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  3. Of all the cuts to public services, few have provoked such loud protests as proposals to close libraries. Petitions and curses h

Of all the cuts to public services, few have provoked such loud protests as proposals to close libraries. Petitions and curses h

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问题     Of all the cuts to public services, few have provoked such loud protests as proposals to close libraries. Petitions and curses have been followed by legal challenges. On November 16th a judge in London ruled against plans to close 21 libraries in Gloucestershire and Somerset. Campaigners in Brent, in north-west London, have taken their fight against closures to the Court of Appeal.
    Local politicians are startled. Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire county council, which was forced by public pressure to abandon plans to close many libraries, complained that protesters seemed much less upset by cuts to social care and rubbish collection. Visits to libraries have declined by 6. 7% in the past five years, according to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).
    But this is to underestimate the symbolic role libraries play as a visible public good. A 2010 poll found that 69% of people had been to a library in the past year. More than 80% view libraries as " essential" or " very important".
    Yet savings have to be made somewhere. If library closures cause protests, cuts must be done stealthily. In the 2010-11 fiscal year libraries acquired 7. 4% fewer adult fiction books and 13. 7% fewer non-fiction books than they had the year before. An older, less appealing stock could speed the decline in library visits.
    Yet hard times are also forcing innovations that may help libraries in the long run. In a quiet success for David Cameron’s "Big Society" , the number of volunteer librarians has risen from 12,708 to 21,642 in the past five years. That trend has its critics, especially among professional librarians. But staff account for at least half the cost of running a library. Other savings could probably be made by consolidating England’s 151 library authorities, and by making better use of technology. "London has 32 library authorities but just one police authority," marvels Desmond Clarke, a library campaigner.
    An entirely different option is to pour money into a single edifice in the hope that it will have a benign effect on the neighborhood. England’s most popular library is the Norfolk & Norwich Millennium, a multi-storey space in a sparkling new building with a restaurant and gallery, which lured nearly 1. 5m people last year. As the anchor of the development, the library attracts users who then linger and spend money nearby. Birmingham is building a new ￡ 188.8m library, the flagship of a development in the city centre that is due to open in 2013. Many of the city’s other 39 libraries could face cuts in service, including shorter opening hours and fewer staff. Libraries are not dead—just a little dusty.
Keith Mitchell’s plan to close more libraries had to be aborted mainly because______.
选项 A、he underrates the status enjoyed by the public library in British society
B、he overlooks cuts to more urgent public services like social care
C、he overestimates the decline of visits to library in the past years
D、he overstates the advantages brought by library closure
答案A
解析 根据题干中的人名锁定文章第二段的内容。基思.米切尔是牛津郡地方议会主席，他曾经计划关闭该郡多家图书馆，但后因遭到民众强烈反对而不得不取消这项计划。在就这个问题发表观点时，基思.米切尔认为民众对于关闭图书馆的议案反应过激，“对降低社会福利标准和垃圾收集的提案，反对者不见得有这么激动”。他的这番言论反映了他对于公立图书馆在人们心目中的地位缺乏正确的认识。虽然在过去的一些年中，公立图书馆的人流量不断下降，但是英国人还是表示公立图书馆的作用非常重要(More than 80％ view libraries as“essential”or“very important”)。因此本题的正确答案应该选[A]，选项内容是对“underestimate the symbolic role libraries play as a visible public good”的同义改写。
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