audit and assess its contribution to the social capital of the community it serves. That research has
attracted international attention and citation. The researcher demonstrated that
…the Mount Barker Community Library is not only contributing to the social capital of the local community but
moreover actively contributing to the achievement of the strategic goals and policy objectives of both the state
government and the District Council of Mount Barker.8
4
Interestingly, the researcher recorded observations from a former council manager of policy and governance
who
…spoke of the negative feelings and high expectations that members of the community have towards council and
the positive feelings they have towards the library. She believes that many do not realize the library is a council
service and suspects that the library is valued because it is not associated with the council, but, she adds, ‘people
might value council more if they were aware that it does provide the library service’.9
From New Zealand – still ahead of Australia in library development – in March 2006 came its excellent
strategic framework for public libraries, a national framework which Australia needs to inform and guide
local and state governments on the importance of improving their investment in public libraries. The NZ
framework states that
Public libraries engage, inspire and inform citizens and help build strong communities.10
Those twelve words are the essence of what modern public libraries are about. They are words to be
incorporated in public library mission statements, and conveyed to decision makers at every possible
opportunity.
There are many commonalities in the international and Australian reports about the evolving role of the
public library, and its community capacity building reality and potential. Those reports raise important issues
for every community and its decision makers to debate and consider. It is within the remit of a Friends of the
Library group to initiate community forums – such as this one tonight – about those issues if a council or
library does not take the initiative itself.
Public libraries: a council’s shop window
A public library – not its infrastructure, services, sporting facilities provision, or civic centre – is the most
conspicuous and accessible indicator of the dynamic of a council. Much of what any council provides for the
community is effectively hidden, unrecognised and often unappreciated – until something goes wrong. A
library should not only be a venue for interesting council displays and information about what it proposes
and does for the community, it should be supported as well as possible by a council because it is the
building, facility and service by which the council will be most recognised. This is particularly if a real effort
is made to badge the library at its entrance as provided by the council in partnership with the state
government.
The City of Christchurch in New Zealand, for example, allocates nearly 11 per cent of its rates to its
libraries. This percentage might well alarm most Australian councils as it is about double the rate percentage
many of them, such as Mt Barker, provide to their library service. Yet it is not an unreasonable target for
what is by far a council’s most heavily used and valued provision for its community and, for better or for
worse, its shop window to a very large part – typically 60 per cent – of the community it serves.
The libraries in Christchurch say much about the dynamic, foresight and leadership of the City, which is
confirmed by the following statement by its chief executive officer
In Christchurch City, we believe libraries are about more than books and buildings. Libraries are at the hub of
our communities…The benefits to our communities are well worth the ongoing significant investment. In the
future, we anticipate even more innovation in the way libraries help create inclusive communities, and are
centres for lifelong learning, fun and creativity.11
As a measure of the return on this investment by the Christchurch City Council, one of its senior librarians
commented at an Adelaide library buildings conference in 2006
In Christchurch people have done that complete flip from distrusting what the council is doing to appreciating
what council has done for them. They are proud of their library service. They bring their friends, and visitors
from overseas, into that service...12
The libraries in Christchurch are clearly its council’s shop windows, a role which no other part of its
infrastructure provision can perform.
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The public library funding conundrum
Further investment by your council in your library would thus reflect well on the council as a whole, and on
its elected and administrative leadership. It would surely be the best possible shop window for a council
which has grappled with difficult growth issues and identification of funding priorities, but has every reason
to look to the future with confidence. Part of that confidence has to be, after the forthcoming federal election,
in joining with local government throughout Australia in keeping the states more accountable for supporting
public libraries well. It also has to be in pursuing the strong case for the new national government to support
public libraries beyond the limited infrastructure funding for local government — which may be used for
library buildings — already promised by both political parties.
As noted earlier, Australia currently spends a meagre 8c per Australian per day on its public libraries, or
about $30 per year – the cost of one paperback book, cd or dvd. Denmark spends, for example, about $100
per per capita per year – three times as much. That 8c per day is half of what the ABC costs, and represents a
total of only $600million pa, less than half the cost of a medium size university. The case and evidence base
for a very large lift in public library funding is now strong. How to achieve it is, however, a political
conundrum.
Although it may be able to do better than it does now, local government across Australia – given cost
shifting and the ever increasing community service demands on it – clearly cannot achieve alone the at least
doubling of funding of public libraries needed for them to reach anything like their potential for all in their
communities. This is particularly as about third of councils in Australia are rated as financially weak, a major
impetus behind the restructuring of local government in Queensland on 15 March 2008.
Public libraries have been described as a major casualty of Australia’s complex system of government, with
its tendency to cost shift, resulting in the blame game of which we have heard something in the run up to the
federal election on Saturday.
All three levels of Australian government – local state, national – should arguably be contributing directly
and transparently to the funding of the nation’s public library system. Missing at present is the national
government, but to engage it local and state governments will need to demonstrate that they are really doing
the very best they can to fund that system well at present. Some states in particular, and some local
governments in Australia, would be hard pressed to do so.
Public libraries: an issue for the nation
The reason for Friends of Libraries Australia proposing that it is now time the national government interests
itself in, and holds state and local governments to account for public library performance, is to be found in a
statement by Andrew Carnegie that
If it is right that schools should be maintained by the whole community for the well being of the whole, it is right
also that libraries should be so maintained.
and more recently by Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, who when asked about his strong support for the
revitalisation of Chicago’s public library system, replied
Libraries and schools are on a par with each other in terms of what we are trying to accomplish – which is to
better educate society. But the library scope extends even further than that of schools…A library is an innovator
and should play an integral and active role in that effort in every community.
