Equal respect in literacy

In which I unfairly pick on Dundee's Libraries to make point about how difficult it will be give Scots and English equal respect

Its all very exciting. At time of writing, tomorrow Holyrood will be debating the Scottish Languages Bill, which gives official recognition to the Scots language and puts a load of duties and responsibilities on Scottish government ministers to DO STUFF about Scots.

MSP Ross Greer has submitted a number of amendments relating to Scots and English to be “accorded equal respect”

Its unclear if this amendment will go through. I can’t imagine anyone could have any objections, but hypothetically, they might.

Literacy

In November last year, the National Literacy Trust did a PR push to get children to read more. They published a list of Dundee’s 100 favourite children’s books.

It struck me as a little odd that not one of the 100 books were written in Scots, every single one was written in English.

Odd because 34.2% of people in Dundee reported in the census that they considered themselves able to speak or read Scots (in neighbouring Angus it was 39.4%)

No one forced them to tick those boxes in the census, no one bribed them or persuaded them that it was in their best interest, it was merely a reflection of the languages that they consider themselves able to speak or read or write.

I emailed the National Literacy Trust to ask about the omission of Scots books. They explained that the list was entirely language ambivalent.

Our work is to encourage children to read, the language that they chose to read in is entirely down to the individual.

The list of books wasn’t prescriptive as such, it was books nominated and voted for by the children of Dundee.

In terms of the Dundee 100 Reads book list, this was selected by books nominated by children in schools throughout Dundee. Suggestions of books in English and Scots were welcome, however the nominations we received were entirely books written in English, so these are what ended up on the list.

So back in November I just left it there, with a vague sense that maybe the children of Dundee just don’t want to read books written in Scots.

Or do they?

On the whole literacy is a public good, its a benefit for all of society if everyone can read. And whilst adults are free to read or not read whatever they like, its their choice, children don’t have such liberty.

Schools compel children to read, with books and lessons, funded by the taxpayer.

So, with respect to the idea that “Scots and English should be accorded equal respect” I returned to thinking about how the children of Dundee came to ignore Scots.

Perhaps they looked at the Scots language books in the libraries of Dundee and decided that they were all pants.

According to the Dundee Libraries Spydus software, they have a choice of 52 Children’s Fiction or Children’s Non-fiction titles written in Scots.

This is against a backdrop of 33,193 Children’s titles in English.

Our weans of Dundee, idly browsing the books of the children’s section would have to browse through more than 600 English titles before coming across a single Scots title.

We might also note that many of these Scots titles are Onloan, overdue or missing.

This hardly gives the Scots books equal respect to English.

But this is just looking at the entire library stock, if we look at individual branches the disparity is even more stark. They all have thousands of English children’s titles and just a handful of Scots children’s titles.

Library               English    Scots    Ratio
Ardler Library          4,098      5      1:820
Authurstone Library     3,120      6      1:520
Blackness Library       5,097     13      1:392
Broughty Ferry Library  6,160     13      1:473
Charleston Library      5,029     11      1:457
Children's Centre      17,020     36      1:472
Coldside Library        3,288      7      1:469
Douglas Library         2,903      6      1:483
Fintry Library          3,776      8      1:472
Kirkton Library         3,736      8      1:467
Lochee Library          4,087      9      1:454
Menzieshill Library     4,091      6      1:681
Whitfield Library       3,347      3      1:1,115

Basically the weans in Dundee’s libraries have to wade through hunner of English titles before they have a chance of coming across a single Scots title.

That’s one of the reasons why the National Literacy Trust’s 100 reads list from Dundee doesn’t contain a single Scots title.

We might imagine that even if some of the Scots titles were popular, these would be take out on loan by some enthusiastic child, and hence deprive other children of reading it.

The suppliers

We can’t blame the librarians, their budgets are ever tightening, their workloads getting greater. An efficiency measure that many UK library services use is a thing called “Supplier Selection”. Whereby instead of dedicated “catalogue librarians” in each local authority selecting which books to order each month, they just let the library suppliers choose which books to send through.

Its going to be pretty much the same selection of best-sellers, new releases and eagerly awaited titles, isn’t it?

Supplier Selection typically makes up 80% of the books acquired each year. If a library service acquires, 15,000 books a year, then about 12,000 were chosen by the suppliers. The other 20% are librarians choices or members of the public requesting specific titles.

There are two library suppliers that dominate the market, both are based in England, and clearly have no conception of either the Scots language or languages preferences in each distinct local authority area.

Its their fault that the weans of Dundee don’t get to read Scots books, and don’t subsequently nominate them for the National Literacy Trust’s 100 reads list.

Don’t forget the private sector

There’s a Waterstones in Dundee. Its conceivable that the weans pop in every Saturday and idly browse the shelves, looking for titles that they can nag at their parent’s to buy them.

Famously Waterstones in Scotland keep their Scots language books dispersed among the English titles - in roughly the same proportions as the libraries. One in every five hundred titles is in Scots, the weans have to wade through shelves and shelves before coming across as single one.

The staff can’t really help as the Point of Sale computer system doesn’t all them to search for books in stock by language. Oor weans would have to ask for a specific title to check if its in stock, even even ask for it to be brough in especially.

This lack of Scots stock isn’t the fault of the Dundee branch staff, in the same way as the librarian’s. Waterstones have regional buyers who tour up and down Scotland popping in to each Waterstones branch and deciding which titles to stock.

If there are very few Scots titles, its the individual buyer’s fault.

Back to Equal Respect

I dunno if Ross Greer’s amendments will go through.

I don’t know if the concept of the Scots and English languages being “accorded equal respect” will apply to the National Literacy Trust

or to the libraries of Dundee

or to the library book suppliers

or to the staff at Waterstones in Dundee

or to the Waterstone regional buyers

But 34.2% of people in Dundee freely indicated that they consider themselves able to speak or read Scots and they are not being treated with equal respect.

Post-script

We might also consider the school libraries of Dundee. I can’t think of an easy way to check the numbers of Scots titles held there, but honestly it doesn’t seem likely that there are going to be many.