Once again libraries are under threat of closure. It seems strange that a place of privacy protection and learning could lose support at a time when they are more relevant than ever.

Take the Netflix model of paying a nominal monthly fee in order to check out a movie, for example. Who wants a Netflix account when they could give the same amount to their local library and get far more in return? Libraries do information dissemination without the burden of trying to make a profit for their investors, which has come to mean they don’t have any incentive to track, collect and sell your identity information. They also end up allowing people to share access to a single license but, unlike Netflix, the license is technically owned by the viewers who share access.

Even more interesting is an idea that the notion of a library, as an exchange of information for public access, could be protected by law.

The Act says a local authority which is a library authority must “provide a comprehensive and efficient library service for all persons . . . whose residence or place of work is within the library area of the authority or who are undergoing full-time education within that area”. Its stock of “books and other printed matter, and pictures, gramophone records, films and other materials”, must be “sufficient in number, range and quality to meet the general requirements and any special requirements both of adults and children”.

That sounds like the library is the school. It might seem crazy to try and legislate the quality of information until you read how Isaac Asmiov described the library in a letter to new patrons of one in Troy, Michigan:

An updated version is on YouTube from Piers Cawley, who wrote and performed a song called “Child of the Library” at OSCON 2011 and then received a standing ovation: