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Funding and governance of library and information services for visually impaired people: international case studies
Part I: Summary Report
Policy formation and governance Governmental responsibility
In the survey we asked respondents to describe which ministry or ministries were responsible for these services. The picture was, as in the funding and the model, quite clear in some countries and very complex in others.
Single authority
Sweden - Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs
Denmark - Ministry of Culture
Netherlands - Department of Culture, part of Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
Croatia - Ministry of Culture
Korea - Ministry of Culture
Multiple authorities
UK - Department of Culture Media and Sport, Department for Education and Science, Department of Trade and Industry, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, plus additional bodies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
South Africa - Department of Arts and Culture (national libraries); provincial and local government (local libraries)
Canada - no one federal ministry has responsibility but Library and Archives Canada is co-ordinating efforts to address the issue
USA - Library of Congress, Department for Education, state authorities
Australia - points of responsibility at both federal and state level in the Department of Family and Community Services and in the Department for Education, Science and Training
Japan - public libraries come under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; special libraries come under the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare
Accountability and measuring success
Success is often measured on an organisation by organisation basis, using criteria chosen by the organisation itself, or put in place by the funding organisation. These may include: percentage of target population reached; cost; range and depth of material produced; speed of supply and users' views of the service provided.
Organisations in the following countries had the most comprehensive formal standards which were mandated by funders:
- The Netherlands
- Sweden
- Denmark
The NLS in the USA reviews its regional network libraries regularly using American Library Association standards relating to library services for disabled people; the NLS nationally is reviewed periodically by the Librarian of Congress and as part of that it conducts a survey of its users.
Vision Australia measures performance using Key Performance Indicators, based on comparisons with like organisations, used to benchmark and improve services year on year. These include user satisfaction; speed of supply; professionalism of staff; service effectiveness in relation to mission and values of the organisation. University libraries in Australia also try to measure their success in serving this group of users, often by surveys.
CNIB in Canada currently focuses on the proportion of visually impaired people reached; the range and depth of material available; speed of supply and users' views of the service. There are plans for national targets to be set by Libraries and Archives Canada.
Blindlib in South Africa reported having its own measures in place which it uses for internal and external reporting, but that there were not any general measures in public libraries or for national provision.
Japan
Japanese respondents said that there had been recent efforts by some public libraries to assess their performance using formal methods, but services to visually impaired people were rarely specifically included.
UK
In the UK, special libraries have their own targets and measures. For example, the NLB has targets for range and depth; speed of supply; proportion of users reached; cost; and user satisfaction. These are adjusted annually. The Calibre Audio Library has targets in relation to speed of turnaround of materials and user satisfaction.
The measures used by UK public libraries are all centred on the Public Library Standards, Culture Block of the Comprehensive Performance Assessments and Impact Measures. These are all generic indicators which don't necessarily identify such services. Any specific measurement is local. It is possible for a specific question on services to visually impaired people to be added to the general library satisfaction surveys which are carried out, but there is no evidence of libraries actually doing so.
Some respondents said there were no formal methods in place to measure how successful these services were:
- Croatia
- Korea
Participation of visually impaired people in operations and leadership
Though there is consistently some representation on boards and among employees, both in specialist and public libraries, it was not always the case that this was substantial, and certainly there is no clear trend to increasing participation. In one case, it was reported as decreasing. Another respondent pointed out the problem that elderly users, who form the majority, are under-represented.
Policy formation
Policies are influenced by wider social and cultural changes such as anti-discrimination laws, which in turn are partly brought about by grass-roots action. They are also influenced by overall trends in the way different countries organise government functions e.g. centralisation and devolved powers and the money that goes with them.
It is difficult to generalise about policy formation as it is closely bound up with the models of organisation. Where a single ministry is responsible for services which are delivered via state organisations (Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden) it is fairly straightforward to identify who is making policy, though of course, many other organisations, including those representing user groups, are involved as well. In other models, there is general government policy on disability issues and also policy governing education and public libraries, which impacts on the operations of special libraries and in which they are likely to have opportunities to submit views or be formally part of partnerships. Copyright policy is made by governments with input from stakeholders including rightsowners; these tend to have more influence in some countries than others and also to concern themselves not only with protecting rights against unlawful copying but also with territorial rights. Copyright is of course also the subject of international agreements.
In both Canada and Australia, bodies have been established to try form coherent policies which include all the stakeholders.
In Canada the first step was a task force on Access to Information for Print-Disabled Canadians, which in turn led to a Council on Access to Information for Print-Disabled Canadians comprising representatives of librarians, producers of materials, users, and service providers. This body gave rise both to the proposed network of equitable library services and the e-clearinghouse described elsewhere in the report.
In Australia, there is a Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities which has a membership representing education, government, business, alternate format producers, community and disability organisations throughout Australia and New Zealand, and a mission: "To facilitate and influence the production and use of quality alternative formats for people with print disabilities by optimising the evolving Round Table body of knowledge."