Author: Dave Quigley
Library Service Feedback Form: Have Your Completed One Yet?
2:33 pm Tuesday, 19th July, 2011, Isle of Wight
ShortURL: http://wig.ht/28Iz
Read More- Budget Cuts, Community, Island-wide, Isle of Wight Council, Library, News
Friends of Isle of Wight Libraries have been in touch asking if we can help raise awareness of the library service feedback form. In their own words, Ed
To help fully assess the implications of the closures of the five libraries or the loss of hours in the remaining four, comments are needed to be given to the Isle of Wight council about the likely impact on you and your family.
Feedback forms can be found in all the libraries, boxes can be ticked and comments put on the form and a separate sheet if necessary, no name or address is required.
Confidential survey
This is confidential, as some questions ask if you have an illness or disability that limits your activities, meaning are you able to still travel or find another library that you can go to if your local library closes or when your local library has limited hours?
It is important that as many people as possible who feel they will no longer have the opportunity to use a library service fills in these forms, they can then be left at the library for collection, or sent to library headquarters.
The feedback forms can also be completed online.
This ends on 31st July 2011.
It’s a very good idea; but as usual, the Council won’t take a blind bit of notice of public opinion. Best thing you can do is to save yourself a bit of money by getting some forms, tearing them in half, punching a hole through the corners and thread them on string and hang them in an appropriate room in your house. If you were brought up on Bronco or Izal, this’ll take you back to your childhood.
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Have you seen the form? More space is devoted to issues of sexuality and ethnicity than to asking the right question at the top. I wonder how many library users in Brighstone are currently undertaking gender reassignment and exactly what that has to do with your use of the library service?
Have you also considered that the forms (written or sent in on line) are anonymous so how are they monitored, are some likely to be ‘lost’ and indeed how many multiple returns could one individual make?
All very dodgy…
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i agree these forms are not perfect, but the questions are part of the equality act, but there is a serious side to this, for those people who will be disadvantaged if they no longer can access a library service , due to health /age / disabilities or even financial reasons, then you can put those reasons on the forms, the council will then have to acknowledge all of the reasons, and if it then becomes apparent the impact is too great on these groups of people , the council will then have some explaining to do as to why they decided to close 5 of the libraries before local residents had been given a chance to give them this information. if you ignore this when you have genuine cause to explain the impact on you and your families lives , you will be letting the council off the hook.
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exactly the same points we have made- as they are anonymous the council could get 5000 and say they only got 43. Of course the other way, eveyone could fill in 10 each with different pens, or on line as many as you like as there’s no check. It only goes to prove how pointless this exercise is- just like all the other council “consultations”. The dim wits at county hall have absolutely no idea how to construct a consultation questionaire that has any real meaning!
Whatever, please send in the forms, as many as possible, the important parts are the comments box at the top and the two questions in the disability box. The rest have no real significance with regard to libraries!
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I agree Dave. We have no option but to fill in the forms honestly. Just be aware that honesty has not been a virtue displayed by this council and we should be prepared for anything.
But can someone please tell me quite what relevance my gender reassignment decision has on my ability to visit the library. I’d really like to know.
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This is more money being wasted on yet another meaningless stunt? Especially when the Council have already decided to close the libraries and legal action is looming.
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The results of the ‘customer’ feedback could ensure that the council are not able to close the libraries they wish to. I am sure that a good response to the feedback forms will be vital to the campaign to save the libraries.
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I would have thought that one question that could have appeared, would have been along the lines of
” In the event that this library is closed, how would you continue to access the library service that you presently have ?” This could have led to replies about transport to the nearest open library, the costs involved, the ease of making a journey if disabled or elderly. Other contributors I am sure could suggest further questions that would constitute a more sensible questionnaire. The apparently politically-correct tick boxes are irrelevant to be able to use a library.
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you cannot be serious man! The IWC putting questions that would get the answers they don’t want! Whatever are you thinking about?
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i suggest anyone not happy with this form should contact library headquarters and complain making your comments known, keep all copies of your emails and any replies, forward them then onto dave quigly, if this again is flawed , we can hopefully use it in the legal challenge.
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Instead of all this milarky wasting money on legal action and pointless exercises such as this, why not just have a simple form that asks the Island people, “Do you support the Council’s decision to save money by closing the libraries”.
If Pugh and the Council leaders believe in democracy as they suggest, then they should have nothing to fear and simply accept the majority decision.
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What is it with all this talk of libraries “closing”? Every time I visit my local library it is full of increasingly competent and extremely cheerful volunteers being trained by librarians to run it in the future. Far from closing, I can see my library actually improving with the goodwill and partication of the local community. Please stop peddling this story that libraries will close.
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As Ronald Reagan once said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet”.
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All very well at first, but the conditions of the leases leave much to be desired, the volunteers themselves are great, no problem with that, but who will pay the ever increasing costs of these volunteer libraries? If the buildings remained in council control and one paid council member of staff was kept on at each library- then volunteers could really come into their own and definitely improve the service. Every family in East Cowes, whether they use the library or not, has, since April been paying the IWC for a comprehensive library service through their council tax. and on top of that have been paying East Cowes Town Council an extra 21% on the council tax precept! Why pay twice for one service and then be expected to pay for building maintenance on top?
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exactly, the worry is not the volunteers, but the financial burden on the community groups, who may have to pay for the up keep of their library out their own pocket,,, bembridge has something like 15,000 per year to find,, not so easy when everyone is having to make cuts, the council tax you pay is already going towards library services, including management, some are now paying more due to the rise in the precept, and then being asked to pay yet more into the up keep of the buildings maintenance, not to mention electric ,water, heating , insurance, tax, broadband ect , so it depends if you are one of those who just use the library, or one of those who may have to foot the bill, this is what will decide if libraries are to close or not .
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