19th May 2011

BEAMINSTER: Library popularity on the rise

By Tom Glover

THE popularity of Beaminster Library is on the rise despite the service being threatened with closure.

Figures issued by Dorset County Council show that Beaminster is one of the most cost effective in the county, with a six per cent increase in the number of books it issued last year compared with 2009.

In contrast fewer books are being taken out from Dorchester, the library service’s headquarters. There the number of books issued fell by 10 per cent last year.

“Despite these disappointing figures,” said Graham Lee, who heads Ad Lib, the group campaigning to keep the threatened libraries open.

“Dorset is planning to spend £6million on a new library there - and this at a time when it is planning to rid itself of so many libraries in areas badly affected by isolation and poor public transport.”

Representatives of the Dorset Library Service (DLS) are now visiting the 20 villages and small towns where it plans to stop funding a library, explaining how, from April next year, the communities will either have to run their libraries for themselves, or they will have to travel miles to change their books.

If councillors approve its plan, DLS will be left with only 14 libraries, out of the present total of 34, and these will be only in Dorset’s biggest towns.

Mr Lee added: “The figures just issued show how ill-thought out this plan is. We now know that the big town libraries DLS wants to preserve are doing less well than many of the smaller ones it wants to wash its hands of.

“We accept that libraries serve many other purposes than merely lending out books but that is what most people expect of them. And on that basis, last year the county’s bigger libraries lost business, while some of the smaller libraries lent more books than in the year before.”

BEAMINSTER: Library popularity on the rise

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