DCMS committee calls for libraries investment to support ‘Levelling Up’

Library figures have welcomed a new report by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Committee that calls for greater investment in public libraries to support the government’s ‘Levelling Up’ agenda. 

The report, Reimagining where we live: cultural placemaking and the levelling up agenda, highlights the vital role of libraries in providing access to reading and learning materials, digital resources, physical study space and cultural activities. It also draws attention to the services libraries offer to businesses and entrepreneurs, describing them as “engines for entrepreneurship, economic growth and job creation”. 

The committee concludes that libraries are “an important part of communities’ cultural infrastructure, particularly in deprived areas” and calls on the government to “support the development of a network of hubs providing cultural spaces, workspaces and free, fast internet access in places most in need of levelling up in order to modernise library service provision.” 

Isobel Hunter, chief executive of Libraries Connected, said: “We are pleased that the committee recognises the crucial role libraries can play in tackling place-based inequalities across the UK. Libraries have so many cross-cutting benefits for literacy, health, culture, digital inclusion and business – it is reassuring to see this acknowledged at a time when many library services are facing the prospect of budget reductions.

“The evidence heard by the committee makes a very strong case that public libraries have a central role in the Levelling Up agenda. We welcome the committee’s call for greater investment in libraries and urge the government to implement the report’s recommendations.” 

Nick Poole, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals (CILIP), also welcomed the report’s findings. He told The Bookseller: “The report recognises the gap between government rhetoric on Levelling Up and the reality of deepening place-based inequality across the UK. It highlights the relatively low impact of recent short-term interventions and endorses CILIP’s call for long-term policy and structural investment to rebuild local services. 

“The report provides the perfect context for the current Governmental Review of Public Libraries being led by Baroness Sanderson of Welton. Ultimately, libraries change lives, in every part of the UK. We hope that government will heed the committee’s recommendations and start to work towards a joined-up national strategy to rebuild public libraries and to invest in their life-changing impact for communities.” 

Yesterday The Bookseller reported several libraries across the country were under threat due to rising inflation and increased energy costs.   

However, Tim Coates, library campaigner and former m.d. of Waterstones, sounded a warning note, saying: “Any improvement cannot be made by the Department of Culture unless it makes a joint initiative with the Department of Local Government of a kind it does not have”. He added: “The committee, as is the habit, occupies itself with government spending, and uses the government jargon of ‘cultural place-making’ and, of course ‘levelling up’. The danger of these expressions is that they quickly become meaningless because they are not specific. That matters if one genuinely seeks improvement.”