Der Guardian schreibt unter dem Titel “Britain has closed almost 800 libraries since 2010, figures show” über das Bibliothekensterben in Grossbritannien:
“The closure of almost a fifth of the UK’s libraries over the last 10 years comes against a backdrop of a 29.6% decline in spend, said Cipfa. National spending on the service topped £1bn in 2009/10 but dropped to under £750m in the last year, which saw a 0.4% increase on the 2017/2018 spend.
The number of paid librarians has also plummeted. In 2009/2010, the point marking the start of the Tory-led government’s austerity drive, there were 24,000 salaried staff working in libraries. Last year, there were 15,300 employees and more than 51,000 volunteers.
Do libraries run by volunteers check out?
Read moreAs the number of branches and paid staff have declined, so have library visits: there were 226m visits to libraries over the last year, compared with 315m in 2009/2010.”