100 years ago Andrew Carnegie said that “there is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration”.
It’s a sign of the times that today’s Guardian is reporting that cuts to Council budgets are placing public libraries at risk – ‘80 libraries have been shut across the UK in the last decade, and at least 850 professional staff have lost their jobs. It costs £1.2bn a year to fund 2,500 libraries, and they have been earmarked as one of the services most at risk from council cutbacks’. As UNISON national officer Marion Boston says in the Guardian report: "at a time of cuts, when the government is banging on about community, disadvantaged youth and great poverty, libraries are like manna from heaven for poor people."
A report on the future of the library service, commissioned by Labour Culture Minister Margaret Hodge, is due to be published next week. The Guardian states that it is expected to encourage local authorities to consider the use of volunteers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/mar/17/libraries-closures-volunteers-public-services?
The campaigning initiative by UNISON Scotland in support of the union’s ‘Love Your Libraries’’ is therefore very timely and a useful briefing on the campaign can be downloaded from the Scottish region’s website.
http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/news/2010/marapr/1503.htm
