Equally, what you regard as the realpolitik of the SCL many of us regard as furthering a particular brand of political ideology. Exercising our democratic right we disagree, oppose and propose alternatives.

Carnegie was a philanthropist, with deeply held beliefs, who felt a moral obligation to redistribute the wealth he had accumulated. He did not introduce market values or commercial sponsorship into the public library service, but simply provided the funding necessary to create and sustain these libraries.

Moral obligation and commitment to the principles that drove Carnegie are qualities that are far and few between in the current political and business climate, unfortunately.

Here in Barnet, a council which you know so well, one of the libraries founded with funding from his foundation was shut by the council, and put up for sale. It was occupied by residents who refused to accept the closure of their much loved branch.

Now the same authority is planning a cull of the remaining service, with half the staff being sacked, and the introduction of unstaffed libraries, from which children will be banned. The loss of professional librarians will be catastrophic, and no PR stunt by banks or building societies offering digital ‘training’ can ever replace what we are about to lose.

Hi Ben, I appreciate you commenting and you’re right. Yes, a bit of a downer on the SCL today as I would have loved them to have come out in favour of the #MyLibraryByRight and I am questioning of the need for for-profit interests (like Halifax) to be welcomed into public libraries. Having said that, the SCL has also done some remarkably positive things for the public library sector (loving Code Green and PLUIO) and, within their frames of reference, are absolutely doing as well as they can. I’d also like to point out what a good job the Libraries Task Force is doing in similar vein. What it comes down to is, I’m not entirely on their side on every issue and will take a critical approach if needed, but will also not unfailingly praise (or damn) everything they do. I appreciate they have had two negatives in one editorial but, on other occasions, I hope I have been, and will be, positive about them. I’d also welcome a post (by them or by yourself or by anyone) supporting the need to have banks in libraries, with reasons, or why the SCL has not come out in favour of the #MyLibraryByRight campaign as I think neither have been fully made clear in what I have seen.