In particular, I was very disappointed to learn that the service intends in the future to do without any post with responsibility for developing children's services.

This is an enormously retrograde step and will have damaging implications for the future of Doncaster's children and young people.

At a time when concern about children's reading is a regular feature of the news, it hardly seems sensible to get rid of children's librarians from the service.

The recent PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) report, which identified that children in England now read for pleasure much less than they did five years ago made headline news. It is a well established fact that, irrespective of family background or how reading is taught in school, children who read because they enjoy it and because they want to are those who do best throughout their education in English and in other subjects. Why, when we have slipped from third to nineteenth place in this well respected study (behind Hong Kong, Russia , Bulgaria and Latvia), does Doncaster council feel that it is a sensible move to do without a children's librarian? The specialist knowledge and enthusiasm of children's librarians means that they can have an enormous impact on children's reading. They are experts at connecting the right book with the right child and stimulating a love of reading that can last a lifetime and make a real difference to a child's future prospects - even with the most unlikely children.

There is a passage on the DMBC website that reads "our aims is to give every child an excellent start in life by providing a range of services that will reduce the challenges that many children and young people face". That now sounds like a hollow promise to me and I feel ashamed to live in an area where such a philistine and short sighted approach is being taken to what should be a valued service.

Colin Brabazon
Whiphill Top Lane
Branton