Sir – Where does Oxfordshire County Council’s plan to shut down 23 Oxfordshire libraries sit with its policies on ‘inclusivity’, ‘equality’, ‘diversity’ and ‘widening participation’?
How does this apartheid on the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and young mothers and children in particular (though plenty of us who fit none of these categories also prize libraries highly) have a place in the so-called Big Society and in what way can it be termed a ‘vision’ to discourage free mass literacy and have qualified librarians flung out of their jobs to be replaced by volunteers with little training and no access to a central database offering a reduced service in locations other than libraries (doctors’ surgeries for example), while presumably the former library buildings are flogged off to private developers to pass out of public ownership forever?
Furthermore, where does this embarrassing fiasco leave Oxford’s bid to become UNESCO’s Capital of Books in 2014?
Unfortunately the rot started when the well-meaning Oxford Civic Society volunteered to step in with volunteers to save Oxford City Museum from closure a couple of years ago.
This has evidently given Oxfordshire County Council dangerous ideas about what else might be run without paid and trained staff and exploiting the goodness of altruistic individuals who have no need of paid day jobs.
Laura King, Sandford-on-Thames
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