The general resolution read as follows:
That this House endorse the establishment by Council of a new post of Director of University Library Services and Bodley's Librarian with effect from 1 January 1997, the holder of which shall be charged with:
(1) bringing forward within three years for consideration by Congregation proposals for the creation of an integrated library service that will facilitate the following major objectives:
(a) the distribution of resources within the service to meet users' needs most effectively;
(b) the improvement of the Bodleian's capacity to respond to the needs of users in the University;
(c) the maintenance and development of, and provision of access to, Oxford's historic collections as an international research resource;
(d) the provision of university-wide services such as library automation and electronic media, preservation, and staff development;
(e) the fostering of the qualities of responsiveness, and of flexibility in provision;
(2) responsibility for preparation of the draft budget for the allocation to individual libraries and services of funds currently distributed through the Libraries Board;
(3) overall executive responsibility for automated library services in the University;
(4) responsibility for carrying forward programmes for the preservation of collections in the University's libraries and for the provision of training and professional development for library staff;
and instruct Council to bring forward legislation suspending the present functions of the Libraries Board and the Curators of the Bodleian Library from 1 January 1997 and establishing in their place a Libraries Committee, a Bodleian users' committee, and an advisory committee of professional librarians as described in the explanatory note to this general resolution until such time as alternative arrangements are approved by Congregation.
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In framing the general resolution which I now move on Council's behalf, Council has tried to give full weight to the diverse opinions within the University about the strengths and weaknesses of the library service. It is not, therefore, a resolution which concludes the present phase of debate about Oxford's libraries. It is designed to set up a better machinery than we have at present for carrying that debate forward in a properly informed way; and it is designed at the same time to address some immediate problems. It represents what Council, after consultation, thinks can be done now—and indeed must be done now—to meet urgent and generally recognised needs, and to facilitate constructive planning for the future.
Recent events have amply underlined the impossibility of leaving things as they are. The stresses are too obvious. They have come broadly from two directions: one has been the impact of new technology which has brought increasing demands from users; the other has been a decline in the real value of the funding available for books and other library materials. The system has coped remarkably well under these pressures, thanks largely to the dedication of librarians and library staff. But it would be difficult to argue that the system has been ideally equipped to meet the challenges facing it; and the problems which have arisen in maintaining the level of services and acquisitions, whether in the Bodleian or elsewhere, pose a real threat to the quality of our research and teaching. A recent report to the General Board from the Law Faculty Board, for example, was at pains to spell out the damage which might be done by inadequate library facilities to future research in Law, and it concluded that `The situation is deplorable and calls for a fundamental review of the funding and modus operandi of libraries in Oxford.'
Members of Congregation will be aware that that fundamental review has begun over the past year. It was prompted partly by the conclusions of the Working Party on Information Strategy, chaired by the Warden of Wadham, which argued that there was a need for a University Librarian, in order to achieve more effective management of resources and better co-ordination of common services, including library automation. Review was prompted also by early notice of the forthcoming retirements of Bodley's Librarian, the Deputy Librarian, and the Librarian of the Taylor Institution, which led Council to appoint the Working Party on Senior Library Posts, chaired by the President of Corpus. That working party also concluded by recommending the appointment of a University Librarian; he or she should have executive authority over an integrated library system and be responsible to a single body, a Library Board. It was forced to this conclusion by the fact that—if I may quote its report—`almost all the oral and written evidence we have taken has identified respects in which the status quo needs to be improved ... There will in our view have to be changes.'
The general resolution now before Congregation does not incorporate all the changes proposed by the President's working party, and it is important to stress that at the outset. In particular, the resolution does not propose any particular model for an integrated library structure, whether that outlined by Sir Keith Thomas's group or the more developed alternative presented by the advisory group chaired by the Warden of Rhodes House. The consultation which has taken place over the Thomas Report and then more recently on the Kenny Report has shown the many difficulties which lie in the way of reaching agreement on the degree of integration, and on the details of reorganisation. The two reports showed the kind of reorganisation which might be possible, but it was evident that much more discussion and consultation would be needed before any detailed plan could be acceptable. There were understandable and widely shared fears that a more integrated structure might threaten the responsiveness and flexibility of faculty libraries on the one hand, and the coherence and international reputation of the Bodleian and its collections on the other. There were also unresolved questions about the position of departmental libraries, which vary greatly in character, and there were particular complexities of management to be taken into account in the case of libraries serving the medical community. It was clear that there was a spectrum of possibilities, between a co-ordinated library system in a relatively loose federal structure at one extreme, and a fully integrated library system, with a single management structure, at the other extreme. It was not clear where, along that spectrum, the University should pause.
