to think toddler time is a basic part of a library service...

[stella1w]

I think a library should be able to spare someone for 30 mins a week to read stories to toddlers etc as part of their basic service as it helps with pre-literacy etc etc.
Now to help cut the massive council deficit, parents are being asked for a donation (under a headline of CHARGES on the poster) at toddler time.
I'm on unpaid maternity leave and while I will happily just not donate, think it sends out the wrong message to other hardup mums who may just decide not to take their kids along.

I think it's nice to have a toddler time (ours is very popular), but with services being cut it's just once of those things really.

As already suggested, why don't you volunteer and maybe get some other mums to do the same. I did some reading at DS's nursery and although it's not something I'm particularly good at, it was really enjoyable. All those little faces hanging on your every word. Absolutely brilliant!

You could see if there are any local drama students or out-of-work actors who are willing to volunteer. It would be good for their CVs.

Dear God!!!! They're asking you to pay for a service you want to avail of?BROKEN BRITAIN!

I loved baby and toddler rhyme time when DS was a baby - when he had colic it was the only time that he was quiet. It got me out the house and was more than just "reading" to him - we did nursery rhymes and singing. It was fab and helped me bond more with DS than anything as it was the only time in the week when neither of us was stressed or upset.

Now the library is still open, but with reduced hours. However, they share with a childrens centre and they are the ones that run the rhyme time. I agree that it is a good way of getting babies/children into the library but it is a nice to have. I second the volunteer group. However be wary of things like health and safety and safeguarding children. When DD was little and the library staff were running it, they sometimes got stressed when kids ran off as they were not allowed to touch them. Made it very difficult for them when DD tried to run out one day!

Sure Start run the toddler rhyme time in our library. It is billed as half an hour but by the time everyone has finished chatting etc it is normally about an hour and a half before they all leave.

What happens is that libraries are set targets at the start of each financial year and are told what they have to concentrate on. eg - This year you need to engage with older people who don't use the library (so they might run a computer course). Or 7-13 year old reluctant readers (so they might invite a small group from a local school in and do an activity). They also have occasions to recognise (eg Black History Month) so they will have to offer an activity based on that.

Libraries are judged on their performance and evidence of their engagement with these named groups. In this way they can keep their budgets and their staff. So if toddlers aren't on the target list of groups the library will not get funding or recognition from management and budget holders if they run a toddler activity.

That is not to say that if a library assistant feels the urge they could do a story session as and when. But it is not part of their remit.

Where do you live???

I have never heard of anyone charging at sessions in public libraries. All activities and Toddler Times are free here.
YANBU to not want to pay. Have they brought in an outside agency or something?

I volunteered to do this six years ago and it is very popular. However not many staff want to do this in my area. Of course it doesn't have to be a librarian! Most of the staff ON THE FRONTLINE rushed off their feet with a brush up their arse, are library assistants on shit money. Over the years more and more posts are disestablished as more and more gets put on frontline staff. Same old story.

25% of our workforce will have left by the end of this month from cuts, severance pay and early retirement. In our branches we are down to two staff and we have to do everything including security of the building. There are no librarians.

I am gobsmacked that people actually sit and watch staff who are lazy. Clearly they are overstaffed and need to come to the North West where we are on the bones of our arse!

Oh and Surestart used to do many of these sessions in our libraries and did fantastic work.

They all lost their jobs in May.

@ thisisyesterday for you loon
Obviously I need to learn to read your mind...
Though, even if I did, it is ignorant to think that charging is not part of a bigger picture.
The libraries should not have to resort to this, closing them, making librarians redundant and cutting services is scandalous.

We have story-time at our library. Its under threat and may stop in the next few weeks. We have taken dd for three years. The parents have offered to pay but its been declined. We are not offering to do it ourselves as they are making the lovely lady who runs it redundant and it just seems wrong. Before you ask I read to my daughter everyday but I know a lot of he people who go would never have taken their children into the library in the first place if it hadn't been for story- time so I do believe it has a place .

