{"id":24200,"date":"2026-04-29T06:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/24200\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T06:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T06:33:10","slug":"libraries-survey-sees-emerging-themes-for-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/24200\/","title":{"rendered":"Libraries survey sees &#8217;emerging themes&#8217; for future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">More than 25,000 people have taken part in a major public consultation into the future of Devon&#8217;s libraries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Devon County Council announced in 2025 it was considering cuts to opening hours, getting more volunteers involved in running libraries and allowing access to libraries without staff present.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The council has now said it is not making &#8220;definitive conclusions&#8221; but announced some &#8220;emerging themes&#8221;, which could include changes to opening hours, more volunteer recruitment and working with parish councils to manage libraries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It added there would be a full formal response to the consultation prepared to be discussed by cabinet members in May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The consultation into the service, run by charity Libraries Unlimited, ran from 1 December 2025 until 22 February.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The council said more than half of the people who responded said changes to opening hours would affect the frequency of their visits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">More than 6,000 people said they would be interested in volunteering, with 70% in favour of extending opening hours &#8211; possibly through technology which allowed members access to libraries outside of staffed opening hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The report said there was &#8220;widespread concern&#8221; that &#8220;reducing staffed hours would undermine the role of libraries as safe community spaces&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It also noted &#8220;strong opposition to reductions in opening hours, particularly where this would affect children, older residents and those without transport&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A sign saying Fiction on top of a bookshelf in a library\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/7236190d33e1276ac860ce0e225fa4bd.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>No final decisions have yet been made on the future of the library service in Devon. [BBC]<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The report will be discussed on Wednesday at a special scrutiny committee meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The council had been looking at an &#8220;area-based opening strategy&#8221; with &#8220;at least one library in an area&#8221; open during the day throughout the week, but there may now be a review of the need for that strategy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It said future plans may include new technology to allow access to libraries outside opening hours and working with town or parish councils and community organisations to develop &#8220;partnership-managed libraries&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In setting the budget for 2026\/27, the county council reversed a proposed \u00a3650,000 saving and established a &#8220;transformation fund&#8221; of \u00a31m to manage the changes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC Devon on <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bbcspotlight\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:X;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>, <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DevonBBC\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Facebook;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a> and <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcdevon\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Instagram;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>. Send your story ideas to <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ca.news.yahoo.com\/mailto:spotlight@bbc.co.uk\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:spotlight@bbc.co.uk;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">spotlight@bbc.co.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Related storiesRelated internet links<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 25,000 people have taken part in a major public consultation into the future of Devon&#8217;s libraries.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,1639,11900,858,11901,11899],"class_list":["post-24200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-devon-county-council","tag-libraries-unlimited","tag-opening-hours","tag-parish-councils","tag-public-consultation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}