There was nevertheless a consensus among the majority of those consulted that there was a need for a senior librarian with sufficient authority to address those inadequacies in present arrangements which could immediately be identified; and there was a large body of opinion which thought that that person should have a remit to develop proposals for the most desirable structure for the whole service—proposals which would ultimately have to be approved by Congregation. Council and the General Board are convinced that that is both an essential and the only practicable way forward, and I was glad to find a recent editorial in the Oxford Magazine in substantial agreement. As its Editor says, `it is hard not to agree that there should be a single Director to oversee Oxford's complex library scene', and it should be the Director's job, once in post, to propose any changes for the future.
Congregation is therefore asked to approve, first, the establishment from 1 January 1997 of a new single post of Director of University Library Services and Bodley's Librarian. He or she will be charged with bringing forward proposals for the creation of an integrated library service, having regard, as the resolution says, to the need to develop the existing qualities of responsiveness and flexibility across the system as a whole, to improve its capacity to respond to the University's requirements, and to develop its collections as an international research resource. The Director will have three years in which to fulfil that remit: neither so short a period as to produce hasty, unconsidered solutions, nor so long as to leave the University with a prolonged period of uncertainty about the direction in which it should be moving. Meanwhile, the Director should have overall executive responsibility in areas where it is generally agreed that greater co-ordination is required: in preparation of the budget for what are at present Libraries Board libraries, including the Bodleian, in managing library automation, and in the oversight of staff training and development and the preservation and conservation of library materials. It is also intended that the Director should have access to Council and General Board papers, and be able to put the libraries' case directly to those bodies when that is required.
If the Director is to achieve these goals, Council is agreed that one further change is immediately needed, though this would be an interim measure, pending decision by Congregation on arrangements for the longer term. The new Director will need the support of a single influential body, above and behind him. Congregation is therefore asked, secondly, to instruct Council to bring forward legislation suspending the present Libraries Board and the Bodleian Curators, and replacing them with a single Libraries Committee, a committee which would report jointly to Council and the General Board and have direct access to the Resources Committee. This Libraries Committee might well not be permanent. It might in due course, and in conjunction with the plans developed by the new Director, be replaced by some different body or bodies. But Council and the General Board are in no doubt that if the Director is to do the job which it is generally agreed he must do, he cannot be subject to two masters—Libraries Board and Bodleian Curators. That would be a recipe for continuing tension, and it would perpetuate a situation in which the library sector is unable to speak with a single powerful voice.
The suspension of the Libraries Board and of the Bodleian Curators will have two consequences which require attention. It may be that a Libraries Committee with the composition proposed in the explanatory note will contain fewer librarians than the present Libraries Board. But the committee will need access to a broad span of professional advice. It is therefore proposed that it should have an advisory committee of professional librarians, representative of departmental and college libraries as well as the Bodleian and faculty libraries. The advisory committee's composition and terms of reference are being framed with the advice of the present Libraries Board, and any points made in this debate will be taken into account in drawing them up. Once the general resolution is approved, they will be embodied in the consequential legislation which Council will bring forward.
The suspension of the Curators of the Bodleian similarly involves a loss and presents a more difficult problem. As the explanatory note recognises, there will be a need for a Bodleian `users' committee'—though that may not be the most appropriate title for it. One of its purposes would be to discharge any functions of the curators which were not transferred, as most of them would be, to the new Libraries Committee. Members of Congregation will appreciate that the definition of its terms of reference requires careful thought. The Libraries Board and the curators are being asked to prepare proposals, and, subject again to any points made in this debate, these will be incorporated in the legislation which Council will bring forward once the general resolution is approved.
