[Special Feature: Thinking About Public Libraries] How to Treat Libraries with Care

2018/07/09

I want local governments to treat libraries with more importance. This is something I, having made local autonomy my life's work, have always hoped for.

Treating them with care means things like further enriching library budgets, enhancing library staffing—especially the placement of librarians—and improving their treatment. It also means not easily outsourcing library management or turning libraries into mere tools for creating 'bustle' or foot traffic.

In reality, however, there are many local governments where library budgets and systems are poor. Furthermore, in recent years, the number of local governments outsourcing library management and operations has increased significantly, and in some cases, libraries are provided as places for creating bustle, turning into facilities that one might hesitate to even call a library anymore. I find this to be a pathetic state of affairs.

One reason I have such a strong interest in libraries is that many of Japan's libraries are established by local governments. Not only public libraries, but also school libraries in public schools and assembly libraries in local assemblies are all established and operated by local governments.

Another reason is that I believe libraries have a very important significance and role for the present and future of a region. There are various views on the role or mission of public libraries. Experts in library and information science might disagree, but I believe one of the important roles of a public library is to support the intellectual activities of all people.

Libraries are often called hubs for lifelong learning. This expression is by no means wrong. However, 'lifelong learning' tends to give the impression that it is primarily for elderly people with plenty of time. From this, the view arises that a library is a free book rental shop for people with nothing better to do.

However, that view is incorrect. Everyone has their own area of intellectual activity. Many people need to obtain knowledge and information for their work. If that person works for a company, an environment that meets those needs might be available within the company, but it might not be. In such cases, the library becomes a starting point for reaching that knowledge and information. If the person works for a small business that cannot afford to provide such an environment, or if they are a freelancer working individually, the role of the library becomes even greater.

It's not just about work. For example, there are many people with intellectual desires in their private lives, such as those seeking knowledge or information for hobbies, those researching health or illness for themselves or their families, or those who want to know about their destination before traveling. For these people, the library's vast collection of books and materials, as well as the librarians, can be very useful. I should add that the reading done by elderly people with time is also a fine intellectual activity, and libraries naturally support their activities as well.

Changing the perspective to discuss the importance of libraries from the experience of managing local government administration, various fields of local administration can provide higher quality administrative services for citizens by collaborating with libraries. Entrepreneurship support, which has already begun in several libraries, is one example, but it is expected that various other measures, such as providing information to minorities, will be materialized in other fields in the future.

Furthermore, libraries also have the function of passing on information and materials such as local history and culture to future generations. In local governments that do not have museums, libraries must collect and preserve local records, ancient documents, old maps, and photographs, and make them available for use by current and future citizens. Similarly, in local governments where public archives are not established, libraries should preserve valuable materials and information unique to the region, such as important public documents and local election results.

Despite libraries having such important functions and roles, why are there many local governments that do not treat them with care? One undeniable reason is that the people at the center of policy formation, such as heads of local governments and assembly members, are not well-versed in libraries and do not fully recognize their importance. In fact, based on my experience, my honest feeling is that there are only a handful of local government heads who have a deep knowledge of libraries.

However, even if the head's recognition is insufficient, if the system of local autonomy is functioning properly in that local government, there is room for forces to work to compensate for that lack of recognition and for appropriate measures to be launched. Furthermore, even if a situation arises where the head tries to treat the library poorly, a healthy local autonomy system can prevent it in advance.

From this, it can be inferred that in cases where libraries are not valued and are instead treated carelessly, there are circumstances where the local autonomy system is not operating smoothly in that local government. This means that for local governments to start valuing libraries more, it is essential to make the local autonomy system operate properly, and if the system operates healthily, it holds the potential for libraries to become much more enriched than they are now.

I would like to discuss the relationship between the state of libraries and the local autonomy system using an actual case. A few years ago, it was discovered that the book purchase budget for a certain prefecture's library had been cut by 30% all at once. For residents with a deep interest in libraries, it was a bolt from the blue; they were surprised, appalled, and angry, but by the time they learned of the massive reduction, the prefectural budget had already been passed, so it was too late.