As the person who tells stories (and sings songs, makes brews, chats to old people, helps people with filling in forms, takes council tax payments, hands out free condoms, collects parking ticket money, gives Bookstart Bags to babies, helps teenagers with their homework, moves the junkies out of the toilets, supports VIP, HIP and ESOL users AND runs Reading Groups)....deep breath, anyway, as that person, half of this thread makes me bubble with joy that so many people value the library service and half makes me confused that people wouldn't be willing to support an additional services with a small voluntary donation. The Public Libraries and Museum's Act 1964 makes public library services a statutory duty for local authorities. Councils must: Provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons in the area that want to make use of it, Promote the service and Lend books and other printed material free of charge for those who live, work or study in the area that's all. Everything else we do is additional (and important)

It's true OP, you do already pay for ALL Local Authority Services in your Council Tax, but that doesn't form the entirity of the Council's budget, and in my Authority the money received from central Govt has been cut massively and therefore the Library Service, along with all other depts, has a greatly reduced budget. For us this means that posts which have been empty for over a year due to retirement or people moving on have not been filled, and some of my good friends and colleagues are being made redundant. We are trying to maintain a service with fewer staff and fewer resources - this includes books, but also could include hours open, money for refreshments, toys, photocopying colouring sheets...

I also think it's important to remember that not everyone can deliver a good, entertaining, quality storytime. I think it's a real skill to be able to read engagingly - it's a performance, a talent. I'm fantastic at it, and I make it look easy but I've been well trained and have a lot of experience. Maybe the two Library Assistants you observed doing 'nothing' for an hour haven't had that training, don't have that experience.

Anyway, let's hope the library is still here when your kids are grown up so that they can take their kids to storytime. I'm genuinely worried it won't be.

Yay for LibrarianAli! We would love to provide more services like this but unfortunately we're carrying so many vacancies due to cuts there's no chance.

We haven't the staff, and that's the top and bottom of it.
And as for sitting around for an hour - are you freaking kidding me?! If I get a full lunch I consider myself lucky.

This makes me furious. I am the kind of parent who reads to her child and sings and does craft. However, I still went to our local rhyme time not least because it got me out of the house and meeting other adults with similarly aged children giving a bit of routine, structure, company etc. This was me with my 4th child. And if I needed that, then so much more so did the very young mums who were there, the first time mums without much in the way of family or peer group, the mums with English as their second language (of whom there were a significant number).

This exceedingly popular and well attended service - 30 minutes once a week - was cut and then reinstated haphazardly and it was a real loss. So I wouldn't particularly notice £1 a week but there were others there who would.

When it was first cut I volunteered to do it and a couple of other v musical mums said that they would be happy to rotate. The council wouldn't permit it on their premises (i.e. the library) because we weren't trained by the official Bookbug team ... (nor would we be allowed to). This small service got people into the library, perhaps kickstarted singing/reading to their child (and exposing them to the wider library services), got people talking and making friends.

Volunteering isn't as easy as you think!

Librarianall- The Public Libraries and Museum's Act 1964 makes public library services a statutory duty for local authorities. Councils must: Provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons in the area that want to make use of it, Promote the service and Lend books and other printed material free of charge for those who live, work or study in the area that's all. Everything else we do is additional (and important)

A genuine question ( I really don't want to dismiss anything you have said because I agree and as I have said before, funding should be there, libraries shouldn't have to ask for contributions, jobs and services shouldn't be cut and we will be worse off if libraries go)
but in order to promote library services to (for example) parents and young children (statutory)- surely the best way is to do this is by getting them in through the door for story time?

Also take on board that not everyone is good at it!

Two library staff do our storytime. TWO!! Not sure where I was going with this anecdote...

Oh yes, I guess they're not all massively understaffed.

Two at the same time I mean.

Can I just clarify: I am more than happy to donate to keep storytime sessions going, as I'm sure most parents are. I don't feel 'entitled' to anything, and I don't think libraries are more important than nursing care etc etc. All I'm saying is that the people who most depend on sessions like storytime are the ones who can least afford it, that's all. And not all adults can read, can they? So not all children will be read to at home, however much we beat our breast about it.
Plus I don't think anyone has suggested that going to a storytime session is a replacement for bedtime stories etc at home. It's a lovely, stimulating enrichment. I'm definitely going to volunteer if ours gets stopped. It wouldn't have even occured to be but for this thread.