These new committees are presented, as I have said, as interim arrangements. They will no doubt be altered in the light of plans developed by the new Director and the new Libraries Committee. But they are presented as a structure which will facilitate and not hamper proper attention to the library needs of the whole University; and they reflect a recognition that any proposals for further and permanent change in the future will need to have the full support of library users and of librarians if they are to be accepted by Congregation.
For the present, however, the proposals before Congregation involve no greater changes than those I have described. I should stress that they leave wholly unchanged the various formal arrangements by means of which Libraries Board libraries, other than the Bodleian, are responsive to their users and responsible to them; the independence that those libraries at present enjoy is not affected. It may be that the new Director will produce plans for change, but, as I have indicated, there will be full consultation about them, and they will have to be submitted to Congregation, and be approved by Congregation, before they can be implemented.
I should like to underline this point, since there may be some misunderstanding about it, to judge by a circular which I have seen from the Chairman of the Modern Languages Faculty to all members of his faculty. The circular says that if Congregation approves this resolution, it will be `committing itself to the integration of the Taylorian Library ... into a university-wide system run by an administrator who ... may well have other priorities than serving the research and scholarship of the members of this University'. Mr Vice-Chancellor, Congregation, in agreeing to this resolution, would not be committing itself to any such thing. Any proposals for integration are matters for the future, to be developed by the Director over the next three years and then brought to Congregation; and Council's brief for the Director refers specifically to the needs of the University, to the importance of all library collections as a research resource, and to the need to foster the qualities of responsiveness and flexibility which we all value. Council and the General Board fully recognise the force of the arguments which have been put forward for the success of particular libraries and the advantages which spring from their sense of individual identity. Faculties, and for that matter departments, which are rightly proud of their libraries and the resources invested in them, should not feel threatened by the proposals now before Congregation.
Finally, Mr Vice-Chancellor, I should say something about costs. Fears have been expressed in the course of consultation that the additional costs of these proposals might mean a reduction in the limited funds available for the purchase of books and other library materials. The post of Director will of course have to have an appropriate salary attached to it; the Director will require secretarial support; and there will be a need for additional resources for the Bodleian Library since the Director will be unable to undertake all the responsibilities there at present assumed by Bodley's Librarian. The estimates which have been made, however, do not suggest that the extra recurrent costs will be excessive; and it has been agreed that they should be borne centrally and should not be `top-sliced' from the grant now made to the Libraries Board. There will be no adverse consequences for library budgets. The costs seem to Council and the General Board a small price to pay, and a price which the whole University should willingly pay, for a more effective and efficient library service.
Mr Vice-Chancellor, I have perhaps spoken for too long. But these are important matters, properly of concern to every member of the University. I hope members of Congregation will agree on the need for change, and welcome the present proposals. They take advantage of an opportunity immediately to give the library sector some greater coherence and a more powerful voice in the University; and they provide a mechanism for the formulation of proposals to promote the interests of libraries, and hence of the University as a whole, in the future.
Once the general resolution is approved, Council will establish the new post; it will set up a committee to appoint the first Director, that is a specially nominated body headed by yourself, Mr Vice-Chancellor; and it will bring forward legislation suspending the Libraries Board and Bodleian Curators and instituting the new committees as soon as it can be prepared. I hope that Congregation will give its whole-hearted approval.
Mr Vice-Chancellor, I beg leave to move the general resolution.
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As the Oxford Magazine earlier this term observed, the Libraries Board has long advocated an integrated library system—or, in the words of today's explanatory note, `at the very least, a highly co-ordinated' one. The board has on occasions been suspected of attempting surreptitiously to impose one—as if you could ever get away with that sort of thing in Oxford.
We should start, however, not with systems but with the inescapable fact that library resources, in Oxford and everywhere else, are under pressure, to the extent that in some areas, at least, provision is already in decline. Cuts in government funding to universities have inevitably worked their way down to library level. Last year, in over half the libraries under the aegis of the Libraries Board, spending on acquisitions actually fell. In Michaelmas Term everyone was rightly alarmed at the letter from Bodley's Librarian outlining the severe cuts that were being imposed on all parts of the Bodleian. And there is worse to come. The progressive erosion of the HEFCE recurrent grant and the savage reduction in capital funding—of over 50 per cent over three years—will both have their effect.