Around that time, a library convention was held in that prefecture, and I was in attendance. The angry residents mentioned earlier were also participating, and the prefectural governor was attending as a guest. Naturally, there were people there who confronted the governor, asking, "Why did you cut the book purchase budget by 30%?" The governor apparently did not know about the budget cut and was surprised to hear it. Since I knew the governor's character well, I could see that his surprise was not an act.

How should we view the fact that the governor did not know? Based on my experience, I don't think we can simply blame the governor for this. Prefectural budgets are enormous, and expenditure items are diverse. It is an extremely difficult task to keep all of them in one's head.

On the other hand, however, if the governor had been extremely enthusiastic about libraries, he surely would have known about the massive cut in the library budget, and I think the massive cut itself would not have happened in the first place. A governor enthusiastic about libraries would have asked, "What is happening with the library budget?" at the final stage of budget compilation, and even if he hadn't asked, his subordinates would have explained the policy for the library budget. This is because they would know they would be reprimanded later if they cut it without telling the governor. In any case, the massive reduction policy would undoubtedly have been forced to be withdrawn at that point.

Even so, why was a budget proposal created that significantly reduced book purchase costs in the first place? Usually, this kind of thing is handled administratively. In this case, an agreement to cut the budget was likely formed between the secretariat of the prefectural Curriculum Advisory Committee and the prefectural finance authorities.

The mindset of finance authorities wanting to cut budgets for everything is understandable, regardless of the merits of individual issues. The problem lies with the Curriculum Advisory Committee. Since the Curriculum Advisory Committee oversees libraries and is responsible for their operation, even if they were pressured by finance authorities to cut book purchase costs, they shouldn't have agreed so easily. As a general rule, that assumption is not wrong, but if the Curriculum Advisory Committee is backed into a corner, they may sometimes sacrifice the library.

Many local governments still adopt the so-called 'ceiling system' for budget compilation. Under this system, a cap is placed on the budget requests of each department, including the Curriculum Advisory Committee, such as "keep it below the previous year's level." At that time, if there is a situation where a new project must be launched in school education costs, for example, the ceiling cannot be met unless an equivalent amount is cut from other items within the Curriculum Advisory Committee budget.

When faced with such circumstances, it is quite conceivable to balance the books by cutting library expenses to increase school education costs, and it is likely that such circumstances existed in the prefecture mentioned here. In this case, it cannot necessarily be said that the Curriculum Advisory Committee disregards the library, but it is certain that they sacrificed the library for other expenses.

One thing that can be said here is that the budget compilation mechanism of local governments has become rigid. Ideally, budget compilation should be flexible. Budgets should be allocated to what is necessary, and the required financial resources should be generated by cutting unnecessary projects. This kind of sharp, prioritized budget compilation policy should be applied across the entire local government budget.

However, in local governments that adopt the ceiling system, this prioritization must be done within, for example, the Curriculum Advisory Committee alone, leading to situations where library costs are sacrificed for school education costs, as seen earlier. This means that the very important field of local government budget compilation has significantly lost flexibility, and the financial management function of the local government is not operating healthily. To treat libraries with care, it is necessary to improve things starting from such areas.

Returning to the local government head's perception of libraries. Is it impossible to prevent heads of local governments from disregarding libraries, or the Curriculum Advisory Committee and finance authorities from sacrificing libraries for other things? If you ask whether we have no choice but to give up and accept it as inevitable, that is certainly not the case. If the ideals and healthy systems of local autonomy operate, it is entirely possible to prevent or avoid such situations.

What plays a major role here is thorough transparency—specifically, information disclosure in the budget compilation process. Currently, budget compilation work in most local governments is conducted behind closed doors, so citizens have no opportunity to access that work from the outside or know its progress.

Using the prefecture I cited earlier as an example, suppose someone who is deeply concerned about the library asks the prefectural finance authorities before the budget proposal is announced, "I want to know what will happen to the library book purchase costs in next year's budget." The staff member in charge at the prefectural office would surely have answered, "It is currently under consideration, so I cannot answer." If the person pressed, "Then when can you tell me?" the staff would have responded, "We will announce the budget proposal eventually, so you will know when you see it."

