Libraries are vital community hubs

Libraries are not about borrowing books (Off the books, Society, 17 March). Libraries are not about housing books. Libraries are one of the vehicles for local councils to deliver community cohesion, social inclusion, community engagement and equality and diversity. Libraries are a place where you can access the internet. Libraries are venues for homework clubs, mother and toddler groups, rock concerts, councillors' surgeries, and benefit advice sessions. Libraries work with schools to promote reading, with adult learning to promote life skills, with the Prison Service to promote numeracy and literacy, and with social services to promote safeguarding children and adults.

Libraries are local, they are community centres. The best attract all ages and all sections of the community. If we didn't have local libraries then people like me would be inventing them.

Blair McPherson

Director of community services, Lancashire county council

 Your article warns that many branch libraries are threatened by council cuts. We have had the recent closures of local post offices round the country. Local shops are routinely squeezed out by new supermarkets. Local newspapers are under threat. Adult education funds for "unproductive" activities like arts and crafts are being diverted to remedial classes for those who are failing the school system. As the population moves into cyberspace, all the focal points for the sustaining of true community are vanishing. Not good. "Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey, where wealth accumulates, and men decay."

Jim McCluskey

Twickenham, Middlesex
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/19/libraries-are-vital-community-hubs
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