Library privatization doesn’t check out

Slowly but surely, the profit motive is creeping into community libraries.

At the Richmond BC public library, much of the processing and cataloguing is done by the companies that sell books, periodicals and other materials. The records are downloaded into the library’s system and edited. Private companies control many aspects of what gets ordered and in what quantities.

"The use of technology and the privatization of our institution and the services we provide are threatening our jobs, costing the taxpayers more and sending work south of the border," says M·ire Kirwan, who works at the Richmond Public Library and is a member of CUPE 3966.

The library has a standing order to buy large quantities of best-selling fiction and non-fiction which then get sold off at bargain basement prices after demand drops — at a loss to the library. Meanwhile the supplier makes a healthy profit.

"A greater reliance by senior management on standing orders and development of library profiles based on circulation statistics, mean that library staff no longer have the freedom or flexibility to buy materials based on their professional judgement, nor are they able to respond to the needs of the public," says Kirwan.

"What may seem like a shallow cost savings measure is actually a subtle and insidious attack on the fundamental principle of intellectual freedom. If communities have no input into collection development then their libraries become warehouses of disposable popular material, rather than public institutions committed to enlightenment, education, learning and an eclectic view of recreational reading for a diverse population."

Library privatization elsewhere, including Hawaii, reflects Richmond’s experience.

In 1996 Hawaii’s state library system signed a five-year US$11.2 million contract with Baker & Taylor, a North Carolina-based company, to select and process all new materials for the state’s public libraries. The company promised its huge bulk-buying power could provide more materials at better prices.

Whatever savings there may have been came at a high price. Problems with the private contract included: price gouging; selecting cheap paperbacks and "shelf-sitters" that nobody checked out; a lack of reference and foreign language materials; an insensitivity to the need for Hawaiian material; poor quality children's and young adult titles; choosing videos that nobody wanted; countless upset patrons and a precipitous drop in morale amongst library employees.

By early 1997 the American Library Association officially opposed the outsourcing. After investigations by the state’s board of education, and lawsuits from the state’s employees association, legislation was passed requiring the use of library employees for selection and limiting the board's authority to enter into future outsourcing contracts.

Subsequently, the state library system terminated the contract to select, acquire and provide materials for Hawaii's state libraries. Contracting out had proven a total, costly failure.