In that sense, it is still little recognised by Australian local government that it is now, largely through its
public libraries, a major player in the educational, learning and literacy business of the nation. Nor is this
recognised by the national government, though it insists on educational accountability and standards from
state and territory governments, and is now a funder of all levels of formal education – both public and
private – throughout Australia. The national government already exercises considerable accountability over,
and funds much of, other state responsibilities such as childcare, health, aged care and transport. This is
likely to increase, as the national government’s revenue increases.
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Funding the nation’s public library system: a new start
It really will be time for the next Australian government to provide leadership in the development of a
national strategic framework for better public libraries for all in Australia, and to consider its own investment
in that framework. Your council, Mt Barker, and others, should have a particular interest in this occurring
because local government is at the end of the cost shifting line, and has limited revenue options compared
with state and particularly the national government. Yet it does not suffice for local government to simply
assert it has no capacity to give a higher priority to funding the nation’s public libraries, or to use the old
‘chilling’ excuse that rates would have to increase if it did so. It is local government which has a key
responsibility to identify and tenaciously pursue solutions with the other two levels of government.
The $600million required to double the national investment in public libraries is, in the total Australian
taxation and revenue base context, insignificant. Much more than that $600 million is simply wasted in
Australia each year on ill considered and ill managed ventures of little cost benefit to the nation and its
taxpayers. The money is not an issue for a national government awash with it. Rather the issue is the
considerable challenge of constructing a fair and sustainable funding formula and accountabilities, involving
the three levels of government, to achieve better, more accessible, public libraries for all in Australia.
This primarily requires the Australian government, in association with state/territory and local governments,
to lead in the development of a national summit and strategic framework for public libraries identifying the
funding, other support, and accountabilities of those three levels of government.
Leading, fighting, persisting
In his 1947 report on the abysmal condition of Australian public libraries, British librarian Lionel McColvin
emphasised that ‘better library services for Australia won’t just happen. The few must lead, must fight, must
persist.’13 Fortunately the few did lead, fight and persist, although it was a long struggle in South Australia in
particular.
The City of Playford is thus celebrating in two weeks time the opening – 50 years ago by premier Tom
Playford at 11am on 11 December 1957 – of that first library at Elizabeth. Yet even that first library was not
a local government initiative, but was provided by the Housing Trust with State Library and state
government support, and with a small funding contribution from the then District Council of Salisbury.
Nonetheless, in only the last 50 years, much has been achieved by Australian local government, despite
reducing levels of partnerships from most state governments, in ensuring a network of some 1600 libraries is
now available to all in Australia. With the major March 2008 council mergers in Queensland, the one
remaining council in Australia not providing or funding a public library for its community (Fitzroy Shire,
near Rockhampton) will disappear.
Much, now, remains to be done to continue the development of those 1600 great good places, and to increase
their number in the context that
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the overall valuation, investment in new buildings(for example, the fine new Stirling Library near here
opens on 15 December 2007), and the future of public libraries worldwide and in Australia has never
been stronger or brighter
the evidence of their usage, outcomes, benefits and return on investment is substantial
the economic capacity of Australia to greatly increase their funding to at least the per capita levels of
countries such as Finland, Denmark and Singapore, has never been greater.
Friends of Libraries Australia is playing its part at the national level to progress its vision of Better, more
accessible, libraries for all in Australia by advocating that a national public libraries summit engaging all
levels of government should be held as early as possible in the term of the new Australian government.
But at the local level it is the growing number of Friends of Libraries groups and other library advocates – as
the voices of 12 million public library users – who will need to use well informed encouragement of their
councils to increase their investment in public libraries.
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They will also need to join cause with their councils in holding state/territory governments and the
Australian government to account for their policy, funding and support responsibilities for Australia’s great
good places — its 1600 public libraries.
References
1
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4
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6
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10
11
12
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for a list of public library descriptors see www.fola.org.au
see www.dotars.gov.au/localgovt/nalg/factsheets/strong_resilient.aspx
Oldenburg, R The great, good place New York, Marlow & Co 1999
Ross, C and others Reading matters: what the research reveals about reading, libraries and the community
Westport CT, Libraries Unlimited 2006
Harris, C Libraries with lattes: the new third place Australasian public libraries and information services 20(4)
December 2007 pp145-1525
Libraries/building/communities: the vital contribution of Victoria’s public libraries Melbourne, State Library of
Victoria 2005 www.slv.vic.gov.au/about/information/publications/policies_report/plu_lbc.html
Investing in the community: South Australian public libraries adding value Adelaide, State Library of SA 2005
p3
Hillenbrand, C A place for all: social capital at the Mount Barker Community Library, South Australia
Australasian public libraries and information services 18(2) June 2005 p57
ibid p51
Public libraries of New Zealand: a strategic framework 2006-2016 Wellington, Local Govt NZ, LIANZA and
National Library of NZ 2006
Moen, N New libraries and new spaces for community outcomes: Christchurch City Libraries’ strategy, in
Bundy, A ed Places and spaces: public libraries for the 21st century in Australia and New Zealand conference
proceedings Adelaide, Auslib Press 2006 p24
Moen, N Second panel session, in Bundy,A ed Places and spaces: public libraries for the 21 st century in
Australia and New Zealand conference proceedings Adelaide, Auslib Press 2006 p195
McColvin, L Public libraries in Australia: present conditions and future possibilities with notes on other library
services Melbourne, ACER/MUP 1947 p113
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