It is small consolation to know that by anyone else's standards we are comparatively well off. Oxford continues to devote proportionately more of its resources to its libraries than any other British university. But even that is a double-edged sword. As the Chairman of the General Board has observed, the University's investment in automation makes our collections ever more visible to the outside world, and it is clear that the huge rises in the use of the Bodleian, in particular, are significantly the result of scholars from other universities having to turn to Oxford's libraries where formerly they would have found what they what they needed in their own.
For our own self-protection we must ensure that our library resources are deployed and managed in the most effective way. And it has to be said that the fragmentation of our current system (with over 100 separate libraries across the University), whatever its attractions in some respects, in others makes that difficult to achieve. Largely, again, as a result of automation, patterns of library use have changed—and continue to change rapidly. New issues constantly arise concerning the services that readers expect libraries to offer, and we have to address them, not library by library but across the University at large.
Precisely what shape an `integrated library system' might eventually take is difficult to foresee, and it is this structural question that has aroused the most misgivings in responses to the Thomas Report and, more particularly, to the managerial model put forward in the succeeding Kenny proposals. In any event, it has become clear that it would be premature to try to define now any managerial structure. Developments will need to grow from within, not by the implementation of a blue-print arbitrarily determined in advance. The first essential step must be the identification of someone charged with the responsibility of overseeing that process of growth and with sufficient authority to get on with the job.
That is the substance of the general resolution. It was also the chief thrust behind both the Thomas and the Kenny Reports. The main sense of direction is clear. In responding to the Thomas Report, the Libraries Board agreed to support wholeheartedly those central objectives, subject only to certain understandings. Some of them concerned details of implementation and nomenclature, which are no longer the subject of today's debate. There were, however, three general matters on which reassurance was sought. The first was a concern shared by almost all respondents, that any changes should benefit library users and should not result in any loss of the responsiveness at present enjoyed by readers. The second was closely related to it, seeking acknowledgement that in any future organisation there would continue to be a large measure of delegated powers: the day-to-day operation of individual libraries—and also local priorities—can only realistically be handled at local level; for purely practical reasons the faculty libraries, for example, need to retain functions and identities of their own. The third was a matter that has not been raised by other respondents but one to which the Libraries Board attaches great importance, namely that pursuit of the central objectives does not assume the adoption of a `common stock' policy, amalgamating material received by legal deposit and loan collections.
On all these matters reassurance has been readily given. There is now the opportunity to accelerate the development of a better-co-ordinated and more effective network, which even in straitened circumstances will protect the standards of library provision to which we aspire. It is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.
Mr Vice-Chancellor, I beg leave to second the general resolution.
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`(1)The faculty sees no reason to change its previous commitment to separate, and separately administered, libraries on the main Taylorian site.'
Carried: 19 for; 1 against; 4 abstentions.
`(2)The faculty believes that it has as yet received no clear indications of advantages to come from further integration of the Taylorian Library with the Bodleian, but remains open to further discussion.'
Carried, nem. con.
After the publication of the Thomas Report, the Oxford Magazine (Fourth-Week issue, Michaelmas Term 1995) published a letter from seven of the library staff of the Taylorian, who include five members of the faculty, expressing their anxiety about the changes proposed in the Thomas Report and pointing out that all the advantages of the present system, as listed in the report, concern the library's readers, while all the advantages claimed for the proposed new system are of a managerial nature.
The Kenny Report went a further step down the line towards integration. Furthermore, the Kenny Report designated the present post of the Librarian of the Taylor Institution as the one which could be restructured to head the Humanities Division. The report also envisaged that ultimately the pre-1850 printed books would be housed separately from those dating from 1850 and after.
Although the Kenny Report was published too late to allow it to be included on the agenda for the Michaelmas Term 1995 meeting of the Modern Languages Faculty, a straw vote was taken on the following motion:
`The faculty reaffirms its support for the motions passed at the faculty meeting of 21 November 1994.'
That motion was carried nem. con.
