Last month, the Press told you how money-saving proposals put forward by Fife Cultural Trust (FCT) would see facilities in Crossgates, Abbeyview and Townhill close within three years as part of plans to revamp the library service and save £813,000 in necessary cuts.

Libraries threatened with the axe have been given a temporary reprieve while a public consultation is carried out but Dunfermline MYSP Lewis Akers is keen that people across Fife make their voices heard.

“We’ve set up a campaign group to save the libraries and have planned action over the next couple of weeks,” he said. “One of my manifesto points as an MSYP was to fight against education cuts and this ties in with that. It was a group of community activists who set it up and now we have a Facebook page and organised meet-ups.” Keep Fife’s Libraries Open describes itself as a campaign group that says no to the “brutal execution” of the 16 libraries under threat. The grassroots community activists are campaigning to save the libraries that act as a lifeline to many across Fife.

So far, the group’s petition has gathered almost 3000 signatures and Lewis recently visited Dunfermline Gala to give away leaflets and make the issue known.

“It’s been really successful so far,” he said. “Last week we reached over 1000 ‘likes’ on Facebook and in an hour at the Glen we had gathered 138 signatures.

“The aim is to play as big a part in the community consultation as possible. We want to put pressure on Fife Council and FCT to be as transparent and open as possible.” Fife Council’s executive committee decided to put any immediate decisions on hold while a full consultation is carried out with the communities set to be hit by closures, with a report to come back on 29th September.

According to FCT, the proposals will introduce a new model of provision for services across Fife in order to sustain the library network in the future.

It said the move to a new “hub and spoke” model, with small and mobile libraries complementing bigger facilities, would provide a better-targeted and more accessible service for users and would ensure that the furthest any customer would have to travel to an alternative library is 4.2 miles.