I almost never see anything of merit in the views expressed by Steve Nibbs in his Advertiser letters, and I initially felt his language attacking volunteers taking the jobs of library workers was unnecessarily intemperate.

Nevertheless, he does have a point. Debbie Estarbrook, manager of the Walcot Community shop, writes in opposition to Steve Nibbs, but her position is much worse.

She seems oblivious to the immense damage done to our society by privatisation. Fat cats have moved in to make profits bloated by state subsidy while the services they parasitise get worse.

People working in those services, providing those services, have seen conditions deteriorate. Debbie Estarbrook seems to want this process repeated for libraries. She reduces the function of libraries to “job searches and fact finding”. She seems to support a position where there are no well resourced libraries, staffed by properly paid professionals trained in helping people access culture and information. What a shame that people with time to be unpaid volunteers couldn’t use that time in supporting campaigns for proper libraries. I wonder how many of them share Debbie Estarbrook’s apparent view that they should be a fifth column against public services?

Peter Smith Woodside Avenue Swindon