When I interviewed Melvyn Bragg in his childhood library in Wigton, Cumbria for this podcast, he told me his biggest mistake when setting up The South Bank Show was publishing a manifesto for the programme.

Now, I am not so presumptuous to compare this modest little podcast with that venerable cultural mainstay… and yet I should perhaps outline the provenance of this show.

This is not a manifesto, mind!

At the turn of the year, as 2019 dawned, I grew frustrated and disheartened by newspaper reports of library closures during 2018. This post-mortem round-up has become something of an annual tradition in the UK during the age of austerity and makes for really grim reading. I decided to do something about it, as best I could.

Having worked on anthologies that celebrate universal themes and causes via great authors and the written word, I set about putting together a podcast that would champion libraries and independent bookshops. I resolved to meet great authors in a library or bookshop of their choice, a place somewhere resonant and meaningful to them. The librarian or bookseller would join the conversation. That way, I could celebrate such ‘palaces for the people’ – these institutions that we can ill afford to lose – and, along the way, campaign against further cuts and closures in a hopefully diverting, absorbing and not overly preachy way.

The result is Ex Libris. I hope you enjoy the episodes as they become available on all the usual platforms. If you do, please please please spread the word - rate, review, subscribe - and give us your feedback. We desperately all need to champion our libraries and protect them, for future generations. They are adapting to modern times as best they can. Libraries have always, since time immemorial, been beacons for our noblest and freest values as humans. Long shall they remain so.