Speaking up for libraries

Here at Inscribe Media, we have always supported libraries (my father was a librarian and my crime novels are borrowed thousands of times a year) and it was good to see author Neil Gaiman say this week that closing libraries is ‘like stopping vaccinations‘, and that the ‘insidious‘ effects will be felt by our children.
Delivering the Reading Agency lecture at the Barbican centre in London, the Neverwhere author said it was the duty of all ‘human beings and citizens‘ to foster a love of reading in children.
Neil added that, while he felt sympathy for hard-pressed local authorities, ‘I feel more sympathy for people in towns and cities and rural areas who are now having information denied to them.’
As UK libraries fight for survival amid Government budget cuts, we applaud the stance taken by Neil Gaiman and many other authors like him.
Several years ago, the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), of which I am a member, launched a campaign to help promote libraries at a time when the service is under such threat from public sector cutbacks (I was on the steering group that launched the initiative).
The CWA, which represents the interests of published crime writers, say that with millions of visits to UK libraries each year alone, it is crucial that authors help them to survive and thrive. The CWA campaign included asking all its members to consider staging at least three events in their local library each year.
As then CWA Chair, the best-selling crime novelist Peter James, said at the time: “We feel passionate about libraries and want to do everything that we can to help in these difficult times.”
All writers should echo those sentiments and those of Neil Gaiman. Not everyone can afford new books an libraries fulfil a crucial social function.
John Dean