I'm growing ever so fond of the sweet people in Waltham Wood, England. I picture them in their hobbit-like dwellings, visiting the public library every day, reading to their children, gamboling about like puppies in clover.

If you read this column a couple of weeks ago you may remember the scandal in Waltham Wood. A great number of library books have gone missing, and the town council is in denial.

The Waltham Forest Council now "admits it destroyed books," perhaps tens of thousands of library books, but the Forest Council says it does not know how many it had in the first place.

This is interesting in a community such as Waltham Forest, a place where people love books and libraries with a kind of breathless impatience. OK, so Waltham Forest is more gritty urban London than ancient oaks, but hey, I can dream.

The loss of these books is due to the usual factors -- lack of staff, lack of money, badly planned expansion, inability to count. More interesting is the strong reaction of local newspaper readers, who have been writing in to condemn the loss of books and to support literacy.

These citizens (or are they subjects?) responded to a survey that shows declining literacy levels in England. In a recent study of reading habits and literacy levels of ten year-olds, England dropped from third to 19th among 45 countries surveyed. The study found that "England lagged behind Russia, Canada, the USA (gasp), Singapore, and several European states."

Kal in Waltham Wood wrote: "It is clear that allowing libraries to run down their book stocks and emphasise computers has had a dramatically bad effect on the literacy of our children. This policy must be reversed... Fish tanks and computers may make the library more attractive to some users, but it is not the point of a library."

Janet Wright in Walthamstow: "My parents had to leave school for work in their early teens. We owned hardly any books, but they took me to the local public library every week. Books introduced me to a world of possibilities I could never have imagined, and I went on to study and get a good job and not have to work myself to death like my parents.

"I owe more to libraries than I could ever repay. Because of all they did for me, I would do anything to keep them as a resource for future generations."

"Children need libraries and libraries need books," said Caroline Molloy. "This is particularly critical for the academic success of children growing up in low income families. Computers in libraries are great, but no replacement for books. There is plenty of academic evidence that people take in information better from a printed page than a computer screen."

Really? Is there a study that demonstrates we learn more from ink than electrons? If such science exists I haven't yet been able to Google it.

One study dating from the early days of personal computers favored books over computer screens. By contrast, a 1991 Canadian paper concluded we take in just as much information from computer screens as from books. Today I doubt there is much difference between looking up a book on line or reading about it in a card catalog, if you can still find a card catalog somewhere.

It is heartwarming to hear once again how much people love their local libraries. Fish tanks or no, computers or no, libraries are spiritual places that change lives, and we can't have enough of them, or too many open hours of operation, or too many books.

Aired Sunday December 9, 2007 at 10:55 am and Wednesday December 12, 2007 at 1:00 pm

NOTES:

Waltham Wood once was home to British aviation pioneer Verdon Roe. Inspired by the Wright brothers, he flew and crashed repeatedly on the marshes that once defined the area. Tired of very short flights and opposition from local authorities (apparently, his fans would follow the flights and trample the grass) in 1909 "Roe wrote to Flight magazine, suggesting the Daily Mail offer smaller rewards to any British inventor able to cover 100 yards or a quarter of a mile, or even to reach 25mph on the ground."

On his flights he was followed by a man on a bicycle carrying a fire extinguisher. More here: http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/localhistory/

Home of the campaign to reopen the St. James Street Library in Waltham Wood: http://stjamesstlibrary.wordpress.com/

The 1991 reading comprehension study: http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/muter/pmuter2.htm

The earlier study: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~adillon/Journals/Paper%20vs%20screens.htm

Ashland, Oregon, recently fought to reopen its library after budget cuts forced it to temporarily close. The following poem was written on my birthday, in the Ashland Public Library, on March 23, 2007, by Pepper Trail, who is not me.

The Closing of the Library

One by one they fall silent
Hamlet in mid-question: To be, or
Molly Bloom before she says Yes
And the author, met by chance, who would have
Spoken the missing words, and changed a child's life

One by one they drop into the dark
The drawings of Michelangelo
Ansel Adam's pages of captured light
Albums of the most antique rockets
And the most modern dinosaurs, gone

This is a choice we make today, uncompelled
To spend our money on something else
Instead of books, or the public good
We choose the private thing
The silent, and the dark

Then words return, and I remember:
"Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
Books have a loud and soundless speech
And light that comes from their light alone

So as each book is a written-out hope
For remembrance and mercy and understanding
And each library is a promise to the child and to the town
So I must believe that no book is forever closed
And that every library will, tomorrow, open

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