The barbarians have breached the gates!

The wholesale destruction of the UK Public Library Service has begun in earnest, 240 libraries under threat or already closed. Many more being handed over to volunteers. Thousands of library staff at risk of losing their jobs.
The 1964 Act stating that authorities have a statutory duty to provide an "efficient and comprehensive" service has been pushed aside. The MLA appears to be in favour of library cuts and CILIP, SCL and the profession as a whole have been conspicuously quiet!
Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on the London Libraries Change Programme, the Future Libraries Programme, consultants and a multitude of reports and research documents, a complete and utter waste of time and money!
Recent research published by the MLA miraculously finds that the majority of library users value the service and want books!!!! Library users, campaigners and staff (well some of them!) have been saying this for years but were never listened to, instead they have diversified and diluted the service so much it has lost its focus and, in my view, its integrity.
In my view, and many others, libraries are all about books, they are at the core of the service and of the ethos. Off course welcoming buildings and knowledgeable and experienced staff are also very important.
You have to pay for Cd's, DVDs, coffee, and in some libraries ICT but books are free and in light of the recent statistics that family spending has fallen, for the first time in 10 years, this is an extermely important message to get across.

Anyway its not all doom and gloom there are voices out there campaigning against library closures, people like Tim Coates and the LLL, Alan Gibbons, Shirley Burnham, Voices for the Library, The Library Campaign and millions of library users. But what we really need is a national demonstration against library cuts, a London wide one would do for starters!

These are my own views and do not in any way represent those of my employer.