The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

Author launches libraries campaign

04.09.08 Caroline Horn

Children's writer Alan Gibbons is launching an authors' campaign against library cuts and closures, with 300 writers and professionals pledging their support. Central to the campaign is a planned regional network of children's authors, teachers and librarians to raise the public profile of local cutbacks and closures.

"There is a grinding, unremitting marginalisation of the book and deep ongoing cuts in library services," said Gibbons. Some 60 public libraries were closed last year and the number of professional library staff has fallen by 13% between 1995 and 2005, he said. "Lots of people are arguing against this but our response needs to be broader and more active."

Gibbons introduced a charter, Campaign for the Book, at a CWIG (Children's Writers' & Illustrators' Group of the Society of Authors) conference held last weekend, and it has received 300 signatures so far, including David Almond, Philip Pullman, Michael Rosen and Beverley Naidoo.

Signatories to the charter pledge to campaign for the central place in society of reading for pleasure, the defence of public libraries and librarians from attempts to cut spending, and a recognition of school libraries as key engines of learning. Gibbons plans to bring together organisations already campaigning against cuts and closures, including CILIP and the School Library Association, and to co-ordinate their activities with authors.

He will also work to get celebrities involved in the campaign and will lobby at government level.

"We want to sit down with the government, talk this through and present alternatives," said Gibbons. "Librarians don't have the punch of oil [tanker] drivers but there is an embarrassment factor," he said. "We can shame local councils by arguing publicly for our future and our children's future."

Gibbons plans to create a central database of proposed cuts in library services over the next year. A network of authors and professionals in every region will respond to these proposals by mobilising public meetings to protest against cuts and lobby local government.

The author launched the campaign after becoming active in Doncaster's Save Our Libraries campaign. "I kept receiving emails about cuts in services and libraries elsewhere," he said. He was told about one school librarian given two weeks' notice that her school library was to close, and another who saw her salary cut by £7,000. "There are so many cases but so far there has been no overall co-ordination between all the people who care about reading for pleasure," said Gibbons.

Gibbons' Libraries Charter

We, the signatories of this charter commit ourselves to campaigning for the following:

1. The central place of reading for pleasure in society

2. A proper balance of book provision and information technology in public and
school libraries

3. The defence of public libraries and librarians from attempts to cut spending in a
"soft" area

4. An extension of the role of the school librarian and a recognition of the school
library as a key engine of learning

5. The recruitment of more school librarians. It is a national scandal that less than a third of secondary schools has a trained librarian

6. The defence of the professional status of the public and school librarian. Opposition to downgrading. In some places this has reduced librarians' salaries by up to half

7. The promotion of reading whole books in school, rather than excerpts

8. A higher profile for reading for pleasure in schools, including shadowing book awards, inviting authors and illustrators to visit, and developing school creative writing magazines

Authors Caroline Horn libraries children's Home Alan Gibbons

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