Local government cuts - focus on the Library.

The Welsh Assembly government this week published its draft budget. The biggest losers are the local authorities. Yesterday, as an officer of a local society, I received an email from the Chief Librarian of the County Borough in which I live, inviting the Society's response to proposals which include the closure of my local library.

This is the text of my reply:

"Thank you for including YHS in this consultation.

Obviously, you and your political masters face appalling pressures and choices. But let it not be overlooked that the first mover in all this is a Westminster government which has absolutely no electoral mandate for what it has done and is doing. Many of us regard its economic 'justifications' for its policies as at best unsound, and at worst simply bogus. The damage that is being done - in this case, the forced closure of libraries in deprived communities with poor transport links - will not be quickly reversed, if it is reversed at all. So is there not a need for a bit of backbone, some boldness, some lateral thinking, to hold the line in the hope of the tide turning? "Do not go gentle into that dark night."

So you will not expect any civic society to applaud the closure of its local library. Change is needed, without doubt - but if one form of provision goes, an alternative needs to be found.

Have you considered the role of the secondary schools ? They have libraries. They are on the whole located around the county with some regard for the patterns of population. Might not a stronger partnership between the education service and the library service be a way forward ? "

The next blog down explores how we (collective we - are you one of us ?) might "not go gentle into that dark night".