Shaping Devon's libraries
I approach the current project Shaping Devon's libraries with a mixture of despair and hope. I accessed the main sections of the project as far as they relate to Exeter in early January:
Background to the consultation. Version 3.
Reduction and standardisation of opening hours. Version 3.
The proposed new opening hours. Version 3.
Library area: Exeter city and Crediton. Version 3.
There is despair because the future is ever more cuts. Cuts to opening hours, cuts to resources, cuts to professional staff. There will be an increasing use of volunteers, plans to hand over some branches to agencies within local communities. The proposals offered do seem to make the best of a bad job, so I have completed the questionnaire with a few comments.
There is despair too because it is not generally realised quite how much has already been lost or abandoned, particularly on the heritage and culture fronts. In 2012 the massive community memory bank of Exeter and its region was transferred to the Devon Heritage Centre on Sowton Industrial Estate where it is managed by South West Heritage Trust (SWHT), based in Taunton, Somerset from where a librarian visits one day a week. This resource, formerly the Westcountry Studies Library (WSL) now rebadged West Country Studies Library (WCSL, an unfortunate abbreviation, deliberately avoided in 1975), had a similar number of documents to the county stack in Exeter Central Library. Exact figures are hard to come by, as the advanced search facility on the SWHT catalogue provides highly misleading results but, based on a 2016 search before the Devon County Council local studies database was closed, the estimated figures are:
Books, pamphlets, ephemera: Westcountry general works: 10,000 documents. Devon: 45,000. Cornwall: 7,000. Somerset: 7,000. Dorset: 6,000. Bristol: 2,000. Channel Islands 1,000.
Illustrations: 30,000. Maps: 16,000. Individual periodical articles: 8,000. Periodical titles: 1,700. Newspaper titles 500. Sound, video, microfilms 800.
Totals: Books, pamphlets, ephemera: 98,000 documents. Other media: 57,000 documents.
GRAND TOTAL: 155,000 documents.
Devon county stack in Exeter Central Library holds around 150,000 documents.
London : John Cawood, 1570. — [12],259,[3] leaves : illustrations ; 2º. —
The Devon bibliography provides fuller listings of Devon publications and has linked to an archive of the Westcountry Studies Library website. This recovers more than 5,000 pages from web archives at various dates between 1999 and 2005.
The effects of the withdrawal of professional staffing and resource funding can be seen in accession figures. A search made on the SWHT online catalogue in January 2026 shows only 65 items added to WCSL stock in 2024 (18 of them individual periodical issues rather than books) while the figure for WSL in 2004 was 1225 (many of them also periodical issues). This is a drop of 95% and is not made up for by links to internet resources. The situation is particularly disastrous for planning documents, of which there are virtually none listed for the county or district councils since 2013. Of the more than sixty neighbourhood plans for smaller communities across Devon in this period not one is listed, nor is a link made to online versions. Over the last decade WCSL has become an information black hole.
Devon and Exeter should work together to pool resources, rather than in separate silos, and this applies above all to the libraries. For example there are loan books on the open shelves in Exeter Central Library that were really intended by donors for the county's research collection (for example A history of the Edwinsford and Clovelly communities by David T. R. Lewis, 2017). There are also books in the Exeter "Cage" that belong to the Westcountry Studies Library, particularly items relating to Sir Walter Raleigh, although such provenance is less evident now that the more than 150,000 WSL stock cards have been unceremoniously dumped. At the very least Libraries Unlimited should inform the Devon Heritage Centre of local books that it has added to stock which SWHT might not have the resources to acquire for WCSL.
Nor is this loss limited to local studies information. Exeter Central Library holds in the "Cage" more than 5,000 titles, including about 1800 books printed before 1801, 2500 in an important collection of early children's books, 425 prints about Napoleon including satirical caricatures in the Heber Mardon Collection, some of which were exhibited in Caen, 556 items on shorthand, some dating from the 17th century, in the Pocknell Collection, as well as important reference items and private press books from the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of these were moved to safety during the War, survived the 1942 bombing and so form part of the foundation collections of Exeter City Library. A member of Libraries Unlimited staff took great interest in these collections, working with the University in producing Sickness in the archives a celebration of medical works in the collections, starting "white glove experiences" and introducing an "adopt a book scheme". She has now left Exeter Central Library.
In 2024 a request was made to adopt An exact survey of the microcosmus a rare and important anatomical work by Johann Remmelin, containing engravings with lift-up flaps to show internal organs. This offer was intended as a memorial to a recently-departed spouse who had worked in medical libraries, but the potential donor was told that the offer could not be accepted. The heritage collections apparently do not form part of the core service agreement between Devon County Council and Libraries Unlimited and any work undertaken on them was a personal initiative and should not impact work on the core objectives. Books were no longer being added to the collections and a consignment of 19th century books recently offered to the children's collection was returned. The cage material had been valued by a local bookseller and items were considered as "heritage assets". The fear was expressed that conservation work could lower the value of the item.
Remmelin, Johann. An exact survey of the microcosmus. or little world. Being an anatomie, of the bodies of man and woman Wherein the skin, veins, nerves, muscles, bones, sinews and ligaments are accurately delineated. And curiously pasted together, so as at first sight you may behold all the outward parts of man and woman. And by turning up the several dissections of the paper take a view of all their inwards. With alphabetical referrences to every member and part of the body. Usefull for all doctors, chirurgeons, &c. As also for painters, carvers, and all persons that desire to be acquainted with the parts, and their names, in the bodies of man, or woman. Set forth by Michael Spaher of Tyrol. And Englished by John Ireton, and lastly perused and corrected, by several rare anatomists. -
There are a number of alarm bells ringing here. What do hard-pressed local authorities do with "assets" that could raise a tidy sum? What price culture, heritage, memory? What do the present owners owe to those who donated items to the library in the past for the benefit of future generations? What is the use of these primitive artefacts of a superseded technology anyway in a world where everything is on-line, enhanced by artificial intelligence?
