Devon County Council

(Printable version - Charter for Library Users) (57KB - pdf help)

Devon Library & Information Services

Your library service is provided by Devon County Council.

This charter sets out the standards we aim to achieve and tells you how to contact us if you have any suggestions for service improvement.

Devon’s libraries are informal learning places for all, at the heart of their local communities. They are meeting places for cultural and other local activities, providing printed and online information, acting as access points for council and other relevant services, and supporting community identity and wellbeing.

We aim to:

• Make you feel welcome in our libraries, and serve you with courtesy and efficiency.
• Provide services and materials appropriate to the needs of the local community.
• Provide, free of charge, books for loan and to read on site in every library.
• Depending on the size of the library, also provide magazines and newspapers to read in the library; and videos, DVDs, audiobooks, music CDs, and sets of printed music and plays for hire.
• Make our facilities and services as accessible as possible for people with physical, sensory or learning impairments, or offer an alternative service, and train our staff in disability awareness.
• Provide one or more computers with Internet access and Microsoft Office applications in all static libraries, for one session of ½ hour a day free of charge, or longer for a fee.
• Maintain and develop a regularly updated website which includes the library catalogue and information about library services, charges, and events in libraries, as well as offering a range of online services, and local history images and information.
• Publicise our opening hours at every library and on our website, and provide timetables for mobile libraries, giving at least 3 weeks’ warning of any planned closures.
• Display in each library details of the services it provides, charges for library services, leaflets describing the full range of library services, and this Charter document.
• Provide an information service. Where possible, answer enquiries made in person or by phone immediately, and those made by post or via our online enquiry service within 3 working days, though more complex enquiries may take longer.
• Provide a wide range of reference material about Devon and the surrounding area and offer printed and online guidance on using our local history resources.
• Satisfy 50% of reservations within 7 days, 70% within 15 days, and 85% within 30 days, and give access through Interlibrary Loan schemes to books, musical scores, or periodicals held in other libraries across the country.
• Promote reading and literacy for babies, children and adults through reading groups and a range of activities, events, and local and national schemes.
• Welcome your compliments, comments and complaints and help you contact us by displaying Feedback forms in every library, and offering an online version on our website. If you ask for a reply, we will send you one within 10 working days. We will monitor your feedback to identify desired improvements to our service, which we will implement if we can, or explain why if we cannot.
• Carry out surveys to find out what you think about our services and what changes you would like. We will publish the results, and improve our services correspondingly where possible.
• Make our current policy and planning statements available in our libraries and on our website, and publish an annual review summarising service developments and performance trends, and plans for the future.
• Display contact details for library managers in every library and on our website, and ensure that our staff can be individually identified via their badges.

In return, we ask you to:

• Show courtesy and respect towards other library users and staff.
• Take care of library materials and equipment.

Devon’s Head of Library and Information Services is Lynn Osborne

See also

Charter Mark for Devon's Libraries