A new piece of research on community libraries, commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Libraries Taskforce and conducted by SERIO has just been released.
The research gives a comprehensive picture of community libraries in England today, covering their operations, structures, governance, performance, service offering, finances, sustainability and more and covers a wide range of operating models. You can read the full report here:
If the full report seems a little weighty then the Libraries Taskforce blog offers a concise summary of the main research findings written by the research organisation:
This has been followed by a further post from the Libraries Taskforce explaining how they’ll be responding to the research findings:
Community managed libraries research – what we’ll do next
And Power to Change have written an excellent response to the research report that is also well worth a read:
Shining a Light on Community Libraries
There’s lots here, but we think it’s well worth taking the time to read about the research and how the Libraries Taskforce are responding to it.
Community Managed Libraries National Peer Network 