The British love libraries: they represent civilisation. More than half of us hold a library card, and in 2005/2006 we made 342 million library visits. So mess with them at your peril. Next Tuesday, Hampshire County Council is opening a new £7.25 million library in Winchester, and it sounds wonderful – but expect some harrumphs of protest.

Like every good library, Winchester’s will be a temple of text. It will stock 95,000 books and 150 newspapers, journals and magazines. But it will have a few 21st-century flourishes – the council says it will boast “bright colours, modern art, plasma-screen displays, a café-bar, free internet terminals and Big Brother sofas”.

It’s not even called a library. No, it has been rebranded as a “Discovery Centre”. Jazzing up libraries to attract young people sets what the think-tank Demos calls the “book lobby” on edge – why can’t you call a library a library? Who needs the net? But it seems to work.

Hampshire’s first Discovery Centre, in Gosport, opened two years ago, prompting a 59 per cent increase in local library visits and a 15 per cent rise in book borrowers. Most heartening, many of these new visitors are significantly younger. And who can argue with that?

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