OK, let’s get today’s rant over with, we’re all busy people. According to the Local Government Association and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, libraries are now to be ‘saved’ by putting them in doctor’s surgeries, churches, and other community centres (and let’s not forget their previous genius idea, putting them in supermarkets).

Apart from the multiple reasons that this is a terrible idea, the real reason it’s a terrible idea is that these libraries will no longer be run by librarians. (I know, I know, but bear with me — we need to spell things out for the barbarians not only no longer at the gate, but sitting on our front doorsteps.)

All it takes to realize how necessary librarians are to (duh) libraries, is to look at Google Books. Just look at it. (Go on, I’ll wait.) Do a quick search. Type in almost anything — oh, I don’t know, Moby-Dick. The first title that comes up is, miracle of miracles, Moby-Dick. Or is it? It isn’t (God forbid) the first edition. It is a 2008 reprint published by ‘Forgotten Books’. Its preamble is hugely encouraging:

Forgotten Books take the uppermost [sic, sic as a dog] care to preserve the wording and images from the original book. However, this book has been scanned and reformatted from the original, and as such we cannot guarantee that it is free from errors or contains the full contents of the original.

So, Forgotten Books takes so much care that they can’t actually say if the whole book is there or not. Good choice for the number 1 slot, Google algorithm!

Number 2: another reprint, volume 1 only.

Number 3: an issue of Life magazine from 1956, with an article on ‘How to read Moby-Dick‘ (something you won’t be able to do so far if you’re relying on Google Books).

Number 4: another reprint, volume 2.

Numbers 5 on down: An article in Indianapolis Monthly (really, I’m not making this up) on whale-watching; an essay called ‘Fathering the Nation: American genealogies of slavery and freedom’; an issue of Popular Mechanics from 1950…

I’m at the end of page 2 of Google books, and so far there is not a single reliable copy of Moby-Dick. Let’s ignore that I’ve found Henry James in a search that includes the term a ‘contemporary’ classic; or Hemingway under Edith Wharton; or or or…

Google had a load of cash, and thought that all that was required was unskilled labour. The local councils have no cash, and are relying on unskilled labour too. Are we expecting more than old copies of, if not Popular Mechanics, then its 2011 equivalent?

What I don’t understand is, why are the elements around the act of reading regarded as something anyone can do? The phrase, ‘I would write a book if only I had time,’ has become a sick, sad cliche. No one says to Philip Glass, ‘I would write a symphony if only I had time,’ or to Magdi Yacoub, ‘I would ditto a cranial haemorrhage if only ditto.’ (At least, I’m guessing they don’t.) So why are writing, and reading, considered unskilled? Yeah, let’s ask nursery groups, and doctors’ receptionists, and boy-scout leaders, or even the scouts, to run the libraries. After all, you don’t need to know anything about anything to do that, do you?

I’ll be in my surgical scrubs and operating behind the produce counter at Aldi at 1 p.m. Anyone with stroke-like symptoms, line right up.