Kirklees Council has threatened seven libraries with closure unless they are taken over by volunteers. Meanwhile, the Arts Council offer funding for a cinema in one of the libraries!

Fresh Horizons is a social enterprise based in Deighton in Huddersfield but working across Kirklees for the last 10 years. We create employment in areas of deprivation through contracting to deliver services to the pubic, private and community sectors. One service we deliver is a library under contract to Kirklees Council from a building we manage, The Chestnut Centre, where the Library and Information Centre service has been running since 2007.

We face many issues in the area related to long term unemployment and low attainment and most of our work tries to link to addressing or alleviating the problems we face. So as well as a library service from The Chestnut Centre we provide access to low cost finance through the credit union, provide housing advice, learning opportunities, community social events and activities, work with young people locally encouraging volunteering, supporting adults back into learning and employment etc.

We manage other community facilities for smaller community organisations, low cost managed workspace and an enterprise centre. Our Empty Homes programme is currently bring 19 properties back into productive use, creating employment and apprenticeships and accreditation for skilled but unqualified workers. We employ about 50 staff, 85% live in the same postcode as where they work.

We are now starting to work with other community organisations in the rural south of Kirklees to help find solutions which can create sustainable centres along the lines of those we have created in our urban setting, which will could provide a hub for services including library provision.

We, independently of Kirklees Council, applied to the Library Development Initiative Fund and are working with Open Cinema which has a track record in bringing cinema and film making to disadvantaged groups. We are hoping to use film making in the cinema in our library to increase participation in education and training, give voice to those that rarely have a say, reduce social isolation of older members of the community, increase lending of books and put our library at the heart of art and culture locally.

We don't feel that the allocation of Arts Council funding to us - in a programme to put libraries at the heart of art and culture in their areas - was bizarre.

Bystander, I just wanted to echo Alan's comments. Many of the people commenting in this thread do aim their comments at local authorities too, and are happy to do it as often as is needed to get the point/message across.

You're right that organisations higher up the strategic chain don't fund libraries directly, but part of the reason why public libraries in the UK are on such unsteady ground at the moment is because strategic leadership hasn't been great.

For any positive changes to be made it's necessary for campaigners/library users to highlight these concerns with decision makers at all strategic levels, not just local authorities - including DCMS, ACE and Government Ministers. To ensure public libraries in the UK have a future it requires a strong message of support backed up by action to come from these representatives at a national level, just as much as it needs a strong message on a local level too.

Unfortunately, it seems as if the only people who have a strong message to pass on are the campaigners.

OK I've had answers to my post privately, and understand people are campaigning to stop library closures. But by the time people campaign to stop their own local library being closed a lot of harm has already been done.

Before libraries are at the closure stage, they have already been dismantled in many ways. Staff are reduced, starting with porters and ending up with the librarians. The library might still not be at risk of closure so the campaigners might not yet be helping enough.

It's quite confusing to know what we should do to help before it gets to the closure stage and campaigns to keep the library open. I help in a library with events, but the staff has been cut, starting with the porters and now it's the librarians. People aren't aware of any risk of closure so I'm not sure there is a campaign to help with any of this.

Now the opening hours are being cut, so it's possible I might not even be able to help with my event for much longer. In the meantime the library has been building up and training volunteers to try to maintain the service no matter what happens.

I'm being told this isn't confusing but it is. On the one hand we're told it's important not to replace staff with volunteers. On the other hand libraries are asking us to volunteer in order to keep it going. I think the point when we campaign to keep a library open is the final point in the dismantling and I want to know what we should do to stop the staff being lost much earlier.

Oh dear, Alan. I'm really sorry to have trespassed on here when I'm not a library campaigner while you clearly see it as a closed club. If you are aiming to alienate anyone who doesn't have the same campaigning background, you are doing a great job! I don't see how this will further your campaign though - it is more likely to make sure you stay an insignificant minority.

I was trying to make a few points, but these have clearly eluded you so maybe I need to spell them out a bit more. Firstly, Arts Council do not, as far as I know, fund libraries. If that 230k wasn't given to these projects, it would almost certainly be directed somewhere else away from libraries. Would you like to explain how that would benefit libraries? At least these projects may attract more people into using libraries, which you should be able to use for your campaign. After all, under-used libraries cannot really justify more resources can they?

It also seems to have eluded some of your number that if you want to influence people, you need to show them that you have constructive ideas. Ms Burnham's rancid rant is more likely to ensure that Arts Council will never listen to anything she says. If she aimed those nasty, derogatory terms at me, I would do everything I could to oppose her. That sort of attitude will ensure that her campaigns never succeed.

If you want a campaign to be successful, you have to be measured and calculating. You have to engage in cordial dialogue to convince those in power that your way is best. Yelling and calling them names has never worked, and never will.

There was a heartfelt comment which suddenly disappeared. Within it was a reference to my "rancid rant". I thought that a legitimate view and the alliteration superb. Might the comment be reinstated ?

It's not really as clear as 'are you doing a voluntary job that replaces a staff member or not'. A library builds up a group of volunteers and the permanent library staff really want and need this help. They keep asking for it as they feel that without volunteers the library could be closed earlier as the service would be poor. The volunteers aren't specifically to replace trained staff - in fact it started with the porters and more volunteers were needed to help set up events and clear chairs away.

But bit by bit the build up of voluntary helpers is used to keep the service going smoothly. At a certain point the librarians are interviewed for their jobs, and lose them, which has now happened.

By the time the local newspapers are building up a campaign to stop a library closure, this has all happened. You could end up saving a library which you already need to run as a team of volunteers. The damage is done earlier and librarians have already lost their jobs.

This happens even if the librarians do a wonderful job in an excellent library, while building up events and services that are vital to the local community. The events I've been holding there provide a London venue to support publishers all over the UK who want a reading for their books launches followed by open mic which helps the audience get a foot in the door of publishing by submitting to an anthology.

None of this seems to change anything. Volunteers are gradually built up, librarians lose their jobs, and the libraries we save at the point of closure will have been dismantled already as far as I can see. Funding is one of the few things that can help, and I also believe libraries could be more financially viable. I don't see why they can't charge a small fee for lending out ebooks, in the same way they lend out audiobooks. Ebooks are taxed not as books, but as electronic services, so it should be possible to charge for them, and this could be a large market. Just a small charge could help build an ebook lending service that's really needed and would help fund the libraries. Competition is needed for Amazon and the libraries provide a network that could really help with that.