In the explanatory note prefaced to the text of today's general resolution in the Gazette, Council envisages that the Director of Library Services `would have sufficient authority to address those features of the present arrangements for library provision which the Thomas Report identified as being generally acknowledged to be unsatisfactory'. I would like to remind you that the Thomas Committee listed the following advantages of the present Taylorian Library and its annexes:
(a) open access to stock;
(b) lending facilities;
(c) requisite reader and subject-specific services on-site;
(d) other services such as self-service photocopying;
(e) devolved management allowing a rapid response to teaching and research needs; and
(f) faculty input to the management of the library.
(To the advantages mentioned above one could add the presence of a Librarian who is a renowned scholar in the field of the European book.)
The Thomas Committee did not identify a single feature of the Taylorian Library that was `generally acknowledged to be unsatisfactory'. You will recall that the Editor of the Oxford Magazine, who is a member of the Modern Languages Faculty and who very much regrets being unable to be here today to voice his dissent from the general resolution, wrote in his editorial in the Noughth-Week issue of this term that anyone reading the Thomas Report would think that Modern Languages `is still enjoying the Golden Age'; he goes on to state that the Thomas Report justifies change merely `by assertions of the need for change'. Can we not let well alone (`well' meaning the Taylorian Library, at least) while the Bodleian sorts out its own problems?
Together with a number of other members of the Modern Languages Faculty, I am anxious to ensure that the Taylor Institution Library is safeguarded as a unitary collection and managed and run by expert staff.
We very much fear that, once the Director of Library Services is appointed and makes his or her proposals for the creation of an integrated library service, we are going to be faced with the prospect of a huge, unwieldy, and unresponsive library system run by managers who are removed from their readers and staffed by librarians who are not specialists in the area of study to which their books pertain. There is already a high degree of co-ordination, through the on-line catalogue and through inter-library committees, regarding ordering and cataloguing. But, invaluable as it is, universally available information in electronic form is no substitute for the experience, expertise, knowledge, and wisdom of specialised library staff who are allocated to specific subject collections.
Today's general resolution entails the integration of the other university libraries into the Bodleian system, seemingly on the grounds that the present arrangement gives the appearance of administrative untidiness.
Mr Howells, who is the librarian in charge of the Slavonic and Greek sections of the Taylorian, is, I believe, going to speak at some time later, and I would end by saying that, had Mr Howells and I been well-versed in the ways of Congregation, as we are not, we would have given notice that we would be opposing today's general resolution. Unfortunately, we failed to do so by the deadline of noon on Monday last week. Nevertheless, we are organising a `twelve-member resolution' relating specifically to the Taylor Institution Library and the Modern Languages Faculty Library; the text of this resolution will be handed in by noon next Monday so that it can be debated at the 5 March meeting of Congregation.
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They believe that there are many difficult questions of detail still to be sorted out, even for the interim three-year period. The rather general proposals in the resolution about two new committees, one of Bodleian users and one of professional librarians, might, if these committees were given much power, replace the present complicated management system by one which would be truly baroque. They hope that Council and the General Board will be flexible in discussions about the purposes, powers, and reporting structures of these committees.
And they are sad, of course, to be supporting a resolution which will suspend and is expected eventually to abolish their existence, thus acting like so many turkeys voting for Christmas. While supporting their own abolition in this way, they believe, passionately, that the University must ensure that their main curatorial statutory duty should be passed on and treated most seriously both by the interim committee and by whatever body eventually replaces it. That main duty, Mr Vice-Chancellor, is that of maintaining the library not only as a university library but also as an institution of national and international importance.
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For the changes implicit in the general resolution, and made explicit in the Thomas and Kenny Committee Reports which the resolution seeks to implement, are truly visionary. They propose the most fundamental and revolutionary changes to the library system in the entire history of this University. The resolution before this House mentions only the appointment of the Director of University Library Services, but the Kenny Report names no fewer than eight further senior appointments—an Assistant Director, a Head of Administrative Division, a Head of Technical Services, a Head of Reader Services, a Head of Special Collections, a Head of Humanities, a Head of Social Sciences, a Head of Science/Medicine. It is reasonable to assume that each of these administrators will require his or her deputy administrator, and, of course, they will need secretarial support. We can easily envisage the creation of twenty or even thirty additional posts. One can only hope that the cost implications of these reports and the general resolution have been thoroughly investigated. We must beware of following in the footsteps of the National Health Service, with reading-rooms being closed, readers' seats empty, and library assistants being made redundant for the sake of this battalion of managers—our bureaucratic `tail'.
