Darren Henley, speech at Seminar for the
Society of Chief Librarians, 4 June 2015
Warwick University
Theme: digital landscapes - the future for libraries
Thank you for inviting me to speak. It’s a great pleasure to be here, as a guest of
the Society of Chief Librarians, with whom the Arts Council has such a close and
productive relationship.
Since I was appointed chief executive of the Arts Council, I’ve been making it
clear that I regard libraries as being central to our work.
It’s not only because I’m a writer – though I have of course a writer’s love of
libraries and all places where you can find out about things.
It’s also because libraries epitomise the intrinsic value of the arts.
And for the avoidance of doubt, and the shortness of this speech, I want to stress
that when I refer to ‘the arts’, I mean also that shared public culture of libraries,
museums and collections.
What is that intrinsic value? It’s the power to transform lives; the power to effect
change, to change ourselves, to awaken our potential, to offer us an echo to our
own feelings, and help us to express what we may apprehend, but not
comprehend.
And while this is true about all the arts, it’s striking in literature, which is why the
printing press changed the world, why repressive societies attempt censorship,
and why books have been burned. Societies that progress and flourish are
societies that read.
At a Seminar where the focus is on the digital landscape, I make no apology for
saying that the physical book remains a miraculous device.
Beyond the mechanics of its creation, it requires no crew nor actors, but only the
cast and production of the reader’s mind.
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Through the few, flat pages of the book, a reader can slip into any number of
parallel dimensions; the mind can be free, self-sufficient, and can find places to
grow and return determined to change this world.
There’s nothing more illuminating than a book, nothing more inspiring, and
nothing more provocative. That is the nature of all art.
And while we know that libraries are not only about books - and what else they
are about, I’ll come to in a bit - libraries remain in every way about what a book
represents.
The democratic access to knowledge; a shared language; mutual understanding;
empathy; and the satisfaction of that personal craving that every person
experiences for the enlargement of themselves; to know more, to feel more, to
make more of their lives.
So I believe that the Arts Council and libraries go together.
We can help libraries connect within the arts using the partnerships and the
development experience acquired over years of working with government, with
local authorities, with arts organisations and with business.
And we can learn from libraries.
Many are showing the rest of the arts sector what resilience really means – the
ability to adapt to one’s changing environment, to try new ways of engaging, and
above all, of making oneself relevant to our communities.
You have, for example, long been ahead of the game in gathering data through
library membership, adjusting to the needs of their public, and showing the value
of that first point of human contact.
Think how many lives have been shaped by the advice of a librarian, to try this
book or that one.
Think how much more you could do if you really applied yourselves to use that
data to its full potential.
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Now, here we are, four years into the relationship between libraries and the Arts
Council, and with the General Election behind us.
All of us are thinking about what the future may hold.
I was in Hull last week - City of Culture for 2017. I think, quite remarkably, we
managed to get through a whole afternoon without mentioning Philip Larkin.
It’s not because Larkin’s out of favour, but because there was so much else to
talk about – so much artistic ambition, so many plans.
I said there, that I am absolutely committed to public investment in the arts, in our
libraries, and our museums and collections – across the nation.
I said that Arts Council England will increase the use of Lottery funds outside
London. But I also said that for longevity this investment needs to be sustained
by government money.
And that we need the support of our friends in local authorities, our principle
investment partners, whom we know will face tough choices.
When local authorities invest in art and culture, we will stand with them.
Together, we can find ways of keeping our communal cultural network alive.
Because our venues, our libraries, and our museums are the life of our
communities.
We feel that we are getting across the message that the arts are intrinsic to our
education, wellbeing and prosperity – and there have been encouraging signs in
the last parliament.
An increase in funding for music education hubs, tax breaks for theatre and
orchestras - and the positive response to the Sieghart report, which has seen the
establishment of a Leadership for Libraries Taskforce and the provision of more
than £7 million for public wifi in libraries, recognising the important role in social
connectivity that libraries play.
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But I believe that this connectivity is within a bigger communal role, in which the
physical space of libraries remains crucial - just as the physical nature of a book
is unique.
The digital era is there, with all its possibilities for virtual engagement. But it isn’t
a substitute. It’s an addition – an enrichment of a powerful legacy of inclusion.
To quote Sieghart:
‘Libraries are…a golden thread throughout our lives. Despite the growth in
digital technologies, there is still a clear need and demand within
communities for modern, safe, non-judgemental, flexible spaces, where
citizens of all ages can mine the knowledge of the world for free,
supported by the help and knowledge of the library workforce.’
In a recent talk, Roly Keating made the point that while the British Library has
been at the forefront of the digital evolution, libraries have a special something
that may outlast the Internet.
Libraries are institutions that have built up trust. That have authenticity.
Roly pointed to the time frame in which libraries exist.
The digital world is barely a teenager; the library has been around for thousands
of years, and what it represents with that legacy of trust, is strong enough to
accommodate change and still endure.
So, since we began working with libraries, the Arts Council has wanted to help
them explore their potential both digitally and as communal spaces – and how we
can use one to enhance the other.
In this, our relationship with the Society of Chief Librarians - your counsel, your
perspective, and your sense of how to preserve and develop the libraries’ legacy
has been crucial and will continue to be so.
