Celia
Do you think Wirral Council will change its mind? I can't believe they wanted to close all the libraries. Closing branch libraries is bad enough.
I reckon we are very lucky in Hampshire with our libraries. There is a total of 53 libraries, including one in my village, not including the Southampton and Portsmouth libraries. I can renew books on-line for 4 weeks at a time, up to 5 times! Order, on-line if I choose, any book from any Hants Library for 50p and if the book is not in the Hants Library, for £1.50 they will get a book through the Inter-Library Loan Scheme. Obviously, I wouldn't bother doing that just for a novel though. The library subscribes to Gales 19th Century British Newspapers, Times Digital Archives, Oxford Dictionary of National Bigraphy, Oxford Music Online (Grove Music) and about 20 other reference sites on line, as well as many more such as Ancestry in the libraries themselves. Today, I found lots of archived photographs too. There are also many other services they provide. Well done Hants CC Arts, Libraries and Heritages.
Lizzie