We learnt from The Oxford Times a couple of weeks ago that Bodley's book-buying fund had been reduced by £100,000. We know that the University is facing the imposition of savage cuts in coming years, as Dr Olleson has pointed out. The Labour front-bench spokesman for education has indicated that restoration of university cuts will not be a priority of an incoming Labour Government. The University is therefore facing a period of financial difficulties that will very likely go on for years. Is this really then a `window of opportunity'? I suggest that there has hardly been a more unpropitious time for the visionary measures now proposed.
Council presents the present arrangement of Oxford libraries as a kind of anarchic multiplicity, where each library pursues its own irresponsible policy, that needs to be brought into proper order—`integrated' is the word they use. In order to bring this about, they propose to appoint a Director of University Library Services, who will be called `Bodley's Librarian', and be paid more than Bodley's present librarian. But he will not have time to see to the daily running of the Bodleian because his brief is to `integrate' the other libraries in the system. He will be a sort of `good shepherd' who, with his assistant shepherds, whom I have already mentioned, is to bring the `lost and strayed sheep'—people like myself—into the integrated fold.
What is the present state of the library system? Leaving aside the college libraries, which are not really part of the equation, my understanding is that there are three types of libraries in Oxford: departmental, faculty, and research libraries. Departmental libraries are particularly associated with the scientific field, and consist of anything from a couple of shelves of books at the end of a laboratory to a roomful. Neither the Thomas Report nor the Kenny Report was certain what attitude to take towards them, as they are funded departmentally and not by the Libraries Board. Faculty libraries are for the use of undergraduates, and contain, in my field at least, multiple copies of texts and secondary literature based on the teaching curriculum. The Thomas Committee, at least, declared that it would leave the administration and responsibility for these libraries untouched, as well as their functioning.
That leaves us with the central research libraries. These consist of the Bodleian, the Taylor Institution Library, the Cairns, the Ashmolean, and the Institute of Economics and Statistics. All the non-Bodleian research libraries are subject-specific, specialist research collections catering in the main for a particular clientele. I am reliably informed, by a senior member of the Bodleian, that over 83 per cent of Libraries Board librarians are already `integrated', in as much as they are already employed by the Bodleian and its dependencies. Therefore, it seems to us that all these proposed revolutionary changes are aimed at the integration of the four autonomous research libraries, which together account for about 11 or 12 per cent of the total library staff of the University. These are libraries whose readers, as far as I am aware, are perfectly happy with the way they function at the moment.
So the Director of University Library Services is going to spend his time, at least initially, dragging us, kicking and screaming, into the integrated network. What kind of integrated network? Presumably the Bodleian integrated network. I suppose we ought to feel terribly flattered that this highly paid super-librarian and his colleagues are going to spend all their time seeing to us. That so much, will be done by so many, for the sake of so relatively few. The irony, of course, is that we do not need his help. We already have perfectly competent management systems. We already liaise with our colleagues in the Bodleian, either personally or via the CLIPs. We already co-ordinate our acquisitions and our cataloguing.
The people who do need Bodley's Librarian are, of course, the people in Bodley. The complaints aired from time to time in the Oxford Magazine are directed against our poor colleagues there. The praise is directed towards the Taylorian. It is curious the way the same editorial is referred to by Dr Slack as being in favour of integration, but I regard it as in fact being in favour of the non-integration of the Taylorian, referring to a `Golden Age' for modern linguists. Even the Thomas Committee singled out the Taylorian for special commendation, saying that the Bodleian should achieve the same level of responsiveness as the Taylorian!
