During the last few months the FE College I work for decided to review Learning Centre provision across its' five sites. Meetings were held inviting all Learning Centre staff to give their views on what currently existed in the way of provision, and where we saw our service going in the future. We were all encouraged to submit ideas which we believed would form part of the review. A Consultant was engaged, however, and within a few weeks she produced her report. It was obvious from the report that it was HER suggestions which were going to be implemented!
So, even though we tried to be very positive advocates for our service, in the end we were handed a blueprint which is now being rolled out.
I'm not knocking advocacy...I'm all for it, but you do need to remember who holds the purse-strings and how much power that gives them! At one meeting the Consultant was heard to say: 'there will be those of you who want to go forward with this, and those who don't... will walk' During such difficult economic times some of us in libraries are really having to fight for our own living as well as our service.
1 comment:
How true! We can give our comments, but ultimately those with the purse strings have the right to make the decision. How ghouling to have a Consultant in - they are NOT cheap! And then to put up with that comment... I feel for you. Fingers crossed!
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