Share the Vision s1

Agenda item: 3 (a)

Share the Vision

Minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 7 June 2011

Present: Mark Freeman (Acting Chair), Helen Brazier (Co-ordinator), Katie Lusty, Hilary McKenzie, Linda Robertson, Christine Ronaldson, Jerry Shillito

Apologies: Barry Cropper, Fazilet Hadi, Marion Ripley, Amina Shah, Alyson Tyler, Cathy Wright

Observers: Jane Gallagher, Dyslexia Action (items 1-6, 8a), Pat Beech, RNIB (items 7, 8b)

1. Welcome, introductions and apologies for absence

Mark Freeman welcomed everyone to the meeting. Apologies were noted. Board members were sorry to hear that Amina was absent due to family illness and sent their best wishes.

2. Notification of any other business

3. Minutes of meeting 3 March 2011

The minutes of the meeting held on 3 March 2011 were approved.

4. Matters arising not covered elsewhere on the agenda

(a) Meeting with Annie Mauger, Chief Executive, CILIP

Helen Brazier gave a report of her recent meeting with Annie Mauger which was very useful. AM said that, through herself or Mark Taylor, CILIP would be pleased to support STV with campaigning, using a variety of methods such as joint statements or tweets. AM also reinforced CILIP’s support for the Six Steps and offered to link to it and to publicise it. There was discussion about how to roll out and build on learning from the NEALIS project; how to promote issues around accessibility of ebooks (through Phil Bradley); and communications between CILIP and STV. AM offered to identify a replacement representative for STV’s Board at the appropriate time.

Members observed that CILIP and the Society of Chief Librarians also now have closer relationships.

(b) Meeting with Ann Rossiter, Chief Executive, SCONUL

Linda Robertson gave a report of her recent very helpful meeting with Ann Rossiter which covered various topics affecting the accessibility of HE library services, such as funding, fees, electronic licensing, electronic records management and document supply. It was agreed that STV could contribute to SCONUL’s e-bulletin, Focus magazine and autumn conference. AR invited LR to participate in an e-licensing seminar and other discussions. LR requested funding from STV to cover expenses which the Board agreed. Action: LR.

It was agreed that HE issues would be a standing item on the agenda. Action: HB.

MF had organised that STV (himself and HB) would deliver a workshop at this conference for local authority officers taking place on 21 June. There would be a good opportunity to showcase learning from NEALIS and to discuss how to move forward, topics highly relevant to the conference themes of shared services, volunteers and collaboration.

(d) Arts Council England

HB reported that she and Pat Beech had met Antonia Byatt, ACE, for a briefing. AB appeared to be very supportive of our issues. There are likely to be fewer national library roles and the focus is likely to be on reading and culture. Arrangements for transfer of responsibilities from MLA and ACE are taking place during 2011 so it would be timely to identify a new Board representative later in the year. Action: HB.

5. Library services for people with dyslexia

Jane Gallagher, Dyslexia Action, gave a very interesting presentation about dyslexia and the impact it has on people’s lives. Libraries are often seen as very scary places by people with dyslexia. Presentation slides are attached [appendix 1].

Board members cited evidence of local willingness in public and education libraries to support people with dyslexia, with various examples of good practice in schools and public libraries. It was agreed that audio books, ebooks and technology in general offer new opportunities especially for younger people. HB and colleague Wendy Taylor had gathered evidence via a literature search and lis-pub-libs of public library activities [appendices 2 and 3]. However there are no standards in place and therefore the outcomes are very inconsistent. In the current climate, there is a risk that the situation will get worse.

The extension of the copyright licence to cover people with dyslexia was considered an important step forward. Calibre now serves people with dyslexia and over half of their young readers have dyslexia. They would like to see young people with dyslexia included in Young Reading Lives (see agenda item 8b below). RNIB’s library service is not mandated to serve people with dyslexia. Many European libraries for blind people, with government support and funding, have widened their service to people with dyslexia. HB/JG commented on the major changes that had been seen at Nota, Denmark, when they began to serve people with dyslexia, reaching a much younger audience making wider use of digital delivery, requiring different types of content and new promotional techniques.

Board members recommended that Dyslexia Action make links with the Society of Chief Librarians and with ASCEL.

As STV’s remit is to support people with print disabilities, it was agreed that it should take more interest in this area informed by relevant experts, so Dyslexia Action was invited to join the Board. Some further consideration could be given to developing pilot projects. Action: HB/JG.

6. Six steps to library services for blind and partially sighted people

MF/HB reported on progress with Six Steps. Since the last Board meeting, the initiative had been endorsed by SLIC, CyMAL and CILIP. MF had presented it at SCL’s AGM and the appeal to sign up had been cascaded throughout England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. So far, 79 authorities had signed up and the remainder were being chased. Leaflets will be sent out to the named champions shortly.

When the majority of authorities have signed up, the next stage will be to organise UK-wide publicity with the help of Elizabeth Elford, SCL’s Marketing Officer. Action: HB/MF.

The Board discussed the reaction from two library authorities who felt that they could not sign up to the blue print. Action: MF will follow up.

The champions’ names will provide a very useful mailing list although it was noted that there are a reduced number of specialist posts.

7. OCLC and FAB Libraries

A report was received from Jon Hardisty, supplemented by an oral update from Pat Beech, who is a director of TCR. FAB Libraries will be a national database freely available to the public. Pat identified the key issues as ensuring that FAB Libraries is accessible and that records from specialist agencies are included. A risk is that there are also ambitions to make the database part of a library portal and this might delay the project.

The Board requested a regular report on progress. Action: JH/PB.

