2002 Audit CommissionThe Audit Commission is the government body charged with promoting the best use of public money. In 2002, it published a hard-hitting and largely critical report on public libraries, based on the first 36 Best Value inspections of library services. Building Better Library Services states that 'Audit Commission Inspectors have found good progress in some areas…' One is the increased number of ICT terminals for public use and the second is reader development:
'two-thirds of inspections have found good examples of reader development work' This is a tremendous testament to the impact of reader development in libraries in the last ten years. Reader development has moved from being an unknown activity to being recognised by government inspectors in an astonishingly short timeframe. And good practice is so widespread and embedded in services that inspectors found good examples in two-thirds of all cases – this is quite outstanding for a new area. In 2001, the Audit Commission contracted Opening the Book to develop and test a tool to assess the quality of adult fiction stock in a library service. Opening the Book used a reader-centred definition of quality, asking do you have a range of books for all kinds of reading audiences? In 2003, the Audit Commission, the DCMS (Dept of Culture, Media and Sport) and Arts Council England jointly commissioned Opening the Book to update the Stock Tool and adapt it for libraries to use in self-evaluation of their own stock. |
