The librarians’ professional body, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (Cilip) has warned national and local government that it is prepared to legally challenge any failure to provide a comprehensive and efficient public library service for all who need it.

This obligation is clearly stated in the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act but has been seriously undermined by hundreds of libraries being closed or confronted with closure in the past five years, and severe cuts in opening hours and staffing. Most worryingly, further deep cuts are forecast when councils finalise their next budgets in February.

Several campaign groups have previously sought judicial reviews of the attempts by individual authorities to drastically reduce their library service. Others have tried to persuade the secretary of state for culture to use his statutory powers to intervene. Now the librarians’ professional body has drawn a line in the sand and warned the government that it will face the courts if frontline services are destroyed.

Public libraries are enormously popular and are visited by a third of the population, and by almost a half of those living in the most deprived areas. They are essential to supporting literacy, reading, education and the acquisition of information and knowledge. They also help people get online, do their homework, find employment and build strong communities. The main reasons that people visit libraries are to access a wide range of books in all formats, and to go online. Last year there were 225m visits to public libraries just in England.

The popularity of libraries explains why several hundred protest and friends groups, often supported by authors, have sprung up to protect their local library. Councillors are lobbied, petitions are signed, letters are written to the local press and protesters fill the public benches at council meetings. Councils blame the cuts on national government while ministers at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and officials at the agencies responsible for developing and improving public libraries, sat on their hands. It is only in the past year that the DCMS has even admitted that there may be a crisis and established an independent inquiry led by William Sieghart.

Sieghart highlighted that libraries are not only safe places for literacy and learning, but they have also been the starting point for empowerment of many citizens who lack opportunities at home. Furthermore, libraries benefit, and engage with, local lives and communities. We must never underestimate the importance of public libraries, especially to the young, the elderly and the disadvantaged. Libraries are essential to improving literacy standards, to closing the digital divide and as community hubs for the wellbeing of the nation. To lose them would be a national disaster.

Public libraries have long been the Cinderella of local government, as elected members try to cope with the ever increasing demands of other statutory services. Libraries are often seen as a soft option for cuts. It is too easy to cut the books budget, reduce opening hours or threaten to close branch libraries unless they are taken over by volunteers. A few councils have even proposed retaining only their central library and either closing or transferring their other libraries to be run by willing volunteers. Others have looked to outsource their libraries to public service mutuals. It is not an exaggeration to say that our public library service is being strangled by local government even though they represent less than 2% of councils’ total spend.

Austerity cuts are the most immediate crisis facing libraries, but the service has long been neglected by successive governments that commissioned numerous reports and consultancy studies but failed to implement the recommendations. While library usage and borrowing have declined at an alarming rate as services are cut, this decline started more than a decade ago as the service failed to meet the needs of its users. The public inevitably walk away if their library is tired, poorly stocked and unwelcoming.

The service has long been in need of radical reform, not least to merge or share services across the 151 separately managed authorities just in England. It is badly in need of investment in technology and a plan to reinvigorate its network. It also needs to establish a national user entitlement stating what we should expect from our local library, whatever our post code.

The government’s response to the Sieghart inquiry has been to establish a taskforce, led by the chief executive of Northamptonshire county council, with a small executive but a large management committee made up of representatives of the numerous stakeholder bodies. It is fair to say that the taskforce has made a slow but encouraging start in the last six months.

In the new year, the taskforce is expected to publish its proposals, Ambition for Libraries, and we need to ensure that these provide a clear vision for a modern public library service, focus on the needs of users, and deliver an effective plan to be supported by national and local government and the profession. In the meantime, we must join forces with Cilip to ensure that the library network is not destroyed in the search for financial cuts. That remains a real risk.