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Dozens of writers, illustrators and teachers have signed an open letter calling on the Department of Education (DoE) to act on its recent report on the state of school libraries.
Children's laureate Malorie Blackman, former poet laureate Andrew Motion, and children's writers including Philip Pullman, Francesca Simon, Melvin Burgess and Anne Fine have all signed the letter.
Written by children's author and library campaigner Alan Gibbons, the letter calls for the DoE to follow up on the report, The Beating Heart of the School, by the Libraries All Party Parliamentary Group, which calls for statistics to be gathered on school libraries, and for Ofsted to include school libraries in its inspections.
As well as authors, people who have signed the letter include School Library Association president Kevin Crossley-Holland, CILIP president Barbara Band, Society of Authors chief executive Nicola Solomon and National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower.
The release of the report followed a story by The Bookseller which looked into the state of school libraries, which showed the support across the book trade for protecting and increasing their role.
The letter, published in the Guardian today (16th July), said: "We – authors and illustrators, teachers, librarians, parents and others – are keen that this recommendation does not just become another piece of wishful thinking, and call on the Department for Education to act immediately on the report's conclusions to gather data on library provision and instruct Oftsed to include libraries in its remit. This is urgent. Schools lost 280 librarians last year. At the very least the department should convene a working group including librarians', authors', headteachers' and teachers' representatives to draw up an action plan to realise the aim of a good library in every school."