You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Library campaigner Tim Coates has warned between 600 and 1,000 libraries could close over the next 18 months amid a media blitz on last week's declining library visit numbers.
Last week The Bookseller reported figures from the Department of Culture Media and Sport that revealed the proportion of adults visiting a library decreased from 48.2% in 2005/06 to 39.4% in 2009/10.
The story has been picked up by the mainstream press over the past 24 hours with them also reporting on Ed Vaizey's library support initiative, which proposes cutting costs by giving libraries to communities to run amid other measures.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11037964" target="_blank" title="Coates">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11037964">Coates told the BBC: "I believe we will lose between 600 to a 1,000 libraries in the next 12-18 months and that may be only the beginning, we are seeing the destruction of the public library service."
In an opinion piece for the Guardian called Libraries Need Investment to Thrive, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/24/libraries-need-inves... target="_blank" title="John">http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/24/libraries-need-inves... Harris writes: "They would doubtless deny it, but [the] release of a new set of figures from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) looks like a textbook case of softening up the public for yet another fall of the axe."