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The Mapping the Territory project, funded by Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and conducted by the National Literacy Trust, provided baseline data on the ability of museums, archives and libraries in England to contribute to the Government's targets for improving the literacy and numeracy skills of adults with basic skills needs.
The research covered the full spread of activity from making museums, libraries and archives more welcoming for this audience, through to the delivery of basic skills courses, including family literacy. The information is reinforced by case studies to help others build on promising practice and extend the contribution made by these areas.
The research took place in 2003.
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Summary of the report -
- Three quarters of staff think they should support adult basic skills with many emphasizing the need for better resources to help them do this
- Two-thirds enter into partnerships in order to improve adult basic skills, with libraries leading the field
- Over four-fifths have some type of outreach to help reach adults with basic skills needs but it is concentrated in a few approaches and the majority do not attempt to reach out to the 'hard to reach'. Again, libraries lead the field
- Four-fifths use some sort of technology to improve the access of adults with basic skills needs with over a third using the internet for adult basic skills support
- Two-thirds open at lunchtimes and weekends, improving the access of adults with basic skills needs to their services
- A third have staff who have been formally trained to support adult basic skills. However, the availability of human resources to support this area is a problem in all three sectors, with archives having the least provision
- What support there is for adults with basic skills needs is liable to be informal not formal; again libraries lead the field
- A fifth have core funding earmarked to support adult basic skills.
On 1 March 2001, the Government launched Skills for Life: the National Strategy for Improving Adult Literacy and Numeracy Skills. The Government pledged £1.5 billion over the following three years. Partly in response to Skills for Life, Resource, the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, asked the National Literacy Trust to provide baseline data on the current and potential contribution of museums, archives and libraries to the Government's targets for literacy and numeracy in England.
The Government identified the low-skilled in employment, prisoners and probation-supervised, jobseekers or unemployed, specific government employees, members of disadvantaged communities and lone parents as specific target social groups at danger of having low basic skills.
The nature of the research
Mapping the Territory is primarily descriptive, concerned with the measurement and reporting of characteristics. It is based on a cross-section - a range of data gathered at a particular point in time. The report focuses on two areas:
- covering the full spread of museum, archive and library activity and
- reflecting the level, type and outcomes of engagement with basic skills work and progression.
Specifically it covers:
- activities not previously labelled as 'basic skills', such as making museums, libraries and archives more welcoming for this audience,
- the delivery of basic skills courses
- 'informal' learning, including family literacy
- 'formal' learning
- 'awareness-raising' and 'sign-posting'
- a wide range of audiences including language skills provision for culturally diverse communities.
The mapping and case studies were carried out through desk research and targeted questionnaires to a representative sample of museums, archives and libraries.
The questionnaire was sent to a sample of museums, archives and public libraries in England. A sample of 300 museums was drawn from a study population of over 1,000. Two hundred archives were drawn from the 216 proposed by Resource and 140 public library authorities from the 151 available.
In addition, other caveats are in order. With a response rate of around 40%, the sample is not likely to be fully representative, since the non-respondents are likely to differ in systematic ways from the respondents. Further random analysis of non-respondents would be advisable. In addition, generalisation is limited to the study populations from which the samples are drawn.
The report is divided into two parts:
- Part One summarises the survey findings on museums, archives and libraries together;
- Part Two compares the findings of the three different sectors.
This section summarises the survey findings on all the responding museums, archives and libraries taken together. The main findings are:
1.1 Partnership
Just over two-thirds of museums, archives and libraries who responded enter into partnerships that help meet the needs of adult basic skills learners. Most of these relationships are with the Further Education and Adult and Continuing Education sector, lifelong learning partnerships, each other and the voluntary sector. Most take the form of on-going regular contact with partners, though significant numbers are involved in mostly short-term projects. Although nearly a third of museums, archives and libraries would appear not to work in partnerships to improve adult basic skills, a willingness was shown by some of these latter respondents to do so.
1.2 Outreach and promotion
A significant majority of museums, archives and libraries 84%) do have some type of outreach and promotion to help them reach adults with basic skills needs. Publicity to these groups is spread across the range of techniques, but focuses on 'word-of-mouth' and notice boards. A significant proportion uses the Internet and various forms of campaigning. However, the same proportion uses none of the techniques to target adults with basic skills needs. Only 16% of museums, archives and libraries undertake no outreach or promotion to adults with basic skills needs. Where such activity does occur its most prevalent form is work with existing networks or hosting learning sessions. Taken as a whole, museums, archives and libraries appear to work with the full spectrum of 'hard to reach groups', but mostly with those aged over 40, homeless or traveller groups, members of disadvantaged communities and jobseekers and the unemployed. However, the vast majority do not appear to work with 'hard to reach' groups with adult basic skills needs. Nevertheless, museums, archives and libraries do seem to work with many of the groups targeted by the UK Government's strategy for improving adult basic skills.
