Hi. My name is Ian Phillips and I have no qualifications to talk about public libraries. I am not even a library member.

And yet libraries and library associations around Australia employ me to advise them on the essential components of a 21st century library, and the course they should chart to deliver maximum value to their unique communities. Which means I get paid to hang out in libraries – to watch, to think and to discuss. How does that happen?

First, I read a lot as a kid. My Mum was a school librarian and her father was a great lover of books. Grandad’s house had thousands of books in it, covering every topic imaginable and all carefully catalogued. And when he ran out of shelf space he built an annex and filled it with more books. He was destined to write a book, and Harpoons to Harvest is an extraordinarily well-referenced narrative of the Mills brothers – whalers and early pioneers of Port Fairy and the surrounding district. Anyway, up until Grade 3 my teachers sent me out of the classroom during literacy blocks because I was a smarty-pants. I spent my time in the school library devouring anything with words. To date, my contribution to the Library of Babel includes an adolescent novella, occasional poems and a self-published 27 chapter East African travelogue from 1990.*

Second, I have an Honours degree in Science, with qualifications in Statistics and Mathematics. And an MBA, which taught me a little about a lot of things related to not much. All of the psychological tests say I am an analyst – off the chart in logical reasoning, completely useless at most other things.

Third, my first 12 years in gainful employment covered three distinct phases. I worked for the ABS as a statistician. Then I worked in the Victorian government in stats, strategic planning, policy, information systems and as Executive Officer to an industrial secretariat. Then I worked in one of the big consulting firms as a middle level flunkey accumulating billable hours on jobs I don’t remember.

So then I set up my own consulting firm – which started out as just me, grew to five people, and is now down to two (me and the wonderful J of I & J Management Services). Most of our early evaluation work was in education – schools and TAFE. We had projects in the ICT sector, in sport and recreation, OHS, environmental programs and even the fashion industry. Within three years of starting out I won my first job evaluating a program for the State Library of Victoria. A couple of years later Carol Oxley and I worked with the Victorian library sector on Libraries Building Communities, and then an internet and PC usage study, collecting annual statistics for Public Libraries Victoria, facilitating strategic planning retreats and in 2016 updating Guidelines, Standards and Outcome Measures for Australian Public Libraries for APLA/ALIA.

Twenty years later we now spend most of our working life in public libraries. Conducting service reviews, developing strategic plans, analysing statistics and assessing performance, running library surveys, doing special research projects. Our clients include the National Library in Canberra and NSLA, a couple of State/Territory Libraries, public library associations, and of course library services and Councils from Broome to Broadbeach and Brunswick.

I spend a lot of time in libraries. I see what’s great, I see what’s good, and sometimes I see some pretty ordinary practices. But I love public libraries. I love them for what they do. I love them for what they say about a community. And most importantly, I love them for the difference they make in people’s lives. So, if any of my observations make a library better for its community – then it’s a good day.

* https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1325565?lookfor=Leave%20Only%20Footprints&offset=1&max=6