Then, when checking the budget proposal announced later, they are shocked to find that book purchase costs have been significantly reduced. If they then contact the prefectural office again and plead, "This will make the library poor, so please return the budget to last year's level," the staff would likely coldly state, "Since the budget proposal has already been announced, it can no longer be changed."

What on earth is going on? Until just the other day, they were refused because it was "still under consideration," and as soon as the announcement was made, they were told it "cannot be changed because it is already decided." Can we really call this a local government of a democratic nation or citizens of a democratic nation?

In Tottori Prefecture, where I served as governor, the previous budget compilation was similar to this. When I ran for governor, I called for "transparency in prefectural administration" and "thorough information disclosure," but with the prefecture's budget compilation in such a state, it could hardly be called transparent administration.

Therefore, I decided to boldly change the budget compilation mechanism. First, I decided to publish the contents of the budget request forms submitted by each department, including the Curriculum Advisory Committee, to the finance authorities on the prefecture's website. I then decided to publish all the results on the website at each stage: the assessment results after the finance authorities examined the requests, the Administrative Affairs Office Director's assessment results following subsequent restoration negotiations, and finally the Governor's assessment results based on further restoration negotiations. What does this mean? Explaining with the earlier example of the massive cut, if a budget request form reducing library book purchase costs had been submitted by the Curriculum Advisory Committee, that fact would have been revealed at that point. This is because residents interested in libraries would surely access the prefecture's website to find out what the library-related budget requests look like.

Consequently, the situation where residents only learned of the cut after the budget was decided could have been avoided, and some of those residents might have taken necessary actions, such as protesting to the Curriculum Advisory Committee or appealing to the governor. Furthermore, the media would surely have reported on it. In response to that, regardless of the Curriculum Advisory Committee's request, there is a high possibility that the book purchase costs would have been restored to the previous year's level by the time the governor's assessment was completed.

It is very important for democratic politics that many people know what is progressing inside the local government, such as budget compilation work. If only those involved inside the local government are informed of what is being done and the residents, who are the key stakeholders, are left out of the loop, there is a high risk of falling into arbitrary decision-making by the local government. Discrepancies and waste can run rampant there. We should recognize that transparency through information disclosure is an important condition for keeping local government operations healthy, including treating libraries with care.

Finally, the most important element in making the local government system operate healthily is the assembly. Just as the Diet is the highest organ of state power, the assembly is the highest decision-making organ of a local government. Regarding the budget, although the budget proposal is compiled under the head, once it is submitted to the assembly, it is up to the assembly's judgment to decide whether to pass it as is or to make necessary amendments.

Therefore, even if the budget proposal contains a reduction in library book purchase costs, it is possible for the assembly to restore it to the previous year's level. Of course, since that requires some financial resources, the assembly must generate them. The method of generating them is also the assembly's judgment, but the simplest way is to eliminate expenses deemed wasteful from the entire budget proposal and allocate them to the restoration of library book purchase costs. While there may not be many expenses that can be definitively called wasteful, expenses that are inferior to library expenses in terms of importance should be found everywhere. In the process of making such priority judgments, the assembly's recognition and insight regarding libraries will be tested.

In some cases, the assembly may judge that no waste can be found in the budget proposal and that all expenses are equally important and hard to cut. In such a case, to procure financial resources for restoring library expenses, they could even choose to increase taxes accordingly. For municipalities, the target tax would be resident tax or fixed asset tax, as the authority to determine these tax rates also belongs to the assembly.

In reality, the operation of most local assemblies is far from this process, and the reality is that they pass budget proposals submitted by the head without any changes. Considering that the assembly of the prefecture that significantly cut library book purchase costs also passed the budget proposal without changes, and the reduction did not even become a topic of discussion in the process, to speak frankly at the risk of being rude, I suspect they did not properly deliberate on the contents of the budget proposal. Conversely, if the assembly had conducted budget deliberations thoroughly, there is a high possibility that the situation of a massive cut in library expenses could have been avoided. Above, using the library expense reduction incident as a subject, I have discussed why it happened and which parts of the current local autonomy system, if operated appropriately, could prevent such things. I would be most gratified if this serves as a reference for those involved who wish for libraries to be treated with care.