BEST-SELLING author Iain Banks is launching a campaign to stop Scotland’s libraries from cutting their opening hours. Banks, who is spearheading the protest alongside fellow sci-fi authors Ken MacLeod and Charles Stross, has described the moves to slash opening times by up to 20 per cent as a barbaric act. The author of The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road says he decided to back the campaign because the cuts were an attack on civilisation.

“I support the campaign,” Banks said. “Libraries are some of the most civilised places in our villages, towns and cities and to get rid of them or cut back on access to them is an act of barbarism.” The libraries campaign will be launched next month in Edinburgh, where the council has cut staff and plans to restrict access to save money. Libraries in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumfries and Galloway and Falkirk have all been affected by recent cuts to opening hours.

More than three-quarters of Scots think libraries are important or essential to their community, according to a new poll. The survey, carried out by Ipsos MORI for the Carnegie UK Trust, showed that 61% of people in Scotland have used a library at least once in the past year, which was higher than any other part of the UK.

Over half (56%) of those said they used one at least once a month, and 76% of more than 1000 people polled north of the border said libraries were either "essential" or important. However, the trust said public library services need to adjust and develop to "a changing world" in order to keep attracting visitors.