Glasgow Library Visits per year
4. SCOPE: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND CREATIVE LEARNING
This group will have the responsibility of devising a programme that reflects the aims and ethos of the festival with direct focus on:
- Forums/events to celebrate and acknowledge the successful learning and engagement in literacy activity in the City for learners
- Events to support greater reader development and library, learning and arts offer engagement (including World Book Night)
- Delivery of a creative learning programme that encompasses the written and spoken word
- A programme that supports greater engagement in Gaelic Language and Scots language events
- A range of volunteering opportunities to support wider engagement in the festival and a clear consistent recruitment process with clear role descriptions
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The outcomes of this work will be increased social capital and connectedness with our audiences with the programme.
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and Creative Learning Group had no strong voice on the overall strategic direction of the festival, or on the programming side. The only programme-related function this group was involved in was those events slots set aside by the Project Group
specifically for community-oriented literary activity, such as an ESOL celebration event or literacy event.
Additional slots under the banner of community engagement were handed over to and curated by Glasgow-based literary groups St Mungo’s Mirrorball, Scottish Writers’ Centre, and The Federation of Writers (Scotland). This structure changed following the 2016 festival, and Community Engagement team members were
included in and invited to contribute to the PAG. This was at least in part triggered by my input into discussions on the structure, conversations with the Literacy and Reader Development Manager, and the sharing of early draft thesis material with Library staff. This recursive and evolving relationship between researcher and subject is one of the challenges of participatory ethnography, particularly embedded within a group which seeks to bring about change. The ethical and conceptual issues are reflected on in the Conclusion to this thesis.
A series of interviews conducted during 2014 and 2015 sought to uncover a broad range of viewpoints on literary Glasgow. In each of these the interviewee was specifically directed towards commenting on Aye Write! and its place in the sector, if they had not already done so naturally.
One of the early interviews I conducted was with Julie Fraser a community arts worker in the south of Glasgow. As she spoke about the community arts and literacy work she was involved with, it was clear Aye Write! appeared not as some
momentous event on the calendar of these projects, but as one aspect among many opportunities and interactions within the services she delivered:
So I was running a group in the hospital and I was also running a group on a Wednesday night in the Pollok City Realm which had some local guys coming along but also three guys from Leverndale came with staff from the hospital; out of the building to come and attend this class on Wednesday night so that was a huge thing as well. Together we produced this little book called Wise
139 Guys, which they designed and put together and they all took a different topic.
[…]
Somebody was interested in gardening, somebody was interested in
reviewing, but their level of literacy was very basic but it’s amazing what they achieved. We did little bits of scrap-booking and stuff. This was launched at Aye Write! […] I’m always a bit wary of publications of new work because they tend just to be done and then they sit on a library shelf but this has actually been used as a resource I think around other groups. So they designed it and put it together and we worked with the marketing guy at Glasgow Life as well. They wrote a song and stuff. So this is over a long period of time.
[…]
P: So as well as doing things in the communities with the groups that are there, you’re tapping in to the central resources?
J: We always take groups out. We participate in Aye Write! with the literacy groups. The creative writing groups will come along to things or we might go and see a play. We use museums a lot for inspiration for writing.219
Aye Write! has three aims, and this presents a challenge. Each of these was acknowledged at different times within the PAG meeting, relating to relevant aspects of programming or delivery. It was surprising to me that there did not seem to be discussion or agreement about how these related to each other; which, if any, had precedence; or how conflicts between them could be managed.
Each of the three main aims of the festival: Cultural placemaking, Audience development, and Reader development, is justifiable in its own right. Difficulties can arise when these are enacted simultaneously within the festival, even when they do so effectively, and inadvertently create a distinct gap in the middle of the festival where Glasgow’s active literary community should be. This is brought into sharper
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focus when competition for resources causes difficult choices to be made between these aims.
A further challenge of these multiple aims is the difficulty in identifying what should or could be counted as success.
What does success look like?
Aye Write! is, by design and aspiration, a complex entity. There is no simple story here of attendance figures and book sales amounting to a definitive measure of success or otherwise, for the aims and ethos of the festival reach well beyond the festival week and the walls of the Mitchell Library, into the homes and imaginations of the people of Glasgow. These aims have grown out of the mission of the Glasgow Libraries service and also out of the development plan for Glasgow Life. That is not to say these make identical claims on the festival. Glasgow Libraries is focussed on reader development, while Glasgow Life adds to these aspects of community and societal gains portrayed in the first two of Glasgow Life’s Strategic Objectives:
SO1 - Glasgow citizens will flourish in their personal, family and community life (through regular participation in learning, sport, cultural and creative opportunities).
SO2 - Enhanced skills and learning among (and contribute to the employability of) our citizens.220
The aims and objectives of the festival are therefore coming from slightly different directions: explicit objectives within the documents of Aye Write!, Glasgow Libraries, and Glasgow Life, and the underlying necessity of managing the festival in a way which meets its economic parameters and resource limitations.