It was agreed that the specialist agencies (RNIB, Calibre, Torch, ClearVision, NBCS) should meet to agree how data would be contributed. Action: JH/PB.

8. Projects

(a) NEALIS

The project report was received from the project manager, Fiona Forsythe.

The Board discussed the valuable feedback from the recent consultation day which showed that overall there had been improvements in the region. Compared with 2009, there were more negative comments about staff support but less criticism about choice of books, although timeliness was still an issue. Readers showed an avid interest in ebooks and the demonstration of ebooks and other reading equipment was very much welcomed.

Project funding will cease in June so sustainability is an issue especially in the context of economic pressures. For example, the beacon AIRS service closed at the end of March despite protests from users, STV and others. Issues and ideas could be discussed at the conference (mentioned above) on 21 June.

MF reported the good news that the NEALIS project had been shortlisted for a CILIP Libraries Change Lives award, winner to be announced on 13 July.

(b) Reading Sight/Your Reading Choices/Young Reading Lives

Pat Beech presented the Reading Sight development plan 2011-12 and website usage statistics. She also showed a demonstration clip of Young Reading Lives. The site is being promoted in various ways such as a poster at Techshare and various journal articles. Board members were pleased with the content development.

Following the earlier discussion about libraries and dyslexia, it was felt that a priority for development should be to extend the scope of the tools to cover the reading needs of people with dyslexia. This would require input of funding and resources from organisations with specialist knowledge such as Dyslexia Action. Currently RNIB undertakes the majority of the management and development work but does not have the expertise or mandate to cover dyslexia. Action: It was agreed that PB would meet Dyslexia Action to formulate a way forward and report back to the next Board meeting. At that time the status of STV’s budget would be clearer and a funding request could be reconsidered in that context. It might then be useful and necessary to appoint a project steering group with representation from various stakeholders.

9. Right to Read Alliance

Minutes of the Right to Read Alliance Group Meeting, 29 March 2011 were not yet available and will follow [appendix 4]. HB reported that the main topics of discussion were ebooks, copyright, the London Book Fair, Make a Noise in Libraries and use of braille.

10. Workplan: progress review 2010-11 and plans for 2011-12

The workplan was reviewed and updated to reflect various discussions at this meeting. With limited resources, it was felt that STV should focus on a few key areas rather than try to do too much.

11. Recent and current consultations

Members noted the recent responses to Libraries Inspire and Statutory duties. HB explained that due to the election process in Northern Ireland, she had been advised to wait to send feedback on the future of LISC: NI to the new minister. This had duly been done and the letter would be attached to the minutes as appendix 5.

12. Share the Vision news bulletin plus matters arising

Action: MF will check with Alison Bramley whether she is proactively distributing the bulletin to SCL members. This was considered preferable to asking members to seek it out on the website.

13. Finance report

HB reported that finances are in a reasonably healthy state. By 6 June, Calibre and 52 public libraries had made contributions (compared with 76 public libraries in total last year). Some more contributions could be expected but it was quite likely that income would be lower than last year.

A draft budget was presented which showed that the financial situation might be considerably more risky by this time next year. The Board agreed therefore that the budget should be kept under tight review and that spending should be prudent. The biggest area of spending is on the compilation of bulletins. Action: HB to add budget review to next agenda.

14. Communications

Website usage statistics were noted.

15. Board administration

(a) Membership

The Director of LISC: NI regretted that funding was not available to support a representative to attend STV Board meetings but was asking the membership whether one of them would support a representative. The Board felt that it would be regrettable to lose participation from LISC: NI as it had been so effective in the past. Alternative approaches would be to maintain LISC: NI as a corresponding member or to invite Libraries NI to nominate a representative. Action: HB to follow up with Linda Houston.

Dyslexia Action will be invited to join the Board (see agenda item 5).

(b) Observers

Action: HB to follow up ACE later in the year.

16. Board members’ activities relating to STV

(a) CyMAL Access Template Project: LR had agreed to participate in this project on behalf of STV. A consultant will be appointed during the summer with the development work and promotion to be completed during 2011-12.

(b) TechDis survey of HE/FE libraries' experiences obtaining digital files had been distributed through STV. Results not yet seen.

(c) Workshop, Netherlands: MF/HB reported on this useful meeting with libraries serving print disabled people in Netherlands and Flanders, a follow up to the one that took place last year. Key subjects were digital delivery, marketing to hard to reach customer segments and the legal framework. The UK participants learned a lot but there was also a great deal of interest in UK initiatives such as Make a Noise in Libraries, Reading Sight, Your Reading Choices, Six Steps and ebooks. A sensory tour of The Hague was very enjoyable and MF felt the idea could be replicated in the North East.

(d) Members reported on their activities planned for Make a Noise in Libraries fortnight.

(e) Ealing schools’ second reading prize will be awarded this year by Alan Gibbons.

(f) BL work on non print legal deposit is moving into implementation phase and JS undertook to ensure that systems would be accessible.

(g) The 2012 conference of the IFLA Section for Libraries Serving Print Disabled People will be held in Tallinn and will focus on the needs of print disabled children. MF/HB had suggested some topics for the programme reflecting interesting work in the UK.

17. Any other business

(a) Agreed that important themes for the annual report would be cross sectoral co-operation, sharing expertise, getting more value from resources, the need for national co-ordination.

(b) Kelly Naulty has taken over from Chris Herring in providing administrative support to STV Board.

(g) Mark Freeman agreed to continue to act as Chair of the Board in Amina’s absence although he will be away on holiday at the time of the next Board meeting so a temporary replacement will be required. Action: HB/MF.