Hi pvtman7. My main point was that the DCMS should have accurate figures and they don’t. You’re right that my figure is the largest possible and, indeed, I mention that in the post. As to whether I should include volunteer libraries or not, that’s the choice I took in the early days and I may change that at some point.

There are 2 events in Bristol libraries as far as i know.

The DCMS report does seem unbalanced in that it omits to mention the significant reduction in the number of mobile libraries and makes no mention of libraries dropped by Councils from their statutory service (for example in Camden, Dorset, Isle of Wight and others).

Conversely PLN’s self-defined concept of withdrawn libraries is presumably a campaigning definition apparently based on the notion that a Council has to directly run all library branches included in its statutory service. As a factual matter this clearly isn’t the case.