But there is hope. Although there is no mention of local government reorganisation in the consultation on Shaping Devon's libraries, there is a probability that Exeter will once more become a unitary authority, which it was in effect as a county borough before 1975. It will become a library authority and under the terms of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 (UK Public General Acts 1964 c. 75) Section 7:
It shall be the duty of every library authority to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use thereof, ... a library authority shall in particular have regard to the desirability [...]
(a) of securing, by the keeping of adequate stocks, by arrangements with other library authorities, and by any other appropriate means, that facilities are available for the borrowing of, or reference to, books and other printed matter, and pictures, gramophone records, films and other materials, sufficient in number, range and quality to meet the general requirements and any special requirements both of adults and children; and
(b) of encouraging both adults and children to make full use of the library service, and of providing advice as to its use and of making available such bibliographical and other information as may be required by persons using it; and
(c) of securing, in relation to any matter concerning the functions both of the library authority as such and any other authority whose functions are exercisable within the library area, that there is full co-operation between the persons engaged in carrying out those functions.
Exeter City Council is also drawing up a plan, Exeter Vision 2040, which includes the following aspiration:
Exeter will be known nationally and internationally as a city of culture. It will innovate and lead in the area of the environment, wellbeing, cultural literacy, creative making and heritage innovation to build a living city where everyone thrives. Under its UNESCO City of Literature status Exeter will become a destination for writers and a city of readers. The city will use the power of literature and words to pursue a set of wellbeing goals to improve life for all.
Exeter's cultural policies and programmes have been evolving over a long period since Exeter historian W.G. Hoskins wrote in Two thousand years in Exeter (page 134) in 1960: "Somewhere between 1860 and now, Exeter ceased to be a cultured city". The basic working document appears to be A Cultural Strategy for the City of Exeter. This is undated but seems to be "Draft 3", perhaps originating as early as 2003. It aims to establish Exeter as the major cultural and leisure centre for Devon and the surrounding area. No policies are linked to libraries or literature, but there is a mention of a cultural quarter in the area of the Museum, Arts Centre and Library. More detail is provided by Futurecity in Liveable Exeter, connected culture, cultural placemaking strategy, commissioned by Exeter City Council in 2024. Cultural placemaking has as its four pillars: heritage, arts and literature, learning and innovation, and climate.
But there is a long way to go. Where can the writers and readers who will flock to learn about the heritage of this nationally and internationally renowned city of culture go as a focal point to discover the hidden treasures of this unique community? Where, for that matter, will tourists, researchers, students, schoolchildren, go for informed guidance through the wealth of information available to them through libraries, museums, archives and the historic and natural environment? And what of the therapeutic value of reading about and seeing images of the community and its environment, from young children discovering the world around them to older people on a nostalgia trip or recovering local memories in a mind tormented with dementia?
The only tourist information centre is in the Custom House on the Quay. Not many people arrive in Exeter by canal these days and many visitors never find their way down to the riverside. The largest library of local studies resources is hidden away on an industrial estate three miles east of Exeter Central Library. All that can be found on open access in Exeter Central Library is a shifting collection of perhaps one hundred books. Some charity shops in the city can do better than that for local material, and similar numbers of books can be found in the "little free libraries" that are scattered in coffee shops and elsewhere in Exeter, although few titles deal with local topic. A group of individuals is building up a collection of books, pamphlets and other resources on Exeter and its region that could be freely accessible somewhere in the heart of Exeter.
Exeter needs a cultural heritage centre with a name to rival Plymouth's The Box - how about The Exeperience? But where can it be located and how large might it be?
It should be fronted by a tourist information office where people could buy admission tickets for local sites, book theatre or concert tickets, pick up local guides and publicity, buy books on Exeter and its region or gather for redcoat tours.
There should be a permanent display of images past and present of Exeter and its region with space for special exhibitions by local groups or for special commemorations.
There should be a space for meetings, lectures, seminars and group study.
And most importantly such a cultural centre must have a working collection of books and other documentation on Exeter and its region with access to digital information, both current and archived. This could be largely made up of duplicates of items in the Devon Heritage Centre with multiple copies of items such as directories and large-scale plans for group research. A loan collection of duplicates of local and genealogical interest could also be transferred there, and there could be a Record Office service point.
There could also be space for local organisations and their resources - for example the Devon Family History Society is currently looking for a new home and there are many other local organisations in the heritage field who might appreciate an office desk and storage space.
It should be in the centre of Exeter, preferably in the cultural quarter and not too remote from the bus station, the High Street transport hub and Exeter Central Station. What about the telephone exchange? With the miniaturisation or telecommunications apparatus BT must be rattling around in there, and it is a currently inaccessible blot on the architectural landscape, depite all the colourful images that have been placed on its forbidding walls.
A good example of such a centre can be found in Hull, a well established city of culture where the Hull History Centre brings together the Hull City Council and the University of Hull to provide an active heritage hub in the heart of the community.
So, that is my Exeter Heritage Vision 2040. Take it or leave it; after almost half a century working to record Devon's published heritage, I am moving on to pastures new.
Devon. Manuscript library catalogue compiled by a member of the Speke family, possibly for Orleigh Court, Buckland Brewer, 1930s.
