I was interested to read Terry Douris’s rather smug response (Changing with the times, Letters, September 28) to my letter of the previous week, which suggested that Watford’s reference library was being reduced to a ‘pitiful remnant’. Far from denying it, the councillor is ‘proud’ of evolving this collection to effective non-existence. When he refers to the ‘reference stock’ being ‘relocated’ to the lending shelves downstairs, this only applies to the last few dozen volumes; hundreds of others have simply disappeared, with even the staff being unaware of their fate. Several shelves of natural history, art and science books have gone in the last few years, most of out of print, and thus especially valuable to researchers and more casual readers (and to book dealers).

The quiet reference/study room now only has periodicals and local history books, so if a reader requires to find a place or the meaning of a word, she has to go downstairs and search the shelves. If the word is in Latin, hard luck; that dictionary doesn’t appear to be available. The busy lending library has no facilities for quiet study (such as desks or tables) so is totally unsuitable. Many people do not use computers, and some of those who do prefer the speed and trustworthiness of a reputable publication, such as the telephone directory, which the councillor falsely claims are still available. Quite why the ‘cabinet member for libraries’ regards tapping a keyboard and then staring at a screen for several minutes as ‘new and exciting’ is beyond me.

Surely the public, who have paid for the books, should have the right to choose how they peruse information and education, and be allowed to continue to use their books?

The former much-reduced reference shelves now each have a single folder or similar laid across them, in a rather pathetic attempt to disguise their emptiness, recalling the supermarkets in the poorer parts of 1970s eastern Europe.

Michael Kings

Highwood Avenue, Bushey