I think I may not have clearly enough put forward my case causing the possibilit that you may have misunderstood me and thought I was advocating a tax just on Amazon. I am not. The money would come from an estimate (or a precise calculation: I admit that, like many, I have only a vague view on how the Inland Revenue works and its powers) of the total income to the Treasury on the VAT of all e-book sales. As such, it would not be on just one company but on all companies selling (or more accurately, leasing) e-books. Being that it would be simply using the VAT already collected it would give no company any untoward control over the process, any more than they do now.

Your second point is a very good one. No proposal put forward in this debate will be a perfect one and there would need to be an awareness of the problems of any proposed model. It would seem to me, though, that extra funding to the sector is so important at the moment that one can worry about the implications of it as a related issue but not one that would preclude it.

You have honed in on what I feel is the weakest point of my argument in that, if there’s money around, the Treasury will want it and will make sure Libraries don’t get it. It would need a strong fight for this not to happen. With regard to councils simply taking the e-book money out of libraries anyway, it would be up to local users to make sure this does not happen, in pretty much the same way it is up to locals now to stop cuts.

Your fourth point is equally good, though as painful. However, I would argue that councils know very well their responsibilities under the 1964 Act and, having seen what has happened, are strongly suspecting that they don’t have any. The DCMS Inquiry report published tomorrow may have more to say on this issue.

The future of libraries as a purveyor of something other than printed books is a whole different issue and not one on which I touched on in the article. I would say, though, that taking e-books away from the whims of local authorities and from what may or may not be local brick and mortar would be a step to something that is happening anyway and at least ensure that e-books are available on a fairly universal and equal basis. The current postcode lottery is only acceptable if one is a Localism extremist.

I will be delighted in seeing your suggestions and those of others. We all need to test and debate the best way forward so that we, put simply, have some idea of what it is. At the moment, I think there’s a lot of vagueness and worry over the issue but few concrete and realistic proposals.

Secondly it would help dig the government and local councils out of a hole. It would mean that they could put off (but not indefinitely) what the role of the library should be within a community. It’s perfect ‘brush it under the carpet’ time. Also, I think the temptation would be to actually further reduce the money allotted to libraries since ‘the Amazon tax’ will take care of it. Consequently, although tax payers will still be paying tax for services, which should include the library service, they won’t be getting what they are paying for. It may also mean that down the road the local council may well try and take the money from the Amazon tax and use it for other things, regardless of any safeguards that have been put in place.

Third – although you say it’s notional, if the money is there at any point, and the Government think that they even have a sniff of getting access to it in any way, they will do. What would worry me is that they’d end up saying ‘well, let’s work out what the Amazon tax will be, and then we can tell councils to reduce the money they put into library services by that amount’. They’d claw it back one way or another.

Finally, and to strengthen a point I made earlier – a council has to understand the responsibilities that come with a library service, and their legal obligations under the 1964 act. We need to be far more aggressive in not only ‘saving libraries’ but improving libraries and making them more powerful in the community. This can really only be done by changing the entire landscape and discussions surrounding what the value and purpose of the library is. Of course books are the largest element – or rather I should say that ‘reading’ is the largest element, but libraries are there to do other things to improve a community. We need to refocus discussion on the long term future of libraries.

Just to point out – these are my personal views as a librarian, library user and trainer of librarians, and should not be taken to represent the views of any organisations that I may be associated with. 😉