More than 3,000 people have had a say about the future of Kirklees libraries.
As budgets cuts have to be made, councillors and officers are looking at how they can save millions.
Clr Graham Turner, Cabinet member for Resources, said he understood why the library service “was something dear to the hearts of people”.
He has been touring libraries and speaking to groups keen to save the service and is due to visit libraries in south Kirklees soon.
Later this week he will also visit York libraries to learn more about the community trust model to see if it’s something Kirklees Council should explore.
So far 3,000 people have taken part in the library-specific consultation, with the most extreme proposal leaving just Huddersfield and Dewsbury libraries along with the home delivery service.
Clr Turner said: “We’ve had petitions to save libraries that are in excess of that, but there’s still time to get more people involved in the consultation. The public themselves are doing a great job encouraging people to take an interest.
“The budget is still just less than £6m a year, next year we’ve got half a million to save and the following year it drops to £3.9m.
“We do want to retain a top quality service, but we are faced with cuts and we need to find a balance.
“We have 26 libraries now, whether we have 26 libraries at the end of this I don’t know, but we are working with the public to find a solution.”
Scrutiny Panel members suggested closer links between the libraries and museums service, which faces losing over £530,000 of its budget in the next three years.
Clr Turner ruled out wide-spread charging for access to museums, saying it would put up a barrier to people visiting and could be more costly.
He added: “We do need to look at facilities to generate income and ideas to get more people through the doors. Last year we ran a pop-up museum in the Packhorse and we took our museums out to the public, it worked really well there was a lot of interest so we’ll explore more ideas like that.”
Clr Hilary Richards said they could benefit from ‘pocket money’ items in gift shops while Clr Turner said the Lowry print mugs that were being sold at Huddersfield Library were selling well.
The public consultation on the library service runs until April 10. The feedback will be assessed and there is expected to be a debate in the summer.
