NOW that we have crossed the historic Rubicon and transcended from a daily to a weekly publication, at least for some, we can get back to identifying the world’s ills and arguing about how to cure them.

One of them I alluded to a week or so back when highlighting the fact that the city libraries are to close every Sunday. This is not about whether those cuts are right, wrong, justified, misconceived, inevitable or preventable.

Nor is it about politics or priorities, but about the need to step back and really examine what we all, as a society, need, as opposed to want, over the next 25 years. Why a quarter of a century? Because that is when children born today will be in their mid- 20s and stepping up to start taking responsibility for the world we leave them. We need to plan not for today, tomorrow, next week, or next month, but for 2037.

It has all been said before, of course, and what has it got to do with libraries not being open on Sunday? Everything actually, as it demonstrates how we should start by rethinking the whole concept of public service delivery.

While understanding that the decision may have been taken with great reluctance and best intentions based on priorities and existing staff contracts, did it consider whether we will have, want or need libraries in 2037? Perhaps, perhaps not. Or what libraries are, aren’t or could become? But that is not the point either.

The point is about cultural shift. The need to stop thinking about how we can continue to do what we have always done; but about what the public really need and, more importantly, at what times the public are actually available. This is a subtle but significant shift. Not when the public are allowed to turn up, but when will they be available to access public services?

In December, NML attracted its highest visitor numbers for a December, ever. This at a time of increasing restrictions (aka cuts), and the staff are to be congratulated for that, but it also highlights the challenge ahead. Even at a time of increasing austerity, people will need constructive things to do at times they are available to do them. Like weekends.

This is not just a social argument, important though that is, but about re-engineering our economy and shifting from a 9-5, Monday to Friday working week mindset. The weekends should be special, but in providing more, not less, access to publicly funded assets.

This will take a long time to change. It is not a one-generation challenge. It may take two or three. Or, 25 years, perhaps. Best get started.

IN JULY last year, scientists using the space telescope Kepler discovered at least another 100 Earth-like planets. The key word is “Earth-like”.

This means they could harbour the right conditions for life, and it is now believed that there are around 100m such planets in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. 100,000,000-1 against finding ET now seems worth putting a quid on.

This, in turn, points to two theological questions. God knows, perhaps literally, just how many other planets there are in the rest of the universe, and, if God took seven days just to make our own heaven and earth, He must have put a right shift in to create all the others.

No wonder He needed to rest on the Sabbath. But, will they all share the same weekend?

PS MORE people visit our parks, which are open at weekends, than libraries. Perhaps, then, relocation rather than closure?