CILIP has written to eight councils in the Libraries at Risk Campaign, launched the #DearChancellor campaign on social media, and written a formal letter to Lord Parkinson to initiate dialogue on the future of libraries.

CILIP has contacted councils in Birmingham, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, Bracknell Forest, Bradford, Calderdale, Cardiff, Ceredigion, and Derby, as part of the Libraries at Risk Campaign.

Libraries at Risk was launched last month to raise the profile of public libraries at a time when councils are slashing their budgets, and CILIP will write to every local authority where budget-reductions threaten their public libraries with closure or a reduction in service provision, to ensure that due process is followed with every decision, and councillors understand the vital importance of libraries in their communities.

At the time of writing, CILIP Scotland has written to seven councils, Stirling, West Dunbartonshire, South Lanarkshire, North Ayrshire, Inverclyde, Highland, and Dundee City.

The Libraries at Risk Monitor was launched alongside the campaign to provide a visual representation of the libraries that are under threat of budget cuts, service reduction, or total closure.

The Monitor is a community operated map, overseen by CILIP, and we use the data that you provide, as the starting point for writing to local authorities.

View & add your own entries to the Libraries at Risk Monitor

Anyone can contribute to the map via the spreadsheet, so please feel free to make changes if what you know is more up to date than what the map shows.

As part of the campaign, we also urged members, library supporters and sector leaders to send a message to the Chancellor on X (formerly Twitter) with the hashtag, #DearChancellor to spread the word across social media channels, to open a new channel to local and national government officials.

Slideshow of some of the #DearChancellor tweets

In response to the budget delivered on 6 March, we wrote formally to Lord Parkinson, the Minister whose brief includes libraries at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to exercise his powers to protect local library services.

We raised the issue of libraries at particular risk of closure, those in the 19 councils that are receiving ‘Exceptional Financial Support’ (EFS) package, that will prompt a ‘fire sale’ of vital assets to Lord Parkinson and in a statement on 29th February.

View all the #DearChancellor tweets on X (formerly Twitter).

Read more about the Libraries at Risk Campaign