Letter: Booking a future role for Britain's public libraries

Sir: Is David Lister suggesting the Library Association should not campaign vigorously against proposals to cut public library services ('Book sales rise as fewer borrow from libraries', 3 March)? Surely not. It could be argued that it has been because of our campaigns that the public library service is as good as it is and that there are still 5,000 libraries up and down the country, lending nearly 600 million books a year.

But the point of our campaign last year, and the centre of our concern this year, is not so much the overall picture but specific proposals for drastic cuts. It cannot be right that a great city central library is shut one whole day a week, that a council in the North-east reduced the opening hours of all its libraries by 62 per cent, that one county library system ceased buying any national newspapers, or that two other county libraries decided to close a dozen branches.

Such closures and retrenchments (which are only examples) reduce people's access to libraries and the books and information they provide. In many of the communities served by public libraries, there are no bookshops at all.

Neither is it true that people are switching from borrowing to buying. According to another piece of research published this week (Books and the Consumer), 'the more reading that is done, the more books are bought and . . . the greater the use of public libraries'. That is how it should be. People need access to attractive, stock-holding bookshops and to well-funded public libraries. It remains our concern that, despite their popularity, despite their vital role at the heart of our democracy, in some parts of the country public libraries are being starved of the small amount of money they need to flourish.

Yours sincerely,

ROSS SHIMMON

Chief Executive

The Library Association

London, WC1

3 March