Updating 2026 post

Author: DaveBathnes

_posts/2026-01-08-plans-for-2026.md

@@ -11,40 +11,50 @@ published: true
 
 Happy New Year! Hopefully you all had a good break.
 
-As 2026 starts it felt like a good time to assess upcoming Libraries Hacked strategy for the year, in an introspective way. The stated goal of Libraries Hacked is:
+As 2026 starts it felt like a good time to assess upcoming Libraries Hacked strategy for the year, in relation to the purpose of Libraries Hacked. The stated goal of Libraries Hacked is:
 
-> Promoting open data and digital prototypes in libraries.
+> Promoting open data and digital prototypes in libraries
+>
+> **Libraries Hacked**
 
 How can this be done in 2026?
 
-## Open Data
+## Open data
 
-Open data is data that anyone can access, use, and share. Public libraries have huge amounts of data locked away, while not having the resources or time to do much with it. More should be invested in service skills and time, but it would be a huge benefit to make data as widely available as possible. It is also fair to say that despite how brilliant and loved libraries are, a lack of data-informed policy and decisions is consistently evident, and it would be a disservice to users not to address this urgently.
+Open data is data that anyone can access, use, and share. Public libraries hold huge amounts of data, while not having the resources or time to do much with it. More should be invested in service skills and time, but it would be a huge benefit to make data as widely available as possible. It is also fair to say that despite libraries being wonderful and much loved, a lack of data-informed policy and decisions is consistently evident, and it's a disservice to users not to address this.
 
-Unfortunately times are tough and even engaging in open data is out of the reach of many services. The heads of those services don't have the time or inclination, while fighting declining budgets and trying to keep staff employed and branches open. Where data analysis *is* being done, it's largely in advocacy and social value analysis that doesn't deliver either insight or improvement, driven through a need to convince funders that libraries are worthwhile. 
+Unfortunately times are tough, and engaging in open data is out of the reach of many services. The heads of those services don't have the time or inclination, while fighting declining budgets and trying to keep staff employed and branches open. Where data analysis _is_ being done, it's often in advocacy and social value analysis that rarely delivers either insight or improvement, driven from a need to convince funders that libraries are worthwhile.
 
-Everyone would love a culture of open working to improve services. Good data standards and open schemas for sharing data. Excellent data management and stewardship, and policies of open by default (aside from personal data). The data would be available through public APIs (application programming interfaces) or data downloads depending on situation. But we don't have those things, and getting close to that level of data maturity is a long task.
+There is rarely any active hostility to being open. We'd all love a culture open working to improve services. Good data standards and open schemas for sharing, responsible data management and stewardship, and policies of open by default (aside from personal data). The data would be available through public APIs (application programming interfaces) and data downloads. But we don't have those things, and that level of data maturity is a long task. But that means it should be a high priority, and we need to continue trying to convince people that better data, made widely available, can make a huge difference. And cruicially, making it open is the *essential* part of that. It's not a nice to have, or a good thing for transparency, it's the key to making use of that data.
 
-So, what to focus on in 2026? There have always been a few 'low hanging fruit' wins for public libraries. The British Library Public Lending Right team are in the process of collecting comprehensive loans data from all public library services on what titles have been loaned, and we'll [continue to push for this to be open](https://blog.librarydata.uk/plr-consultation-2025/).
+So, what to focus on in 2026? Firstly there are plenty of professionals in the sector who are pushing for open data, and are doing all they can to work towards this. It would be good to share their voices more and see if there are ways to help them.
 
-There are other library organisations working on library data. The Arts Council and Libraries Connected have significantly increased data projects in recent years. However, while sympathetic and even supportive of open data, the remit of their projects is to serve sector stakeholders.
+There have also always been a few 'low-hanging fruit' data options for public libraries. The British Library Public Lending Right team are in the process of collecting comprehensive loans data from all public library services on what titles are loaned, and we'll [continue to push for this to be open](https://blog.librarydata.uk/plr-consultation-2025/). It's a dataset that could serve many organisations and individuals in the reading sector.
 
-A recent [Libraries Connected commissioned report, conducted by Independent Mind](https://www.librariesconnected.org.uk/news/libraries-connected-publishes-new-report-library-loan-trends) gathered loans data from 34 library services and analysed it. However, the outputs from that project were 2 PDF files and an internal webinar for library services. In a culture of working in the open, the default would be to ensure the data was repeatable and open, release analysis as accessible web content, and then an open webinar.
+> "We are pleased to inform you that from 1 July 2025, PLR figures will no longer be based on loans data collected from a sample, but national loans data from all UK public libraries."
+>
+> **From [British Library - PLR loans data](https://www.bl.uk/services/plr#loans) - Will this data finally be released this year?**
 
-This isn't an individual criticism, this is the way things are generally done. But we do need to recognise the huge task in changing that culture. 
+There are other library organisations working on library data. The Arts Council and Libraries Connected have significantly increased data projects in recent years. However, while sympathetic and supportive of open data, the remit of their work is primarily to serve sector stakeholders and their goals.
 