Aye Write! has chosen not to dilute its aims to place reader development as a secondary objective. This is a courageous stance as it places the festival in a
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vulnerable position in which it could feasibly have record attendance figures and box office takings, but still fail in its ambition. The realities of what it means to ‘nurture a strong reading culture’ were not well defined within Aye Write!’s documentation at the beginning of this research project. However, in 2014-15 attempts were made to concretise this in work by Aye Write!’s PAG, and in the wider context by Glasgow Libraries as part of their ongoing consultation process.
Aye Write!, as a subset of Glasgow Libraries and Glasgow Life, illustrates some of the main challenges faced in a city-wide approach to literary development.
Economic imperatives push the festival organisers towards a model which continually serves last year’s audience, while struggling with the questions of
community engagement and audience development, and particularly with the vision of the festival as a mechanism for reader development. Frequently throughout the series of programming meetings, senior Glasgow Libraries staff members will voice a reminder that ‘we have to break even’. This curtails some of the wilder ideas but also focusses the programming on events likely to sell at least 80% of their ticket
allocation – whether the events are planned for the Main Hall (capacity 650) or a smaller space, such as the Stirling Room (capacity 35).
The feedback mechanisms for the system may actually be entrenching this position as the voices heard through audience feedback forms and online surveys are the voices of festival attendees – the majority of whom have been before and state an intention to return again (as examined below). The obvious danger of using this type of audience feedback in any measure of success is that resources are focussed on serving the stated desires of those who approve of the status quo and minimising the things they object to. This may be an appropriate way to operate if the potential audience members, targeted under the commitment to reader development, share the same tastes in content and style as the majority of the current and past audiences. However, this would be a huge assumption, and demographic and anecdotal evidence suggest it is not the case.
This problem is a feature of taking a standard policy approach which may work fairly well in simpler systems, even other festivals, and applying it to a more complex setting, without taking account of that increased complexity.
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Figure 13: Four factors of a simple book festival model
A book festival free of any socio-political aims beyond the festival itself, may have a fairly simple structure. If the success of a book festival can be measured by the number of attendees, their level of satisfaction and meeting the necessary financial targets for the event, then this can be approached by taking simple measurements and adjusting a set of parameters appropriately. While a successful outcome is not guaranteed, the organisational team for such a festival has four main areas of activity which it can apply itself to: Programme, Pricing, Place and Publicity. If these are done effectively then, barring unforeseen events or negative external influences, the festival has a chance of being counted a success.
The organisational structure of Aye Write! appears to acknowledge and support this model and is designed to attend to all four corners of the model. The Content Advisory Group meets regularly to plan the programme, with consideration given to balance of content between literary fiction and non-fiction, and more populist titles.
Book
Festival
Programme Pricing Place Publicity143
The potential for ticket sales is always a matter of interest and discussion, but The Mitchell Library has a range of venue spaces of varying sizes and can therefore accommodate niche and new author events, not likely to attract a large audience.
Programming attempts to reflect some themes and anniversaries of
significance locally and internationally, including Glasgow Life’s thematic foci for the year, such as Glasgow’s position as UNESCO City of Music in 2015, or the 60th
anniversary of the end of World War II. Another element of influence on the
programme is of course the availability of authors and the demands put upon them by the publishing cycle. The Guest Programmer is in constant communication with publishers and agents in an attempt to confirm attendance. While the programme tends to be the main focus of these meetings, there is also time given to discussion of marketing strategy, media partnerships, brochure design and ticket pricing.
Coordination of the physical environment of the festival is handled by the Operations Group, which consists entirely of Glasgow Life staff, including venue managers, librarians, technicians and an information officer. This team organises staffing, ticketing, signage, sound and light and catering, and has a significant role in organising the physical and technical infrastructure which optimises audience experience.
With these teams in place covering programming, pricing (which includes managing costs as well as ticket prices), place and publicity, the ‘simple’ book festival model is complete.
Aye Write! conducts a paper and online survey of some of its customers. Customer feedback from 908 completed paper and online forms in the 2015
customer survey suggests the festival achieved a high level of customer satisfaction, repeat attendance and programme approval. In 2015, 76% of respondents had previously attended Aye Write!, with 97% stating they were ‘very likely’ or ‘likely’ to return the following year.221
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Figure 14: Aye Write! 2015 customer feedback – Attendance
These would be encouraging figures for any cultural event, and this approval is reflected through the responses to questions of programme and place.
The questionnaire asked audience members to rate Aye Write! on Venue and Choice of Events.
Figure 15: Aye Write! 2015 customer feedback – Venue and Event Choice
97% of respondents rated the venue ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’, 91% rated the choice of events ‘Good’ or ‘Very Good’. Once again, these responses would suggest the festival is successful.
NO, 219, 24% YES, 685,
76%