A new wave of virtual philistinism

When finances are tight choices have to be made but false economies are never far away. School budgets are perpetually under pressure and school governing bodies often face unpalatable choices about where best to deploy resources. But, although I am a fan of using virtual learning software to provide study support for students, the decision by some schools to close their libraries in favour of increased spending on VLE’s is short sighted beyond belief. Philip Pullman is one of a growing band of authors who are fighting the closure of libraries and his thoughts are reported in an article in today’s Guardian by Liz Lightfoot.

“Public library spending on books fell by 1 per cent to £76.8m in the year to March 2008, or just 8.7% of overall library expenditure. Spending on audio-visual materials such as DVDs rose 4.2% over the same period. There were 38 public library closures last year, up from 35 the previous year.”