At any one time, local authorities are considering their plans, and almost every library closure that has been mentioned today is a proposal-these things are being consulted on. In Oxfordshire, in my own backyard, the proposals will undergo a three-month consultation. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), let me say that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council-I pay tribute to Roy Clare, who is a fantastic leader of that organisation-is working with authorities to show them ways of moving forward without necessarily closing all the proposed libraries.

-Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media & Sport Edward Vaizey

Ed Vaizey closed a debate on 25th January of this year with a robust defence of his government’s policies, as you can see his main defence as outlined above and stripped of rhetorical flourishes is this- support our cuts they might not be quite as comprehensive as we plan. Which is remarkable logic, looking for support for a policy on the grounds of it can be stopped. Together with repeated passing the buck to local authorities, as if central government has not made stipulations on them to cut spending, in truth both are in this up to their greasy elbows. The debate was full of party politics, which is splendid as it avoids the elephant in the room, all three parties follow neoliberal orthodoxy they simply vary the style of application. Britain as a state with social democratic elements is soon to end, a process begun in 1979 and steadily pushed forward by party leadership in the the three main parties. What this means is there will be virtually no public commons in physical and in theoretical terms, shared resources managed by an accountable state for the public good will cease to exist. Britain’s ruling class never was very keen on the social democratic qualities the post World War two era generated, more specifically hard right conservative’s have been itching to dismantle the Health service, welfare services and other non profit based state activities for decades. There greatest success was not just the Conservative party elite signing up to this but the Lib Dems and New Labour too. This year represents a crucial tipping point in fatally weakening what few social responsibilities government performs, we simply won’t be able to turn the clock back or undo the damage (not least as there is a lack of a party with chance of government guaranteeing to reject neoliberal orthodoxy). If the Coalition get away with their ideological project Britain and especially England will be unrecognisable as a nation that values its own citizens and their abilities to lead enriched fulfilled lives, debt peonage will follow on shortly for most as corporate and bank debt is decisively socialised onto us while profit is privatise to an elite. Of course you won’t be aware of any of this unless you either have had the good fortune of a good education and/or access to literature and information, thus we begin to see the importance of libraries, both to enrich lives and provide the intellectual means to defend them.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

One tried and tested bureaucratic scam to enable policy is to fix the terms from the outset. In welfare this is achieved by creating a fake health test that finds sick people able to work, then declaring the results saying how they demonstrate all these people claiming to be ill were fraudulent. In libraries the scam revolves around usage statistics being misused and the basic wheeze of underfunding libraries for years then declaring them to be in a terrible state and so deserve closure. For example Sheffield Council pissed millions up the wall on the student games, the debts they-knowingly- incurred were paid back by cutting services among them libraries (one joke was when homeless people asked about the housing shortage they could at least be given directions to another brand spanking new Ice Rink!). On arriving in the city in 1996 to study Fine Art I checked to find a nearby library and set off to visit it, finding only a chain pub I assumed I had got the map wrong. I went away, rechecked the map, printed it, took my A to Z and again arrived at the chain pub, apparently where the library was supposed to be an ugly chain pub had landed on it. Enquiring among those in the know it turned out the library was there until it was sold in the council’s debt servicing frenzy and said chain pub was born, who needs leanrin’ when you got cheap lager and fights on a Friday night?

In the Wirral attempts to close libraries by a Labour & LibDem council were fought and beaten key grounds for the successful fight were

• Stated intention for large numbers of closures
• Driven by asset-review, not social outcomes
• Ineffective consultation with public (and staff)
• Potential of library services not well recognised
• No workable strategy for service improvement
• ‘Good Practice’ elsewhere not being considered

There is another argument made for closure- that libraries are becoming obsolete what with the internet and eBooks that is spectacular in its self fulfilling scam DNA. At the forefront of contemporary libraries is providing free internet access to users and developing eBook & Reader systems for reading and loans. As well as continuing to provide music, films, art for rental in a variety of media. In fact this argument revolves around darker unhinted at motives,

Ministers have quietly dropped plans to guarantee free internet access in all public libraries, it emerged today. A requirement for town halls to provide cost-free web surfing was a central plank of suggestions drawn up under Labour to halt the decline in library use.

But despite being championed by libraries minister Ed Vaizey, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said local authorities would not be “compelled” to take on the Public Library Modernisation Review Policy Statement. Other recommendations including library membership from birth will also not be enforced. Councils will have to choose whether to pay for these services at a time when budgets are being hit by spending cuts.

The reduction of the public commons, this time from internet use, everything has a price (consequently everything can make a profit) closing libraries and weakening their communal role is an ideological project, not merely money saving, it also has devastating implications for us.

Britons will be forced to apply online for government services such as student loans, driving licences, passports and benefits under cost-cutting plans to be unveiled this week. Officials say getting rid of all paper applications could save billions of pounds. They insist that vulnerable groups will be able to fill in forms digitally at their local post offices.

Overall the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show-

• 9.2 million adults had never used the Internet
• London was once again the region with the highest level of household Internet connections at 83 per cent. The North East had the lowest proportion of households with an Internet connection, at 59 per cent.
• There were 7 million households without Internet access in 2010. When adults were asked why their household did not have an Internet connection, the most common response was that they didn’t need it, at 39 per cent, followed by 21 per cent who said a lack of skills prevented them from having the Internet. Equipment costs being too high was the reason given by 18 per cent of adults as to why their household had no Internet connection.