Members of Congregation, we at the Taylorian are not morally superior, not more hard-working, not more dedicated, than our counterparts in the Bodleian. It is simply that any relatively small, specialist research library will inevitably do better by its readers than a vast universal library such as the Bodleian, however well managed. But it is precisely these successful libraries that it is wished to `integrate', whose managerial autonomy it is wished to destroy.
The Thomas and Kenny Reports address important issues of substance. They single out elements of the library system that could, with great benefit, be centralised in some way. I refer to the problem of conservation, library automation, training, and information technology. We already have a Library Automation Team, which, I may say, has been shamefully underfunded in the past, with one man being responsible for servicing fifty-seven libraries. It seems to me perfectly feasible that equivalent agencies might be established, in Bodley, if you like, but not necessarily of Bodley, which could help and advise librarians in these areas. This seems to me particularly pertinent in the case of information technology, which is taking an increasingly, even unacceptably, large proportion of library finances and staff time. IT needs to be limited by a set annual budget, or I fear it will consume us all. But the kind of libraries that are important to this University are not about information technology. They are not about staff development. They are not even necessarily about great national collections of rare books. These libraries are about readers.
Mr Vice-Chancellor, I stand here before you in this House when I would much rather be with my books and readers. I am not here on my own behalf. I have no personal interest in the outcome of these deliberations. Nor even am I here because I believe that the Taylorian necessarily has a divine right to continue its autonomous existence come what may. No, I am here on behalf of the users of the library—our readers. It is they who wish the Taylorian to continue as it is. It is they who have expressed an extraordinary degree of solidarity with, and loyalty towards, us librarians. It is they who have voted overwhelmingly as a faculty time after time to preserve the status quo, whose faculty board and curators have expressed the very strongest reservations about the proposed changes.
I appeal to members of Council, indeed I beg them, to consider that libraries exist for the sake of their readers, and listen to their voice, if they will not listen to mine.
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The Bodleian Library and its senior staff have sometimes had the reputation of not welcoming change. We want to make clear, however, that we—like the Curators of the Library—are firmly behind this resolution; and we do not see it as integrating everything else into the Bodleian system as imagined by the two speakers from the Modern Languages Faculty we have heard. We believe that an integrated management structure for those libraries which are funded by the University is the way forward, and that such a development will make more sense of certain changes within Bodley's existing management structure which are needed but which are not easily introduced while Bodley stands alone. We do not believe that an integrated structure need lead to a loss of identity or individuality in any part of the system. Indeed, we believe that the system should be so constructed as to allow each library to play to its strengths and to be able to cater with more flexibility and responsiveness to the needs of all our users. If the new organisation does not do this, it will truly not be worth constructing.
But I would remind members of Congregation that it is the Bodleian's duty to cater as well for that `republic of the learned' beyond the University for whom, as well as for the University of Oxford, the Bodleian was founded; for whom, as well as for the University of Oxford, it acquired the privilege of legal deposit; and who, throughout its history—and very notably in the last eight years of campaigning—have shown it great loyalty and financial support. The University is now in receipt of £1.1m a year from HEFCE (over 15 per cent of the Bodleian's annual grant from the Libraries Board) which is conditional upon the needs of that other clientele being catered for in the Bodleian: and it is of interest to note that in 1994–5, while the Bodleian issued new reader's cards to 5,222 undergraduates, graduates, and senior members of the University, it issued new reader's cards to 8,132 non-members of the University. They, too, must not be sold short. The University has a huge amount to lose if it is thought in the world beyond our walls that it is setting about to weaken a foundation which has been one of the jewels in its crown for four centuries.
That said, we believe that the passing of this resolution need not threaten this position, as it need not threaten the efficiency or effectiveness of any other library in a system under an integrated management and with one overall Director. We do not underestimate the difficulties of the next three years as we work towards a desirable end—but we do believe the end to be desirable, and we will be anxious to play our part over the next few months in constructing the decrees which will carry today's decision into effect.
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On another matter, I hope that the University will not too readily stop its librarians from having direct access to the new Libraries Committee. At the moment, any members of Congregation, including librarians, can become members of the Libraries Board. This has been suggested as being something which should specifically be excluded for the new Libraries Committee. I would hope that Congregation might in the future consider this again in the light of the excellent service which has been given by many elected librarians on the Libraries Board in the past.
