Rampent Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 As I've said before, the internet is the new Library. All the best books have being nicked anyways. That Central Library is god awful. Full of tramps and weridos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sibon Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 In an ideal world everything would be wonderful, libraries plentiful, bookshelves full and mobile libraries visiting every street corner and the last government wouldn't have screwed us up. Obviously that's not the case. If they were going for the easy option wouldn't they have done the same as Manchester, Birmingham, and others? The mobile library comes up to us every week and I really can't say that I've noticed anyone using it at all. This is why the numbers would be useful in making some sort of assessment. I haven't used a library in years. I used to do so on a weekly basis, but they have become less and less relevant to me. I do know other people though, taxpayers, of course, who value them highly. I'd hope that we could avoid a repeat of the slash and burn of the Thatcher years and look for more sensible ways of saving money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 look for more sensible ways of saving money. Agreed, savings should be sensible. What do you suggest? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sibon Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 Agreed, savings should be sensible. What do you suggest? Surely it isn't just up to me to suggest savings. I don't mind starting, but someone else will need to help out. I vote that we cancel the Lib Dem Conference and spend the £2m on library books. In fact, let's cancel all three conferences, they can hold them online. That is £6m saved. Your turn:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 How does Sheffield Council cancel a private event or get to use money from the police budget to spend money on council library books? Seriously, lets have some sensible joined up thinking here as befits your profession as a teacher. Where do you suggest making savings instead of library hours and mobile libraries? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sibon Posted February 23, 2011 Share Posted February 23, 2011 How does Sheffield Council cancel a private event or get to use money from the police budget to spend money on council library books? Seriously, lets have some sensible joined up thinking here as befits your profession as a teacher. Where do you suggest making savings instead of library hours and mobile libraries? It was joined up. I never claimed that Sheffield would get the £2m, but they should get a share of the £6m, if the political parties were to enter the 21st century. We do waste a lot of money to-ing and fro-ing. Beyond that, you can look at a variety of non-essential services, or easily shared ones. Consultancies, translation services, architects, town planners. Cuts here wouldn't impact upon most folk's daily lives. The problem is that every council job that goes impacts elsewhere, as I'm sure that you are aware. Pacing cuts correctly and ensuring that the private sector can grow are the crucial factors. I guess that an important question is: How can the Government help the private sector to provide more jobs? That is more in your area of expertise. What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
go4it Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Difficult to say, because I don't have access to all the figures, or enough information to compare with other uses of public money. It also depends on what value you put on all the other ways that we spend public money. I'm trying to argue that a few thousand spent on providing books to kids, older folk, and relatively isolated people is money well spent, and is being cut disproportionately compared with other aspects of council spending. I don't think it's being cut because it's not good use of public money, but because it's an easy target and that is what council officials and councillors are looking for, when making snap judgements about how to balance the books. We have a habit in this countey of paying for stuff twice. Lets give pensioners a free bus pass. Brilliant. But hang on - lets bring the library to them so they don't have to get on the bus and spend money. Hang on again - they already get on free? Ahhh but they are old and vulnerable, so lets keep the service. I'm sure the mobile library is great but the only people who seem to be fighting it are the ones who are employed by it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
espadrille Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Difficult to say, because I don't have access to all the figures, or enough information to compare with other uses of public money. It also depends on what value you put on all the other ways that we spend public money. I'm trying to argue that a few thousand spent on providing books to kids, older folk, and relatively isolated people is money well spent, and is being cut disproportionately compared with other aspects of council spending. I don't think it's being cut because it's not good use of public money, but because it's an easy target and that is what council officials and councillors are looking for, when making snap judgements about how to balance the books. And this is the key isn't it. You and I dont have access to all this information, but your elected representatives in Sheffield City Council do and that is why they are paid to take these difficult decisions and they are not easy to do. If you dont make cuts from 1 service then another one will suffer, begging from Peter to pay Paul is a reality in these times.As a strategic operator one has to decide which cuts to make and usually those are the ones where (invariably) the service isn't as used as others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 OK, I found some useage stats for mobile libraries, but I must stress that these are nearly 3 years old - year 07/08. A few quick sums. Feel free to provide more accurate figures if you have them. 37,952 visits / 250 working days / 4 mobile libraries = 38 users per day per mobile library. 86,911 book loans are made, the equivalent of 87 loans per day per mobile library. There seem to be around 183 stops for the libraries, some weekly. some fortnightly, some monthly so for the sake of argument lets divide that by half and call it 88 stops per week, or 22 per vehicle pw, or just over 4 a day. That's an average of about 10 people per stop. If each vehicle costs (say) £100k pa to run (2.5 staff, vehicle charge, maintenance, fuel, insurance, administration, etc) that gives us £400 per day to operate each one. That means that: A: Every book loan from a Sheffield mobile library costs around £4.50 per book borrowed. B. Every mobile library user costs Sheffield Council over £10 per visit. Is that acceptable value? Would it be cheaper to hand out book tokens? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteM01 Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 A: Every book loan from a Sheffield mobile library costs around £4.50 per book borrowed. B. Every mobile library user costs Sheffield Council over £10 per visit. Is that acceptable value? Would it be cheaper to hand out book tokens? http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/mobile_library_service_2?unfold=1 Get yer'sen round that spreadsheet, Tone. Donnie can run a mobile library for a third of your estimate (I think). Is £1.50 per book good value or not? I guess that you would have to regard it as a social service, not just a book-lending service per se. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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