So who is going to be excluded from interacting with the state they pay for? The elderly, those without the user know how, the poor. And how do they interact with libraries? Proposals for closures in Leeds provide an illustrative example, Leeds council marked 20 out of 53 libraries for closure saying small libraries got little use and their limited opening hours meant resources were locked away from users most of the time. Sounds pretty good huh? Seems to make sense maybe in these ‘lean times’, enter Voices For The Library and their Freedom of Information Request, seems the authority were being the teensiest weensiest bit fibby-

Overall, the majority of Leeds’ libraries did see a marked decrease in library visits (this refers to visits to the physical library rather than the library website).  However, 22 of Leeds’ 53 libraries bucked this trend and recorded an increase in library visits.  Of these 22 libraries, 10 of these are libraries that the authority is planning to close.

A further factor to consider is usage of computers in Leeds libraries.  The Yorkshire region has some of the lowest rates of household internet access in the country.  According to the latest ONS statistics, Yorkshire and the Humber have an estimated 69% of households with internet access.  This compares less favorably with London (83%), the South East (79%) and the North West (71%).  Unlike visits and loans (and perhaps unsurprisingly given the Internet access issues in the region), computer bookings were up in the majority of libraries in Leeds.  Of those, nine were proposed for closure

However, not only is the performance of the individual libraries a reason to question the proposals put forward by Leeds council, the impact on some of the surrounding communities should also be taken into account.  Take, for example, Richmond Hill.  Strong growth across all main performance measures, outperforming many other libraries in the area.  The unemployment rate is 13.6% – one of the highest rates of unemployment in the authority.  Cow Close, again a strong performer in many of the performance measures outlined above, has an unemployment rate of 12.3%.  Holbeck, a 14% increase in visits, also 13.6% unemployed.  Belle Isle, book issue increase of 8%, 13.6% unemployment.  Armley Heights, 32% increase in computer bookings in a region that has some of the lowest Internet connectivity rates in the country, an unemployment rate of 12.3%.  It does not seem to us that Leeds City Council is putting the needs of the local communities at the forefront of its proposals.  It seems, in fact, that those who most rely on libraries will be the ones that suffer, no matter the increasing numbers of people that are using them.

Barriers to internet usage based upon lack of expertise can easily be overcome with some easy lessons, many libraries offer both lessons and free internet access, this also mitigates for those to whom cost is a factor. Yet libraries are being closed while the government takes services online only, if one chose to see intention in this two pronged attack it is not one that could be credited with any progressive agenda. Furthermore with poverty increasing libraries have seen an overall rise in usage in badly hit areas-

THE credit crunch [sic] saw more than 10,000 new borrowers sign up for a library card this year. Newcastle’s book lenders saw record numbers flock into the city’s facilities – and said the economic slowdown was partly responsible. They recorded a massive 33% rise in members, up 10,626, and also gave 4,000 children their first ever library card, a rise of 14% on last year. And they said the opening of the new Newcastle City Library in 2009 would prompt new record numbers of borrowers to sign up.

Newcastle, Leeds, Wirral, hmm, I wonder, are those places chock full of Tory voters… (Cuts to council funding ‘deeper in poorest areas’) ? Anyways where was I?Ah yes, the Public Libraries Act 1850

Salford Museum and Art Gallery first opened in November 1850 as “The Royal Museum & Public Library”, as the first unconditionally free public library in England. The library in Campfield, Manchester was the first library to operate a free lending library without subscription in 1852

Allow me a moment of birth place pride. So we can see the ideological geniuses of our Brave New World are progressing er, backwards. In fact backwards is a pretty good term for the whole shower of besuited fuckwits who despise a society that believes in a common good and shared knowledge. Show me a nation without a good library system and I’ll show you a fucking shithole.

Saturday the 5th of February is the Save Our Libraries Day of Action, there is a handy Guardian map and guide here. Voices For The Library have more details here. And this is Philip Pullman’s great speech Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value.

Now that’s about it, you can head off now this last bit is just something that occurred to me about my local library when I was a schoolkid. Neither of my parents had a degree, my mum studied at the the Northern College of Music but dropped out (she claims the lure of musicals and jazz made the strict classicism pall somewhat, I’m thinking reefers & sailors?), there was also some idea she married beneath her when she married my dad. Him and his brother ran a builder’s merchants selling builders bricks, pipes, cement that they got from the manufacturers (ooh Ribble Cement and their lovely Xmas Lancashire cheese, see fellas it was worth it, all these years later and you get a free plug). So kinda lower middle class, the first of Thatcher’s recessions killed the business, then cancer killed him. We didn’t have a lot of books in the house, the Reader’s Digest got delivered, we had their 3 volume encyclopaedia in red leathery stuff, it was enough to give you an idea what you needed to look up in the library. So for homework and projects I would go off up the library on my bike ’til it shut at 7.30 (on Thursdays and I think erm Tuesdays) I knew it well because of my borrowing Hardy Boys, Willard Price, Doctor Who books etc, I got the Lord of The Rings from there when I was 10 and Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy when I was 11. But the thing about the reference library, the encyclopaedias, the biographies, the science and art books was the utter pain in the arse when the book you wanted was reference only. Other kids at my posh school (yep I passed the 11 plus and Tory council paid to send me to grammar) had encyclopaedias at home, they might go to the library but they didn’t have to. Now get this- two of the better off kids, one in my year and one in the year below, the younger brother of a friend, are now MP’s, one is a Tory and the other is a LibDem. I went to the Tories birthday party once, I have an excruciating picture of us in the first year of grammar school that I may put up sometime. But both of them had books at home, good encyclopaedias. Funny that.