To a certain extent I was that kid who came from an information poor home whose parents were not into education at all ,not least because they had one disabled child, me, and another with learning difficulties due to epilepsy. In the 1970s the library in Richmond in Yorkshire was very useful to me. In my early 20s the library in York was absolutely brilliant and I read an awful lot of history, religion, economics, psychology and so on. I can honestly say that without York library and the encouragement of friends at the time like Joe James, Tom Owen and Ian Fletcher I would not have gone to York University. Every time I walk past the Central library in York I have great feelings of affection for it.

But today things are different. If the Internet existed in 1976 when I started to depend on books I would have barely used the library. Not only that: I was working over that period and if there had been an Amazon around I would have bought books instead of getting them from the library. As much as I have a high regard for any place which supplies information to people I do not think people on low incomes in particular are best served by others telling them to get their information from the library.  Internet access to the home for all has to be the way as well as enough money to purchase books if they haven't been digitised . Because if you think about it a public library would never be able to meet the amount of demand I hope to see coming from all people young and old : only the Internet and fine companies like Amazon which are conduits for all those great authors and publishing houses to get information out to us. As I said before more political imagination is needed in this.

I can honestly see libraries being redefined in the future as community spaces for people to do e.g. Open University degrees in a decentralised education system. I see libraries now possibly developing into community spaces where people can get together to talk and study. Once all books are digitised library's as we know it will vanish but there will be places of learning where the only physical repository of learning will be the computers and people. Sorry folks but is the way I see it: that is my community outlook and the one that I hope for which will be best for all people not just the few. There will be plenty of jobs for everybody as community enablers in this. After all, I have just got a job as a community enabler for Learning Disabled people.