-Anyway, it's good to have a different focus to other organisations, and open data advocacy and pressure needs to come from outside the sector and its leadership. Libraries Hacked will also collect data from library services [using Freedom of Information requests](https://blog.librarydata.uk/requesting-data-with-foi/). These will remain genuine requests for data, there's no point spamming services for no reason - but it is currently the only public mechanism for obtaining data and keeps public data on the radar.
+A recent [Libraries Connected commissioned report, conducted by Independent Mind](https://www.librariesconnected.org.uk/news/libraries-connected-publishes-new-report-library-loan-trends) gathered loans data from 34 library services and analysed it. However, the outputs from that project were 2 PDF print reports and an internal webinar for library services. No data, no web content, and no open engagement.
 
-When data is released openly by libraries it's important to keep on top of it. In 2025 the Arts Council released a high level library usage dataset across most of English library services. Within weeks a Libraries Hacked project published the [Library activity dashboard](https://activity.librarydata.uk/), and this will continue to be enhanced, and then updated to include future data.
+This isn't an individual criticism, as this is the way most public library research has been conducted. These are one-off reports with an outcome in mind. Those commissioned to do the research have no particular interest in the long-term data maturity of the sector, and the library services involved tend to adopt a risk averse attitude, only sharing their data for the purposes of the research.
+
+More needs to be done by the sector to lead by example and recognise the huge task in changing that culture to an open by default one, and using data for service improvment.
+
+Anyway, it's good to have a different focus to other organisations, and open data advocacy and pressure needs to come from outside the risk-averse sector. Libraries Hacked will also collect data from library services [using Freedom of Information requests](https://blog.librarydata.uk/requesting-data-with-foi/). These will remain genuine requests for data for a purpose, there's no point spamming services for no reason - but this is currently the only public mechanism for obtaining data, and it is a reminder that the primary audience for public library data should be the public.
+
+When data is released by libraries it's important to keep on top of it. In 2025 the Arts Council released a high level library usage dataset across most of English library services. Within weeks a Libraries Hacked project published the [Library activity dashboard](https://activity.librarydata.uk/), and this will continue to be enhanced, and updated to include future data.
 
 ## Digital prototypes
 
 A prototype is an initial version or representation of a digital product (such as a web application). It may be working, to an extent, but is closer to a proof of concept or simulation rather than something real.
 
-Libraries Hacked digital prototypes have always gone a bit further in creating working prototypes, so the term is slightly misleading. [Library Map](https://www.librarymap.co.uk/) was originally developed in 2020 and has clocked up many hundreds of hours of development time on it. In commercial terms that would amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds, excessive for a prototype! Hopefully it did its job - for a while it was directly used on the LibraryOn website, now properly replaced by their own [excellent Library Finder](https://libraryon.org/libraries). Hopefully [projects like Mobile Libraries](https://www.mobilelibraries.org/) can go on to inform future library sector developments in areas like communicating mobile library timetables.
+Libraries Hacked digital prototypes have always gone a bit further in creating working prototypes, so the term is slightly misleading. [Library Map](https://www.librarymap.co.uk/) was originally developed in 2020 and clocked up many hundreds of hours of development time on it. In commercial terms that would amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds, excessive for a prototype! Hopefully it did its job - for a while it was directly used on the LibraryOn website, and is now properly replaced by their own [excellent Library Finder](https://libraryon.org/libraries). Hopefully [projects like Mobile Libraries](https://www.mobilelibraries.org/) can go on to inform future library sector developments in areas like communicating mobile library timetables.
 
-As an aside, if anyone ever begrudges the investment in digital projects like LibraryOn, it's a reality that good digital applications, developed properly, need a lot of time and money. The public library sector also really publicly developed and owned applications. We're immensely lucky that there is an excellent digital product team dedicated to libraries, and we need to help it succeed, try to give it more work, and cling on to it for as long as possible.
+As an aside, if anyone ever begrudges the investment in digital projects like LibraryOn, it's a reality that good digital applications, developed properly, need a lot of time and money. The public library sector needs publicly developed and owned applications. We're immensely lucky that there is an excellent digital product team dedicated to libraries, and we need to help it succeed, try to give it more work, and cling on to it for as long as possible.
 
-For 2026, one Libraries Hacked prototype is lined up. A mobile application (a proper one on the app stores) that helps people discover libraries when they are out and about by detecting when they are close to them. Nothing too complicated, and more tourist-y than really practical. But a good opportunity to experiment and create something fun.
+For 2026, one Libraries Hacked prototype is lined up. A mobile application (a proper one on the app stores) that helps people discover libraries when they are out and about by detecting when they are close to them. Nothing too complicated, and more tourist-y than really practical. But a good opportunity to experiment and create something fun. If anyone would like to be involved in that please do get in touch.
 
 Other than that it will mainly be chilling out!