'Government has failed our libraries'

Haroon Siddique 

The children's laureate, Malorie Blackman, has attacked the government for failing to intervene to stop local authorities closing libraries, arguing that they should be ringfenced from spending cuts.

At least 347 libraries shut their doors for the last time in the first two years of the coalition government and, as austerity measures continue to bite, putting pressure on councils to slash funding, campaigners have warned that 400 more could be axed over the next three years.

In many cases the cutbacks have prompted fierce protests and Blackman, appointed children's laureate in June, has added her voice to the dissent.

Writing for the Guardian, she said: "While I appreciate that in these austere times all local authorities are seeking to make savings, there is surely a strong argument for library services and in particular children's library services to be ringfenced against such cuts. Indeed, the 1964 Libraries Act states that every authority must provide a 'comprehensive and efficient' library service and that the government's duty is to investigate when there are serious complaints that this is not the case. Yet this government has not once seen fit to intervene, not even in Gloucestershire where nearly half the libraries were scheduled for closure and Hertfordshire, where swingeing cuts to the public library service were initially proposed."

Local authorities in the UK have been pushing forward with branch closures, including Lincolnshire county council, which plans to shut 32 out of 47 libraries, Moray council in Scotland (axing seven out of 15) and Sefton council in Liverpool (closing seven out of 12).

Blackman noted that while Ed Vaizey, the minister for culture, communications and creative industries, intervened to prevent Jane Austen's ring leaving the country by designating it a national treasure, "our public libraries are just as much of a national treasure as Jane Austen's ring and yet I have seen no such outrage from Vaizey at their closure".

She wrote that the closure of libraries was a blow to the increased government emphasis on children's reading and educational attainment. Research published by the National Literacy Trust last year suggests children are reading fewer novels, comics, magazines and websites with 17% professing that they would be embarrassed if a friend saw them with a book.

Blackman, who has written over 60 books and was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to children's literature, said she would never have become a writer, let alone risen to be children's laureate, without her local library and warned that without libraries, literacy would become "the province of a lucky few", rather than the democratising force they are at present.

"Libraries are the best literacy resource we have," she said. "For children, they provide an equaliser that allows everyone the access to books, storytelling sessions, homework clubs, expert librarians who provide non-partisan assistance and advice regarding books and warm and safe environments within which to discover and explore the world of literature. Libraries switch children on to a love of reading, with all the ensuing benefits, and can make them lifelong readers. Without them, literacy may increasingly become the province of the lucky few, rather than the birth right of everyone."

A spokesman for the department for culture, media and sport said that library funding was a matter to decide for local authorities, that are best placed to determine local need.