By LAURA CLARK

Last updated at 19:37 31 December 2007

The latest literacy drive by ministers was ridiculed last night after it emerged public libraries are disappearing at the rate of almost one a week.

As Schools Secretary Ed Balls told parents to make reading with their children a New Year's resolution, official figures revealed a loss of 40 libraries in just a year.

Campaigners also complained about reductions in opening hours, staff cuts and book shortages.

Libraries minister Margaret Hodge was forced to admit in a Commons written answer that while 31 libraries had opened in 2006/07, 71 had closed, giving a net loss of 40 libraries.

Protestors are blaming Government pressure on local councils to make budget cuts.

There are also concerns that cash is being spent on DVDs, internet access and coffee shops at the expense of books, diverting the library service from its core function.

Cutbacks include proposals in Dudley, West Midlands, to shut five libraries.

Mrs Hodge stepped in to ensure the needs of the local communities were being met but failed to block the plans.

In Kent, 77 library staff have received letters warning they are at risk of redundancy while campaigners recently gathered in Southampton to protest against plans to cut opening hours at five libraries by an average of nine and a half hours a week.

Meanwhile libraries' total lending stock is declining. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of books available for loan dropped from 67,8278,912 to 62,614,052.

Officials at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals said library staff numbers had dropped three per cent over the past decade.

Guy Daines, director of policy, added: "There's been an under-investment generally in public libraries. Not enough is spent on all types of resources including books.

"Not enough is spent on the buildings. There's a great deal to do in bringing the library estate up to standard."

Andrew Coborn, secretary of the Library Campaign, said: "Forty closures is not good and there have been more proposed since then."

The trend for libraries to close is understood to have begun prior to 2006. The loss of 40 in a year follows a previously-established pattern.

It emerged as Mr Balls declared that he wanted 2008 to be "the year of the book" and urged parents to make reading stories to their children as much a part of everyday routines as brushing teeth and having a bath.

The initiative is a desperate bid to reverse England's poor showing in international league tables of reading standards.

In just five years, our primary schools dropped from third to 19th in a table of 10-year-olds' reading skills and children spend less time reading for pleasure than previously.

Meanwhile an independent inquiry into primary education found that reading standards have barely improved since the 1950s.

Launching the reading initiative, Mr Balls said: "This year I'd like to encourage people to add a slightly different resolution to the list - one that will hopefully have a long-term impact on their lives and that of their children.

"If you can find five or 10 minutes to read with your child every night before bedtime it can make all the difference."

But critics said the campaign was blatantly undermined by library closures.

Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove said: "It is beyond ironic that when Ed Balls is calling for more children to read his government has presided over the closure of the libraries which disadvantaged families rely on for books.

"That's the problem with this Government - bluster, rhetoric and big claims but on the ground a failure to deliver."

In 2006, it emerged libraries were allocated £80million in National Lottery funding but could not spend any on books.

Instead, the money had to be pay for library buildings to be adapted to include services such as creches, mother and toddler groups, tai chi classes and adult education courses.

In her written answer, Mrs Hodge said: "Library reorganisations can result in better and wider access - for example to take account of where population shifts from one area to another, or where two small, part-time libraries are closed and strategically replaced with a larger new library open for longer hours."

A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: "Decisions about the public library service are best taken by local authorities who are accountable to the users of the service."