The public library service grew, in part, out of the temperance movement in the 1830s - an anxiety to provide people with somewhere else to go apart from the pub. Now library opening hours, book-purchase funds and staffing have been drastically cut and privatisation is on the agenda. To make her film Jill Wight , director of the National Library Campaign, has brought together many supporters including Melvyn Bragg , who says: "It's a marvellous system and it's been let slide.... when a society starts to chew off its own best bits then you're in real trouble - and the library service is certainly one of the best bits about this country."