Fantastic post liberianali

Hello KittyFane

Personally I completely agree with you - I think reaching children and young people is vital, not only are they are our customers of the future but the library helps them achieve so much AND it's fun. However we are a service that costs the council lots of money and doesn't bring much in and Managers are being charged with finding ways of redressing that balance somehow.

I think the problem is that apart from lending books at no charge, there is no other legislative requirement, it's not spelled out what else the Library should do, just that there should be one...so in times of financial hardship (and not) councils can cut Library Services to the bare bone if they are that way minded.

I think asking for a donation for Storytime is possibly the best option at a tough time. Parents who can't/won't donate hopefully won't be commented upon or made to feel bad and any income generated will help staff make the argument that services are valued and should continue. I would guess that the request for donations might be part of a wider income generating package - possibly an increase in overdue fines, charging for internet access (1st hour free/2nd hour 50p?) might be some others they're looking at?

It's a difficult time to be a Librarian - it's not a job you go into to become rich, but because you love people and love books (or at least that's why I'm one) and it really hurts me to see library's struggle but it's tough times for everyone and I'm not sure I could in good conscience choose a Library Service over say, Education or Adult Care Services. I do however think that if Libraries didn't exist we would need to invent them so I do hope that the charges hasn't put you off taking your children.

I am the 'children's librarian' sort of and I am against the idea of charging for a story session, or rhyme time session because they take no resources other than staff time, although a 30 minute session can actually take 90+ after moving the shelving, putting chairs and props out, doing the session, waiting for everyone to leave then packing up afterwards.

However if the session includes refreshments, or craft sessions require materials other than paper and crayons then I do feel that is fair to ask for a small donation to cover costs. I say this as someone who holds a christmas party every year for the rhyme time parents and supplies all the tea, cakes etc out of her own money just to say thank you for the support. Without the support of the regulars I wouldn't have a job and a succesful session - sometimes up to 45 parents on a good day.

Having had abuse from parents before because our 'free' craft sessions did not meet their exacting standards (her kids btw were having a ball) then sometimes you do feel like screaming 'Why do I bother' but we do it because we love it and we feel very passionate about promoting reading and the love of books to everybody.

However I am going to get the phrase 'Damned if you do, damned if you don't' printed on a t-shirt and wear it to work, and I have the full support of my boss to do so!

its better they atleast keep it on, and ask donations, than cut it out completely

Our local library runs several toddler sessions a week.

They don't charge, but have recently asked for volunteers to run the sessions instead of staff.

This seems reasonable to me.

librarianAll
I think asking for a donation for Storytime is possibly the best option at a tough time.
This is what makes me angry and sad, the fact that libraries/ librarians have been forced into a situation where they have to ask for help financially. It makes me angry that the library services have been cut to such an extent that librarians ( trained, very highly qualified people) are being forced out of jobs, sometimes replaced or side tracked in favour of unqualified/ cheaper employees or machines ( check in/ check out) as part of our government's/ local council's spending cuts.

The fact that Libraries need to charge people for story time is not on and I think I need to clarify why I am against donating.

Money is paid in taxes for many things, a small proportion going towards libraries. A huge range of people rely on libraries for a multitude of services. I believe that these services should be free and widely available to all. my argument is with local council and government and not individual libraries/ qualified librarians for the cuts in this service. I am annoyed that some local libraries are now run by admin staff (and in my local library, their lack of enthusiasm is irritating).
I have two friends who were librarians and both qualified (masters in information and library science). They are amazing, intelligent, knowledgeable people who have retrained because their jobs were cut.
I will never stop going to the library and taking DD because I love them but Libraries should be funded by local councils and I suppose what I am saying is that they shouldn't ask for money primarily because they shouldn't b...dy well have to

Many people on this thread see being against contributing money as not 'supporting' the library, I suppose I see it as not 'supporting' the cuts. As I said before, the whole situation is wrong.

I think in the main, we are mostly agreeing. This is a valuable service and by the sounds of it, Librarians enjoy running them too, but the problem is with cuts being imposed from Central Govt and in turn, Local Govt deciding what it can no longer afford. The bottom line they have to look as it what are the essentials and what are they legally obliged to do - a Council could face legal action if they cut statutory duties.