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From The Times

October 30, 2007

New round of library closures threatened

Dayla Alberge, Arts Correspondent

Proposals to close library buildings across England are being explored by a government advisory body even though more than 100 buildings are estimated to have been lost in the past two years, The Times has learnt.

Two years ago a damning report by the Commons Select Committee for Culture condemned the shabby and neglected public library services, with their backlog of building repairs and refurbishments. MPs had urged the Government to give libraries access to lottery money, calculating that up to two thirds of a billion pounds would be needed to wipe out the backlog of repairs.

Campaigners, who are already outraged that libraries are being turned into centres for fitness classes and Pilates, were shocked to discover yesterday that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the government agency in charge of the sector, is addressing the problem by examining whether there are too many library buildings.

Roy Clare, the chief executive of the MLA, told The Times: “We are spending more than we should on the buildings’ infrastructure . . . library buildings are a nightmare. No ward councillor wants to see a library building close but the MLA must come up with the evidence to provide a third-party review.”

Applauding his local library in Colchester for introducing services such as a café, even though he acknowledged that there was one 100 yards away, Mr Clare added: “A number of councillors have put it to me that they have got more buildings than they need . . . a better service could be provided with fewer buildings and more attention to book stocks and what libraries can do. These are the kind of incentives we should be providing.”

Although the select committee said that well-stocked shelves, rather than IT terminals, were the bedrock of the future of libraries, the MLA is to award up to £2 million from the Big Lottery Fund to 58 library authorities “to enhance public libraries as venues for a diverse range of community activities”.

The MLA admitted to The Times that none of the lottery cash was earmarked for books.

Before closing libraries lets first get rid of the mobile libraries, a complete waste of money, little used. People are no longer isolated in villages. The library vans in our area are often vandalised.

Raymond Groutage, Ringwood, Hampshire, England

The closing of public libraries is the latest in a long list of moves away from the public service ethos espoused by the Victorians and Edwardians. For example :- the neglect of municipal parks. Sale of school playing fields, Sale of green areas (very often originally for public use) to supermarkets. Closure of public lavatories. The removal of park keepers. The absence of bobbies on the beat. No wonder that we inhabit a society in which antisocila behaviour and vandalism is rife.

Geoff, Wirral,

OK, cut libraries too, charge extra for waste disposal and will someone please tell me what I actually pay my council tax for? I live on an unadopted road in a rural area 1/2 mile from the nearest streetlight, can't use my local council-sponsored DBFO leisure facility (it's permanently booked for evening classes outside of working hours, plus I have to pay to use it as I'm employed; unlike the unwashed jobless who can use all council facilities free). As for paying for the maintenance of roads and footways, don't make me laugh. We pay more in tax than anywhere else I know of (and that includes scandanavia, where most of my family have emigrated to) and recieve zilch in return. Bottom line: if you're willing to work in this country, you'll be ridden into a paupers grave then have to pay death duties. Seems like we've got Victorian values back; 100 years to build a functioning welfare state, 10 years of Blair & Brown to dismantle it. My working visa application is underway.....

John Preston, manchester, UK