Libraries: The NHS of the mind

28/06/2010

Award-winning children’s novelist Michael Morpurgo warns that we'll pay a heavy price for allowing libraries to shut...

It is really important that communities have places where they can do things together. Increasingly all these things seem to be disappearing – we are losing pubs like mad, church is not the focus it was and post offices are closing down. Libraries seem to be the most elemental and most important places that still exist for the community.

They are vital for young people, people with large families who can’t afford to buy a book for their kid at £12 to £15, also older people. People who have little or nothing. Even if a Booker novel is only £12 from Amazon, rather than £25 in a shop, plenty of people can’t afford that.
At a time when people will have to make cuts, whether it’s in defence or the National Health Service, it seems important to try to engage with our politicians to persuade them that when we are making cuts the people we should most look after are the people who can least look after themselves.

We are going more and more towards the notion that you can only read books if you can afford to buy them. We are going backwards in terms of our thinking, it’s outrageous.

If libraries are dusty and no one goes, there is a case for improving it. France is an interesting case in point. They have bright, modern ‘mediatheques’; they’ve invested hugely in these to bring knowledge and involvement in reading. It can be done. We have got to be more ingenious about it rather than just be shutting down the ‘dusty’ ones.

We all understand and accept that health should be free at the point of delivery. Libraries are the health service of the mind and intellect. Libraries to me are like the hospitals – if you close them down it’s as crazy as saying we must start shutting down the National Health Service or make it accessible only to those who can pay.

I wouldn’t at all mind paying a subscription for a library if that would help to keep them open, as long as the people who can’t afford to pay are not made to pay. As a writer with a decent income, I don’t see why I should access information in the library for free. I can afford to pay and it’s an important service to have.

Libraries can’t remain ‘holier than thou’ and drink in public money. They can help themselves by selling services of one sort or another – whether that’s coffee or DVDs. I see no reason why local schools cannot be local libraries as well, as schools do with sports facilities and theatres. Reading is also about development of intellect, our understanding of ourselves, relationships and learning to empathise with others. All these things are critical in this world, books are so important.

This is about the future of readers, it’s the future of our democracy. If you don’t have people who are educated properly, how on earth in this immensely complicated, complex world are they going to be able to sort things out?

Michael is chair of the judges for the Wicked Young Writers Award: www.wickedyoungwriters.com