Harriet Connides hasn’t been to her local library in north London’s East Finchley for months. She used to go every few days, often with her young daughter, but now it is staffed for only 16 hours a week and Connides, who has severe mobility problems, is uncomfortable being in there alone. “I don’t feel safe here any more. If I fall, I don’t know what would happen,” she says.
The disabled toilets are also closed during unstaffed hours. “It’s another avenue cut off from someone who already has a lot of avenues cut off,” says Connides.
East Finchley is one of about 150 libraries across the country now using “open library” technology to introduce unstaffed hours. This means you can access buildings, even if there are no library staff present, with your library card and a pin number and use self-service scanners to return and check out books.
With local authorities under strain from cuts, full-time library staff numbers have fallen by 33% since 2010, and open libraries are on the rise. Essex county council is the latest to consider “smart library” technology after residents, backed by authors including David Baddiel and Jacqueline Wilson, successfully campaigned against library closures earlier this month. Worcestershire county council announced last week it is also looking at self-service, unstaffed hours.
There are clear benefits, but some argue that a library without a librarian isn’t a library at all. “It’s a folly ... it is dishonest to represent this as a library service when taxpayers have paid for a quality service with a librarian,” said Nick Poole, chief executive of the UK Library Association. “Libraries are a statutory service. People have a right to expect a certain quality of provision, and councils need to be honest with local people if they can’t provide that.”
A key battleground has been in Barnet, north London, where 10 of 14 libraries are staffed part-time, and the rest are volunteer-run. Safety concerns and confusion over how to enter buildings using the keypad led Barnet to use security guards on entrances.
“We were shocked they were paying for security guards instead of staff,” said Emily Burnham, of Save Barnet Libraries. A similar situation occurred in Lambeth where the council paid for security guards on library sites after they were closed, before turning them into library-gym hybrids with unstaffed hours.
Reuben Thompstone, chair of Barnet council’s community leadership and libraries committee, said: “The modernisation has meant we have been able to keep all our 14 libraries open, something many other local authorities have struggled to do.” He said library opening hours had increased and 39,000 people had registered for self-service access, around 72% of active library users.
In Peterborough, where a consultation showed 75% of users said access outside normal hours was important, 250 users visited Central Library during unstaffed hours in a single day.
Yet Dr Alice Corble, associate sociology lecturer at Goldsmiths University who completed a PhD on public libraries, said more deprived areas will end up worse off. “There is no one to help people log on to the computers and navigate all the things they need to for the digital default agenda of all welfare services now,” she said. “There are many essential things people need to do in the library, particularly people who aren’t so well off and don’t have access to [digital] resources at home.”