Working with you, we commissioned ‘Envisioning the library of the future’ – and
many of its conclusions were echoed in the Sieghart report.
That established shared values, and ambitions around libraries.
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We invested in the Enterprising Libraries programme, working with the British
Library and the Department for Communities and Local Government, funding 10
projects in which libraries used their role as community hubs to spark economic
growth and social mobility.
The second phase of this was launched in March, with funding from the
government and the Arts Council - and a large contribution from the British
Library, which is leading on this.
When you look back on the Libraries development initiative, we funded 13
different projects that would test new approaches to library service delivery.
These included developing a community cinema within a library, bringing
together publishers and libraries, sharing digital skills, using libraries to help
people looking for employment - and the Reading Well Books on prescription
scheme, which has been such an inspiration, and has been rolled out nationally.
The lessons learned then continue to have relevance today.
We continue to support the work of the Society of Chief Librarians, particularly
through your Universal Offers. So I’m delighted to confirm that we have now
agreed funding of £205,000 for Universal Offers work in 2015-16 across all four
of the existing offers - as the new Learning offer gets under way.
And we have been encouraged to see libraries making greater use of our Grants
for the Arts Libraries Fund.
The second phase of this opened in April and will run until March 2018, offering
grants from £1,000 to £100,000.
It’s there - as before - to inspire innovative partnerships between arts
organisations and libraries, and to encourage library users to take part in more
arts activities.
More and more library services are coming to understand how important this
connection to other arts organisations can be in making the most of their spaces.
I see that St Helens Library Service recently ran a very popular conference on
Arts in Libraries. They ascribed their success in increasing library usage to their
Cultural Hubs programme.
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This was set up in 2013 with a Grants for the arts award of nearly £150,000, and
used the borough's 13 libraries as venues for plays, gigs, workshops, courses,
events and exhibitions.
The point here is that St Helens have used the Libraries Grants For The Arts
funding to use artistic activity in an imaginative way to deliver their core
objectives.
And now there is the wifi initiative.
By March 2016, our aim is that all public libraries in England will be providing free
access to wifi.
Arts Council England will make this possible through a funding programme due
to be launched in July – when local authorities will be invited to submit their
proposals for the programme - and I know that Brian has been talking to you in
more detail during your Seminar.
The programme will ensure comprehensive coverage through a network of more
than 3,000 libraries in villages, towns and cities across England.
We can imagine how this might contribute to the life of our communities, helping
connect people who are economically or geographically excluded from the digital
world.
Given opportunity and resources, libraries can help lead the revival of
communities.
They can be at the centre of village life - just as they have been at the centre of
great cities and civilisations.
They can be digital resources: and they can be physical spaces.
One way and another, they can be trusted democratic places where people come
together and share knowledge.
And they have a critical role to play in ensuring that all our children and young
people have the best chance in life.
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I am passionately committed to cultural education – I’ve authored two
government reports on the subject.
It’s been shown that cultural education has a huge influence on outcomes for
children and young people.
I believe that cultural education should be a right, not a privilege.
Literacy is key to making this happen. You’ll be familiar with the findings and
objectives of the Read On Get On campaign that is being run in partnership with
many organisations including Booktrust and The Reading Agency, whom the Arts
Council support.
As the campaign points out, a fifth of all children and nearly a third of the poorest
children leave primary school unable to read well – which has a significant impact
on progress later in life.
This represents a vast human, social and economic cost.
We have to get our young people reading – and the library is one of the most
important steps to making this happen.
A couple of years ago we ran a pilot project, the Automatic Library Membership
programme, which investigated the effects of providing membership to children
and young people.
What this showed was that giving a library card did not in itself create library
members – membership had to be made real, through associating it with a range
of activities.
It’s been great to see how ASCEL has picked this up with their recent work on
the “Library Journey.”
It is crucial to get children through the door, and tailor that experience to the
different phases of a child’s life – and the different phases of a parent’s.
So for some children and adults – perhaps the ones who most need what the
library can offer – offering other activities are part of the process of building that
relationship and that trust.
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It works. Arts activities – and all creative activities – nourish each other.
In the Autumn, there will be a spending review which will have a decisive impact
on arts and local authority funding.
We need to come together to make the case for public investment – at a national
and local level.
And one of the most powerful ways to get our message across is by showing our
commitment to evolution and invention in the ways we engage with our
communities.
Libraries have wonderful stories to tell.
There is huge public confidence in libraries based on that historic legacy of trust.
And we must never let that trust go.
Libraries are safe and egalitarian spaces in an age when public space is
increasingly under threat.
And now they are becoming important cultural and creative laboratories, ‘making
spaces’ in which all of us are trying new ways of connecting to the public - and
offering the public new ways to develop.
It is the precious, transformative nature of art, made explicit.
Like a book, a library is an invitation to enter other worlds.
Like books, the outside of a library can vary from the enticing to the forbidding.
But, like a book, when we take up that invitation, we will always find that a library
is above all a place of infinite beginnings.
The challenge, when we look ahead across the digital landscape, is how to make
the entry to the digital library just as enticing and exciting – and just as rewarding
– as that precious and trusted physical space.
I know that – working together – you and we will be up to the challenge.
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