Heather L. Robinson, Flinders University

The State Library of Victoria – recognised this year as the third most popular library in the world – is proposing major cuts to staff and services. The number of reference librarians will be cut from 25 to ten. Children’s and family engagement officers will be axed, as will digital access officers.

The number of free computers available to the public will be “dramatically” reduced, too. Some of our most vulnerable citizens depend on library digital access for basic services. Some staff told the Age they “disagree” with arguments apparently made by senior management that removal of these computers will “address safety issues”.

These decisions have been made by a mostly acting executive team and board, with limited library administration experience or qualifications. Perhaps most disturbing is the lack of transparency. The changes draw on the recommendations of the “SLV Strategic Reorganisation Change Proposal” by as yet unknown authors.

The proposed changes go against a recent report that found Australia’s public and state libraries are providing vital community services – and thriving, partly due to cost of living pressures.

The State Library of Victoria, founded in 1854, boasts 2.8 million in-person visitors, with an extra 4.5 million online user sessions. Its reach is vast, though its reputation is in recovery after recent ideological conflicts over programming, resulting in boycotts by high-profile Australian writers, Michelle de Kretser and Tony Birch among them.

The library’s founding values and vision revolve around inclusion, access and knowledge transfer. It is “Victoria’s library of record, home to the State Collection, free to access and open to all,” states its website. “We enrich the cultural, educational, social and economic lives of all Victorians”.

What the library stands for is under attack

According to staff members speaking anonymously to the Age, these staff cuts follow an earlier round in 2019. Before that major restructure, 40 librarians were available to serve the public’s information and research needs. Now, there will be just ten.

“It shows shocking incompetence and misunderstanding of what we do,” said one staffer. “They want to turn it into a tourism destination,” said another.

As I found in my own research, libraries provide an extraordinary range of services to the public that go well beyond providing books.

They are a community’s secret weapon in the war against ignorance and isolation. They are also sites of pleasure and entertainment, rich cultural experience and social connection.

We need more, not fewer, of these services – especially during a cost of living crisis, and when many are doubting the value of democracy in Australia and the role of our institutions.

Libraries provide basic community needs

The reduction in public computers will have serious ramifications for many users. Libraries regularly provide digital access for members of the public who may not be otherwise able to access information about their government entitlements, or other information related to their basic needs.

I interviewed some of South Australia’s unhoused community who frequent their state library to use the freely available computers to “answer emails, look things up, like how to fix people’s computers”. Others depend on the public computers to improve their situation, to apply for jobs, maintain their professional and social networks and conduct research to update their skills and knowledge.

Library computers, with the assistance of library officers, enable some members of the public to access their health records and connect to their e-government profiles and services. This is vital for those without internet access or reliable technology of their own. The withdrawal of those computers will have serious personal consequences.

I found that for this cohort of library users, their local state library was the closest space they had to a home – somewhere to shelter from the weather and feel secure. This would, of course, apply to people in similar life circumstances who rely on the State Library of Victoria.

Taking away free computers and cutting the number of digital access officers who help people use them goes against the library’s mission to “enrich the cultural, educational, social and economic lives of all Victorians”.

Staff quoted anonymously told the Age:

Over the past two years [the library] has become more elitist, more repressive and less welcoming for anyone who differs from “the norm”. The assault on core ethics of a library continues to traumatise staff.

How did it come to this?

The State Library of Victoria has been administered within the Victorian government’s Creative Industries policy portfolio since 2015, when Creative Victoria (which oversees it) replaced Arts Victoria. The state’s iconic cultural institutions were placed under the same policy portfolios as screen, design, gaming and fashion industries.

The theory is that positioning cultural institutions like libraries within tech-focused, money-making enterprises like film and fashion will lead them to influence each other – and share economic benefits.

The problem? Internationally and here in Australia, it doesn’t work.

Researchers across the country (and in the UK) have found such measures are “not delivering” on their promises. The “unintended consequences”, they say, are “destructive”.

On the same weekend the cuts to the State Library of Victoria were revealed, it was reported that the Allan Labor government will provide A$21 million in support for the $45 million redevelopment of the Bendigo Art Gallery.

We need transparent decision-making

Responding to questions about issues raised by library staff, a Victorian government spokesperson told the Age: “The Library board and leadership are responsible for organisational and staffing matters.”

But according to Creative Victoria’s website, the organisation has “overarching responsibility for this incredible portfolio of state-owned cultural institutions, on behalf of the people of Victoria”. Is there an opportunity for it to stand up for the State Library and its mission?

Libraries historian Stuart Kells wrote in 2024: “As public institutions, libraries have a responsibility to be transparent about their decision-making.” Yes.

Or as one member of the public put it: “It is utterly ridiculous that people with no understanding of the library and it’s [sic] clientele are allowed to cut basic library services.”

Depriving Victorians of a fully functioning state library is gambling not only with the cultural heritage of the state, but with our community’s sense of inclusion, cohesion and international reputation.

Once again, the public – including those who can least afford to lose access to vital facilities – stands to bear the cost over the long term.

Heather L. Robinson, Research Associate - Creative Industries, Flinders University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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