Britain’s culture minister Margaret Hodge published a paper today, Empower, Inform, Enrich – The modernisation review of public libraries: A consultation, looking at the direction libraries should take in the future.

The consultation paper includes 30 essays offering different views of what the important issues are, from people including authors Tracy Chevalier and Michael Rosen; Random House Chair and Chief Executive Gail Rebuck, Starbucks MD Darcy Willson-Rymer; and many others. It also poses a series of questions upon which the DCMS seeks views from as wide a range of people as possible including the library and publishing community.

According to The Guardian, elements of the paper could become policy early next year, and it is obvious that Hodge believes libraries in Britain require a radical shift in their priorities if they are to survive.

The incredible rise of easy internet access and use means that libraries simply have to compete and perform more effectively if they are to justify the public investment they need.  Sleepwalking into the era of the iPhone, the eBook and the Xbox without a strategy, runs the risk of turning the library service into a curiosity of history like telex machines or typewriters.