1.3 Technology and innovation
Four-fifths of museums, archives and libraries use some sort of technology to improve the access of adults with basic skills needs to their collections. Simpler technologies seem to be used most. Public Internet terminals and websites are also widely used. However, a significant proportion did not use any of the technologies to improve access for those with adult basic skills needs. Changes of display seemed to be used by many, whereas flexibility over fines, opening etc. seems relatively less commonly used. Bi-lingual techniques seem little used as do research/guided search.
1.4 Training and human resources
A third of museums, archives and libraries already have staff who have been formally trained to support adult basic skills. Moreover, significant numbers report that 30%, 50%, 90% or all of their staff who support adult basic skills have received informal related training. However, a large minority of museums, archives and libraries do not appear to have dedicated staff available to support adult basic skills learning. The most common human resource types available to museums, archives and libraries to support adult basic skills learning are education workers, outreach workers and volunteers.
1.5 Formal and informal learning of basic skills
Support for adults with basic skills needs in museums, archives and libraries is more likely to be informal than formal. Most respondents (74%) did not support, or provide directly, formal adult basic skills learning. However, where there is formal learning the most common support is of formal literacy certificates, numeracy certificates and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
Support of informal learning falls into three main groups. In the highest group, around a third to two fifths of museums, archives and libraries support informal learning of family basic skills, general literacy and research skills. In the middle group, between a tenth and two-tenths support general numeracy, reader development, ESOL and workplace learning. Finally, less than a tenth support speaking skills and other informal learning.
Museums, archives and libraries' comments suggest that they contribute or have the potential to contribute to support of formal and informal learning, perhaps especially the latter. However, some respondents, especially from archives, disagree strongly with this view.
1.6 Funding
Although the vast majority of museums, archives and libraries do have core funding, a large majority do not have core funding earmarked for support or direct provision of adult basic skills. In addition, a tiny minority have core capital funding earmarked for adult basic skills learning. However, taken together only a fifth or 20% of respondents had core revenue funding earmarked for support of adult basic skills provision.
Nearly two fifths of respondents do not receive short-term funding for support of adult basic skills work. Of the minority that receive such funding, for all funding sources this forms less than a sixth of respondents. An even higher proportion, three quarters, do not receive long-term funding for support of adult basic skills. Of those that do receive such funding, for all sources this forms less than a sixth of respondents. Comments focus on several themes. Firstly, they comment that support of adult basic skills is outside their remit or not a priority. Secondly, they comment on the difficulty of seeking or obtaining funds due to small size, statutory status, and lack of staff, time and resources. A third theme focuses on funding work on adult basic skills e.g. core or grant funding and the need for sustainable funding. The need for collaboration or partnership forms a fourth theme.
1.7 Policy
Significantly, three-quarters of the museums, archives and libraries that responded supported the view that museums should support adult learning of basic skills. Moreover, with added resources, perhaps another 5% of respondents might express a similar view. Only a quarter of respondents felt that museums, archives and libraries should not support adult basic skills learning. In addition, nearly half of those who responded positively on this issue did not emphasise a need for extra resources. However, appropriate resources seem important to many museums, archives and libraries. So much so that many emphasise the availability of resources as fundamental to whether museums, archives and libraries should support adult basic skills.
This section seeks to establish the different contributions and potential contributions made by museums, libraries and archives to the Government's basic skills agenda and is based on a comparison of random samples from each domain. It should be noted that the different populations, used as the basis of the samples of museums, libraries and archives, need to be taken into account when making comparisons between the three domains. The ratings are generally highest for libraries, reflecting the fact that the sample was drawn from public library authorities only. The museums sample was drawn from a wide range of publicly accessible museums, encompassing, for example, volunteer-run museums. The largest part of the archives sample was from the local authority sector, but also contained a wide range of governance types. It should also be noted that the analysis and uses median (mid-point) average values rather than mean, which can make the averages look very low in some cases. The main findings are:
2.1 Type of partnership
Typically, libraries enter into one formal or informal partnership, whereas museums and archives enter into less - up to one. However, for each institutional type the range was 0 to 4. So some museums, archives or libraries did not enter into any such partnerships, while others entered into four.
2.2 Publicity and promotion
Again there were differences, which may be significant. On average, libraries use three types of publicity, while museums and archives used up to one. Moreover, there may be more variation in the type of publicity used. Libraries used from none to nine different types, museums similarly from none to ten, but archives used none to six types.
2.3 Technology
On average, libraries use five types of technology, five times the archive average of one technology and two and half times that of museums (two). Museums correspondingly use twice as many on average as archives. However, archives, museums and libraries may use a similar diversity of technology. Some museums used none of the technologies while others used nine. Archives similarly may not use any technology type or any of eight types, while libraries also may use none or any of ten types.
