Towards the world's most liveable city: the creation of Auckland libraries.

• Author: Chamberlain, Geoff
• Position: Report

Auckland is in the North Island of New Zealand and is the country's largest and most populous city with 1.5 million residents. A new Auckland Council was created on 1 November 2010 by the amalgamation of seven smaller councils-- Auckland City, Franklin District, Manukau, North Shore, Papakura District, Rodney District and Waitakere, and the Auckland Regional Council. This council is the largest local government authority in Australasia, and its library service, with 55 libraries and 4 mobiles, is the largest in the southern hemisphere. That library service is providing leadership for the new city in its aspiration to become the world's most liveable city within 30 years. This has been facilitated by the strong cooperation by the individual library services long before the amalgamation was proposed and implemented.

**********

In 2002 a group of Auckland region library managers formed a consortium to develop a better library service for the areas they served. Looking back it feels that in a serendipitous, yet thoughtful, way they began the process of moving Auckland into a single city. Their actions also anticipated the creation of the largest public library network in the southern hemisphere.

Background

For the mid part of the 20th century Auckland was composed of a myriad of small towns, boroughs and cities squabbling amongst each other to protect their patches. This structure hindered the growth of the greater Auckland area. An amalgamation in 1989 created a new Auckland region made up of seven smallish cities and districts. However, there were still issues when the different authorities had conflicting interests, different approaches and protective instincts. The 2010 amalgamation into a single city region and Auckland Council heralded a new era.

In 2002 the library managers of the five largest Auckland local bodies, Auckland, Manukau, North Shore, Rodney and Waitakere, decided to implement a common library management system. The eLGAR (Libraries for a Greater Auckland Region) consortium was born. Papakura joined the consortium in early 2009, and Franklin migrated to the shared LMS software in August 2010. The managers did not mention the words regional library service at first--such talk was regarded as subversive, and not reflective of current local government thinking. Nevertheless, the members of eLGAR strategized carefully, garnered appropriate support from their councils and in 2005 installed Innovative Interface's Millennium software under the banner Smarter Systems, Better Libraries, Greater Auckland. Each library system remained a separate entity, and existing local body boundaries were assiduously adhered to. Yet the pattern for working together had been set.

A Royal Commission on Auckland Regional Governance was set up by the NZ government in July 2007. In March 2009 it released a final proposal for a single city. In April it was announced that Auckland would become a single unitary authority by November 2010 and the government set about putting in place the necessary legislation. The Auckland Transition Authority (ATA) was set up to lead the change, boundaries were finalised in March 2010, elections were held in October, and the new Auckland Council sprang into life on 1 November 2010.

The new city

By New Zealand standards the city is very large, with a population of 1.5 million from a national population of 4 million. It stretches 183 km from south to north. Over 70% of Auckland's landmass is rural, and rural areas contain some 7% of the city's population. The political structure of the new council is unique in New Zealand, with an executive mayor and with a two tier cogovernance model. A governing body of 20 councillors, reduced from an aggregated 109 in the previous authorities, oversees regional matters. Previously, 145 community board members looked after local interests; these are now in the hands of 126 local board members in 21 local boards. Each local board has five to nine elected members. A number of Council Controlled Organisations (CCOs), reporting through the council's chief executive, were established to take care of such diverse matters as transport, water, regional facilities, property holdings, investments and major events. Seven public libraries became one network of 55 libraries as part of the Operations Division of the council. The Libraries and Information department (Auckland Libraries) reports to the council's Social and Development Forum, the governing body's Regional Development and Operations Committee and all 21 local boards.

The vision of the entity's inaugural mayor, Len Brown, is 'making Auckland the world's most liveable city'. The library's initial response was One city. Auckland Libraries. All yours. Building a worm class library of the future, today.

Governance

The council model is one of cogovernance and its method of operation, some two years into the process, is still being developed and refined. The governing body focuses on the big picture and on region wide strategic decisions. It sets regional strategies, policies and plans. For libraries it is responsible for the regional aspects of the service--the network of the facilities, base service levels, collections and the digital infrastructure, and also for setting the overall library strategy and budget. The local boards represent their local communities and make decisions on local issues, activities and facilities which help build strong communities. Each board is responsible for between one and four libraries. They have some budget that they can allocate to the libraries in their area and boards take a keen interest in the operation of their libraries. Service delivery managers report to the boards on a quarterly basis and own the library's relationship with them. The boards see one of their main library roles as advocacy which means libraries not only have a high public profile in the city but also a very high political profile.

A good foundation

Because of the eLGAR consortium, Auckland Libraries was almost ready to provide integrated, seamless service on day one, 1 November 2010.

The libraries shared a common library management system and many common business roles. Staff had worked together for the last eight years and a strong relationship of collaboration and trust had built up. These individual library groups had, prior to amalgamation, worked to establish an understanding of common values, philosophies and practices.

They had also worked together on a service initiative called 'Best customer experience', in order to deliver a consistently high standard of service everywhere. Of course, theory and reality are not the same and the last two years have seen strenuous efforts made to align past practices and ways of thinking, and to tackle unexpected issues that arose from the amalgamation. Still, the...