Sir – The leader of our county council, Keith Mitchell, needs to get a few facts straight before making sweeping claims about authors.

It is certainly not in authors’ financial interest to encourage people to borrow their books from libraries.

Authors receive less than 6p per loan for a book taken out of the library, with an overall cap of £6,600 per year, under Public Lending Right legislation. Authors’ royalties, on the other hand, are likely to be at ten-15 per cent of the price of a book, with no upper limit. For highly successful and popular authors such as Phillip Pullman and Colin Dexter, it is insulting to imply that the comparatively small amounts they receive from PLR would motivate them to speak against the library closure.

Any author with a vested interest would be shouting for the closure of all libraries to encourage us into the bookshops, or to sit at home and order cheap volumes from the many online booksellers.

It is currently cheaper for me to buy a paperback at one penny plus postage online, than it is for the bus fare into town, my alternative if Headington library closes.

Sitting at home and clicking is no substitute for visiting a cherished old building, browsing the collections, looking at reference books, borrowing maps to get ideas for walks and all the many other things offered. All this is being fought for and we welcome the voice of our authors who, like us, are defending our libraries for love, not money.

Dr Diana Sanders, Headington