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In the meantime I would just like to ask for clarification about one point—that is the responsibility in the interim of the new post for the preparation of the draft budget. At the moment the budget is discussed at the Libraries Board Finance and General Purposes Committee and then at the board itself, both of which currently have quite strong library representation, after which the budget goes forward to the General Board. But if the Libraries Board is to be suspended, where is the budget to be discussed in the interim? Precisely how will financial decisions be made in this interim period? I hope it will be possible for Dr Slack to comment on this later.
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I appreciate, Mr Vice-Chancellor, that there are some members of Congregation, those who spoke from the Modern Languages Faculty, who would have wished to vote against the general resolution, if notice had been given early enough for our statutes to have allowed it. I fully understand their sense of frustration, although I am sure they will agree that the University must be bound by its statutes on procedures in Congregation just as it is bound by its statutes with respect to the governance of its libraries. I should like to suggest, however, that the most substantial of the points they have made have not been directed against the general resolution now before Congregation. They have been directed against those parts of the Thomas and Kenny Reports, particularly their proposals with regard to integration, which are not incorporated in this resolution. They seem to me, with respect, to be contributions to an argument which will take place much later: when the new Director is in post and presents his proposals, no doubt towards the end of the interim three-year period. I have of course a great deal of sympathy with many of the points made. I too hope, with Dr Mackridge and others, that the present advantages of the Taylorian and other research libraries, and indeed faculty libraries, will remain. I also feel strongly that the research collections of the Bodleian and other libraries must be maintained and enhanced.
Where I differ from some of those who have spoken is in finding it impossible to believe that a new Director and a new Libraries Committee would destroy the obvious virtues in the present library service. Those are matters for much later discussion, however. They should not prevent us taking the positive steps now before us—which will bring immediate benefits in terms of co-ordinated services and professional training, and provide an interim structure which will allow full consideration and consultation about our strategy—if I might use Dr Stevenson's very appropriate term—for the future.
Some points have been made about the proposed interim structure itself, about the committees and their composition, and here, as I indicated, there is opportunity for reflection in the light of this debate.
On the question raised by the English Faculty Librarian about the budget, the general resolution makes it clear that it is for the Director to prepare the draft budget (and it would be a draft) which would be submitted for consideration by the new Libraries Committee. How the new Libraries Committee chooses to seek advice after that seems to me a matter for it, and there is at present no intention to legislate on the subject. I would simply stress that the Director produces a draft, and the Libraries Committee then considers it.
Ms Chapman raised a question about the composition of the appointing committee for the new post of Director, Mr Vice-Chancellor. I am sure that Congregation would not wish me to commit you, Sir, on its precise membership, but I take note of the points she made about other ways in which librarians and library staff might be involved when an appointment comes to be made.
Some reference has been made to the cost of the new arrangements, and I tried to address that issue in my opening remarks; but there is a more important point here, and it is one which has been referred to surprisingly little in this debate, save by Dr Olleson. It seems to me vital that the library service should be able to fight to protect and add to its resources, and a single Libraries Committee, reporting to Council and the General Board and with direct access to the Resources Committee, will be in a far better position to do that than the present Libraries Board.
Finally, Mr Vice-Chancellor, the debate today, like the consultation which preceded it, has underlined the dilemma which faces proponents of change in these circumstances, and which I imagine may often be in the mind of your own Commission of Inquiry. If proposals are too detailed, they may fail because there seems to be no room for discussion and modification of the detail; if the proposals are too general, they are open to the objection that they involve uncertain and unspecified, but wholly threatening, consequences. I continue to believe that Council has reached the right balance in this particular case. It has seized an opportunity which will not quickly recur for the appointment of a single Director and Librarian, and it proposes interim arrangements to support the Director in a job that urgently needs to be done.
I hope members of Congregation—outside this House as well as those who have been here today—will warmly welcome the general resolution.
No notice of opposition having been given by the prescribed time, Mr Vice-Chancellor then declared the resolution carried without question put under the provisions of Tit. II, Sect. V, cl. 8 (Statutes, 1995, p. 11).
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