The Family Library have issued a statement in support of a working party report recently made public.

A public consultation was launched online last week on the provision and funding of public libraries.

The short survey aims to gather views of the public on what services and facilities they would like to see in their local libraries, how a mobile library service would operate, and how future funding should be organised.

As part of the consultation, the Council of Ministers’ library working party report has been made public to help inform those completing the survey.

The library working party report was completed in May 2020.

It summarises the current situation in respect of library provision, and the recommendations contained within provides options for the future provision of public libraries and how they continue to be funded.

A spokesperson for the Family Library welcomed the publication of the report, and said: ’We would urge the public and our supporters to participate in the consultation and back the proposals, as we believe our five specialist services can contribute significantly under the new custodianship that the proposals represent.

’But from a Family Library perspective we believe all of our services should be part of this new project to allow them to continue with proper and sustained funding. In particular, there needs to be public support for a dedicated children’s library to be retained, which is not part of current thinking.’

The spokesperson also further commented on the future of the Family Library, which has been under the spotlight in recent months.

They said: ’The report offers no support of the Family Library as an organisation, just the recognition of need for one component of its work - the Mobile Library - to be continued by a new structure.

’In deference to this, and the setup of the new board function to take control of delivery of all Library and related services, we plan to hand over all resources that we have purchased over the last nine years (to include books, vehicles, IT etc) without any charge to the new board, including the transition of current staff, without whose expertise and passion, the current high quality of delivery is not possible.’

Said transition of resources and services would need to be completed at the end of the next financial year, on July 31 2022, at which point the Family Library intends to close the charity.

The spokesperson added: ’This ability to provide a smooth transition would be conditional on receiving the £125,000, that we have currently applied for, from the government in August. If there is no body that we can transition the services to by July next year, then all our services will cease operation.’

The full report is available to download from the government website’s consultation page, and people are being encouraged to form their opinions on the conclusions reached by the working party, including:

l The provision of library services should be underpinned by the principles of equity and accessibility to enable everyone on the island to easily access books and services via the island’s libraries

l That libraries are more than just loaning books and that they can, and do, play a role in supporting the most vulnerable in our society

l That libraries and local authorities from across the island should work together to introduce a universal membership card which would enable shared membership and consider a shared IT system to support shared stock

The public libraries consultation is available online through the Consultation Hub and will close on August 20.