Threat to Painswick library and the wider threat to services

I'm just back from staying with my parents for a long weekend in Colyton, Devon - several people from Randwick caught me drinking an espresso with a large slab of cake in Seaton. Anyway a big story amongst locals there was the library in Colyton facing the chop to save an estimated £20,000 a year.

I have wiled away many an hour with my partners granddaughter in that library and I have to say this decision makes no sense - this great little library closing would be a huge loss to the community. In conversations I shared with locals there in Devon I mentioned that in Gloucestershire we had managed to avoid losing our library services. How wrong I was.

I arrived home yesterday and opened the Stroud News and Journal to see that Painswick Library (pictured) faces the axe as the grade two listed building will cost £80,000 plus to repair - Gloucestershire County Council say they do not have the money to pay for this and plan to sell the building.

If the SNJ reporting is correct councillors have been given just five months to decide where to have their library. I find this hard to understand as for some time we have known this library building needed work - why now the rush? Why are the County not more visibly seeking a solution? I hope that local councillors there will be able to find an alternative venue but the time scales are very tight.

Painswick library was listed as one of six in the County to face the chop earlier this year - they were reprieved but it seems that now this is in doubt again. We cannot afford to keep seeing local services being cut without regard for the local community.

The wider threat to our libraries

Nationally changes to the library services are also worrying. Last year we saw the most radical change since public libraries were established in the 19th century - with the Government plans for a national agency to be set up to run libraries, largely replacing current control by 149 local authorities. At the time the Gloucestershire Green party protested and were also running a petition regarding Stroud library.

As John Marjoram noted at the time: "Labour seem infatuated with the idea of involving the private sector, despite evidence that it leads to profits for shareholders and poorer services...Our public services are based on a completely different set of principles to profit. I don't want to see those disappear."

Indeed - and sadly it is not just our government. Internationally the planned liberalisation and expansion of international trade in services is being negotiated behind closed doors in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - and libraries are included. Ruth Rikowski, the author of a new book, 'Globalisation, Information and Libraries', spoke with me last year when we discussed the threat to libraries and other services. In her book she has examined the implications for the world's state-funded libraries of the World Trade Organisation's most infamous treaties - GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services ) and TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights).

GATS is a set of trade rules whereby WTO member countries must open up their service sectors to the global market. Assurances made by the UK government, the European Commission and the WTO, that all public services such as health, education, water, housing, and libraries are exempt from GATS are now seen by many commentators as bogus. There has been a steady process of commercialisation and private sector involvement in all the above listed public services over the last decade.

If these trade rules go through then state-funded libraries in the UK and across the world will be forced, in time, to turn into profit-making enterprises that will open the door to long-term privatisation. Brighton already has its multi million pound PFI library. The UK (under the EU) has not so far committed its Library Service to the GATS, but this could easily change in future negotiations, succumbing to private companies searching for ripe opportunities.

TRIPS, meanwhile, is about the trading of intellectual rights, including copyright, trade marks, geographical indications, patents, industrial designs and trade secrets. Rikowski shows how TRIPS allows corporations to appropriate, patent and then profit from the traditional knowledge of indigenous populations in the poorest developing countries without giving due recompense.

There is already growing pressures on libraries to generate income and operate more like private companies rather than public good providers - as Ruth Rikowski said: "the 'commercialisation by stealth' of British libraries and information is an everyday reality." GATS would be extremely damaging to our communities and must be opposed.

In the meantime don't forget that we are very lucky in our area to have the mobile library service - times should be on Parish noticeboards - or see below for more info. Use it or lose it - and don't forget you can renew your library loans either in person at your local library, through the Library Catalogue or by telephoning the Renewal Hotline 0845 230 5422

Five Valleys Mobile Library
Based at Stroud Library Tel (01453) 751651 Fax (01453) 762060
Route C - alternate Wednesdays
Mobile stops at: Cashes Green, Kings Stanley, Paganhill, Randwick, Ruscombe, Selsley, Westrip, Whiteshill

Read more about Gloucestershire libraries

Read more about the World Development Movement's campaign to raise awareness about GATS