CRAVEN'S libraries are to close for three weeks a year from April.

The move, in this the National Year of Reading, has been agreed by North Yorkshire County Council in order to save almost £250,000.

It means the district's libraries and mobile libraries will shut over Christmas and New Year and for two weeks during the summer so all 320 employees take their holidays at the same time cutting down on relief staffing costs.

North Yorkshire County Council has already agreed the closure, and the library service is now consulting with staff and parish councils to thrash out the finer details.

It is not yet clear whether all libraries will close at the same time.

Ray de Graff, head of libraries and arts at North Yorkshire County Council, said the decision to close was the lesser of three alternative evils.

He said: "There were three options, close some libraries completely, reduce the number of hours for every library in the county or this, which is a relatively easy measure to reverse if times improved.

"This decision has not been taken lightly or in isolation. It is a requirement of the library service as a result of the level of the Government settlement."

He added that hard times in recent years had cut down on cost saving options available to library bosses.

"This comes on top of 30 per cent savings over the last five years. Our information technology fund is very severely restricted, and we have reduced the book purchase fund to less than a half of what it was just three years ago."

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