Come the new school term in August, North Ayrshire Council plans to axe its complement of five school librarians, who cover nine secondaries. In their place they’ll employ four “library assistants” whose salaries, since they are not professional librarians, will doubtless help trim their expenditure.

What a terrific idea. As a letter writer to The Herald suggested, why stop there when they could put library assistants “in charge of every aspect of the council’s work”, thereby reducing the number of refuse workers, teachers and – best of all – councillors. Strange nobody’s thought of this before.

Quite apart from the insult to librarians and the service they – and only they – can provide, this has to be one of the most self-defeating budget cuts any council could make. Short-sighted doesn’t begin to describe it. Head of the queue to decry this “de-professionalisation” of librarianship was the director of CILIPS (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Scotland): “If teachers were replaced with lower-graded staff there would be a justifiable outcry and to do this to librarians shows just how the council values its staff and its young people, and parents and trade unions should be outraged.”

North Ayrshire Council responded by weaselly stressing “We are not closing any school libraries and will be delivering the service in a way that continues to meet the needs of our young people”.

In other words, these library spaces will be retained, so pupils can study in a safe, peaceful environment. Let’s just call them a creche and be done with it. But while doubtless these library assistants will do their........

© Herald Scotland