Details of the proposed "merger" of Leicester's central libraries has so far been very sketchy (Mercury, February 2).

To secure the central Government funding the council desperately needs, the Central Lending Library is to be turned into a "multi-access centre" (a drop-in centre/training centre and internet café). But what will happen to its book collections?

An internal makeover of the dowdy reference library would be welcome but one can't see the Central's books fitting into the available space. Something will have to be sacrificed – and it looks as if it will be the printed materials. We should be worried. There's nothing wrong with drop-in centres and internet cafes but they're not libraries.

You may think it's no big deal. But it says something important about the council, the city and the country. For years, Government ministers, captains of industry, business schools and economic pundits have all subscribed to two truths: 1) the UK needs to become a high value-added, high-skills-based economy to remain globally competitive; and 2) success depends on every individual's commitment to life-long learning.

Acquiring an appetite for reading at an early age and developing it as an adult is fundamental. The availability of books to the public free of charge is an important element in achieving it.

Electronic "content-delivery systems" are enormously useful but they'll never be a complete substitute for their printed equivalents.

Each book is better designed to do its own modest job than any electronic alternative could ever be. A book doesn't need a power supply. It can be read in the bath. It can be recycled.

I'm genuinely worried that, in their haste to save money and embrace new technology and its related business opportunities, politicians and decision-makers are losing sight of the bigger picture which is (or ought to be) effectively enabling literacy, an understanding of the world around us and the capacity for genuinely creative and imaginative thinking.

Providing free public access to printed materials has always been seen as part of this.

Claims that book libraries are dying aren't true. Libraries within good schools certainly aren't and my local lending libraries in Knighton and Oadby seem healthy enough. However, the overall budget is being reduced and free provision in the city centre, and certain other areas of Leicester appears to be being run down.

Anyone who doesn't already know it should pop into the Central Library and have a look at Richard Hoggart's Uses of Literacy. It's a classic text that provided the foundation for most university cultural studies courses in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Hoggart came from a working class Yorkshire family and believed passionately that the purpose of education and libraries went far beyond training poor kids to read so that they could get themselves a job and pay to consume stuff. Hoggart lived and worked in Leicester in the 1960s. The irony wouldn't be lost on him.

Literacy isn't just the basic ability to read. It's the ability to read and understand at a variety of levels. It enables us to reflect on the world and the social and economic processes that we are all a part of.

It gives us a kind of passport into society and frees us from being merely consumers, which is why Hoggart thought it so important. It's also the reason why books are so valuable and why their availability is a political as well as a commercial issue.

If the Government fails to rise to the challenges demanded by a modern economy in which the fruits of literacy are valued above all others, England really will become a dismal place.

Nick Knight, Leicester.