LETTER: ADAM SMITH WOULD LIKE PUBLIC LIBRARIES

From Mr Leslie Gilbert

Sir: If Adam Smith were alive today, I doubt whether he would endorse the views (24 February) of Madsen Pirie on public libraries. The president of the Adam Smith Institute ought to be aware that Smith saw the measure of the wealth of a nation as including the cultural level of its people, even if that level could not be valued in money terms.

In many parts of the country the public library is probably the only neighbourhood cultural centre. A few quick visits to libraries would show Mr Pirie that they are much more than Victorian relics, providing "subsidised entertainment for the middle classes". Lending popular books is now just one of their many functions, whose further extension is held back by lack of finance rather than the constructive ideas that he calls for.

We would be poorer in a very real sense without our public libraries.

Yours faithfully,

LESLIE GILBERT

London, N2

25 February