2.4 Informal staff training
In terms of informal training to support, or provide directly, adult basic skills learning, libraries seem to use over two types. This is about three times as much as museums. Archive employees, who support adult basic skills provision, may not, on average, currently be undergoing any related informal training. Libraries use the most diverse range of informal training. Libraries use up to eight types, while museums use up to five. Archives use up to three different types of such informal training.
2.5 Human resources
Part One suggests that availability of human resources to give dedicated support to, or provide directly, adult basic skills may be a problem across museums, archives and libraries. Libraries and museums both had, on average, up to one type of human resource available for such work. Archives, based on median averages, seem not to have any available resources. This is not the case for all museums, archives and libraries. In some case up to three types of human resources are available to archives. However, libraries seem to have more diverse human resources available (six types) to support adult basic skills work. However, the greatest diversity in human resources is available to museums. Museums have up to seven types available to support adult basic skills learning.
2.6 Informal learning
The level of informal learning varied considerably between museums, archives and libraries. In practice, museums, archives and libraries taken together supported, or provided directly, the full range of informal learning opportunities to adults with basic skills needs listed in the survey questionnaire (zero to ten types). Archives and museums support on average one type of informal learning. Libraries on average support four types of informal adult basic skills learning, four times that of museums and archives taken singly.
Overall, it seems that museums, including galleries with permanent collections, archives and libraries can currently make a contribution to the Government's targets for improving adult basic skills. Museums, archives and libraries engage in on-going regular contact with key providers for learning of adult basic skills. They engage in a wide range of promotional and publicity activities targeted at adults with basic skills needs, though commonly focus on a few such activities. Significantly, some museums, archives and libraries do target alleged 'hard to reach' social groups, including many of those emphasised in the Government strategy. However, there may be a vast untapped potential to work with such groups, since most museums, archives and libraries are as yet not targeting them. Museums, archives and libraries use publicly accessible website and Internet technologies as well as other techniques to improve access for adults with basic skills needs. This offers the potential to improve literacy, numeracy and computer literacy.
Museum, library and archive employees supporting adult basic skills do not generally possess formal adult basic-skills related qualifications; however, many have had informal related training. Many museums, archives and libraries lack the human resources to support adult basic skills work. Nevertheless, a small minority support formal adult learning of basic skills. A large minority of museums, archives and libraries support informal learning in the form of family learning of basic skills, general literacy and everyday research skills. Smaller numbers support general numeracy, reader development, ESOL, workplace learning and speaking skills.
Museums, archives and libraries lack core funding earmarked for adult basic skills provision, and are often unable to seek external finance, either short-term or long-term. For a variety of reasons a significant minority of museums, archives and libraries are unwilling to contribute to achieving the Government targets. Some take the view that work on improving adult basic skills is outside of their remit. Others take the view that they cannot support adult learning of basic skills other than incidentally as part of their normal provision. A significant number of museums, archives and libraries comment that more resources are needed in order for them to undertake support of adult basic skills learning at all let alone adequately.
Nevertheless, most museums, archives and libraries currently appear willing and, as suggested, able in many ways to contribute to achieving the Government's targets for adult basic skills in England. Museums, archives and libraries may each be able to contribute differently to the learning of basic skills for use in everyday life. However, that contribution currently varies, perhaps in part because they are at different stages of development in supporting adult basic skills learning. Equally, of course, museums, archives and libraries offer different user experiences and this also inevitably affects how, and to what extent, they address adult basic skills needs. The differences between the nature of museums, archives and libraries need to be acknowledged when making comparisons between the three domains. For example the generally higher 'levels' of library activity, reported in Part Two, can be ascribed to both specific investments or developments in the public library domain (e.g. the People's Network and the presence of LearnDirect Centres in public libraries), but, equally, the intrinsic connection between libraries and reading must be a factor.
Additionally, the nature of the sampling for each domain means that comparisons between domains should only be made with caution. The museums surveyed were drawn from a wide range in terms of size and governance (including, for example, small volunteer-run museums), whereas the pubic libraries were all local authority-wide in scope. The archives sample was somewhere between the two (i.e. like the museums population it embraced the full range of types, by governance, but contained a preponderance of local authority archives). Although not tested in the analysis, it can be surmised that museums' rating would have been higher, overall, if the sample had been confined to, say, museums with paid staff. This argument could be taken further by saying that a better comparison between museums and public libraries would have been achieved if the museum sampling had been confined to local authority and national museums (it was felt, however, that it would have been misleading to have excluded other publicly accessible museums).
None of these caveats, however, alter what is the key finding of the survey: that most museums, archives and libraries are willing and able in many ways to contribute to achieving the Government's targets for adult basic skills in England.
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