Library Crisis?

343 libraries have closed and almost 8,000 jobs have disappeared in the last six years, an investigation by the BBC has revealed.

16:20 30 March 2016

An investigation by the BBC has found that in the last six years, almost 8,000 jobs in UK libraries have disappeared as 343 libraries have closed, leading fears over the future of the profession.

 

Children’s author Alan Gibbons said that the public library service faced the “greatest crisis in its history.” 

Responding to the crisis, the government said it funded the roll-out of wi-fi to help libraries adapt.

 

Mr Gibbons, who wrote Blue Peter Book Award winner Shadow of the Minotaur, said: "Opening hours are slashed, book stocks reduced.

 

"Volunteers are no longer people who supplement full time staff, but their replacements. This constitutes the hollowing out of the service. We are in dangerous territory."

 

Meanwhile, author Philip Pullman, said the library service should not rely on volunteers.

 

"It is exploiting people's goodness and willingness to work and so on," he told BBC Radio Oxford.

 

"I am in favour of volunteering but relying on volunteers to provide a service that ought to be statutory is not a good policy. What next? Are we going to rely on volunteer teachers because we can't find new teachers because all the staffing levels in schools are going down?"