Tag Archives: libraries

The closure threat to public libraries across Scotland has highlighted a major flaw in the funding of local authorities. Chronic underfunding over the last 14 years, has resulted in a year-on-year hunt around budget time to find services to cuts.

No where is this better illustrated than in the situation around public libraries, that have been seen as soft targets, and those servicing rural and coastal communities are seen as fair game for savings. In urban areas where there may be several library branches within a city or large town it is an issue, but in the rural and coastal towns the nearest library may be several miles away. In cities the nearest branch that may be a bus ride away, in the rural and coastal areas that bus ride may be hours and on limited timetables.

When a library is closed in a rural or coastal locations it is lost forever.

At a business debate on public libraries in Holyrood on the 5^th of February, one contribution by an MSP who had been a local councillor stood out. He noted that when he became a councillor he was subjected to several presentations around funding and budgets.

To quote from the transcript of the meeting; ‘the first week we were there, the chief executive took us all to the side, all us councillors and we had presentation after presentation after presentation that told me they had no money I had to cut budgets there was nothing I could do, and it was all frontline services.

A shocking indictment on how local government operates, and how democratically elected councillors are being treated.

Libraries are the last free, safe civic spaces available to communities. They are havens for those who are seeking to learn and better themselves. Public libraries need to be protected.

Libraries should be seen as an asset to local authorities and not just a cost centre.

In the past, when economic pressures such as the depression of the 1930’s and post WWII period, governments invested in public libraries as a means of sparking regeneration.