An army of women campaigners are being mobilised to fight for libraries across the West, in a new campaign being spearheaded by the Women’s Institute.

Tens of thousands of members from Dorset to Gloucestershire have backed plans for the campaign, called Love Your Libraries, to fight individual council plans to close branches, cut opening hours or replace staff with volunteers.

Libraries have been the consistent victim of the council cuts this year already, with closures announced in Somerset and Gloucestershire.

In Wiltshire, opening hours are being cut and a third of libraries will soon be staffed by volunteers. Members of the WI met in Liverpool at their annual conference and backed a resolution to start a campaign with a 98 per cent vote in favour.

Previous WI campaigns on fair trade foods and on milk production have proved successful in raising awareness of the issues, and the WI famously slow hand-clapped Tony Blair when his speech did not go down well at the 2000 conference.

The campaign will mean council chiefs in Trowbridge, Dorchester, Taunton, Bath, Gloucester, Bristol, Swindon, Yate and Weston could soon be inundated with emails, letters, petitions and phone calls urging them to backtrack from plans to cut library services.

“WI members have pledged their commitment to fight to support maintenance of local library provision,” said National Federation chair Ruth Bond.

“We will now work hard to prevent such services being removed from the areas where they are often needed most.”

In Gloucestershire, campaigners have forced a freeze on cuts plans with an injunction, even before the WI entered the fray.

The campaigns manager for the Gloucestershire WI Federation campaign, Pam Sparrow, said everyone was affected by a library closure.

“Members have felt very strongly about it here in Gloucestershire,” she said. “Being such a rural county, there is also the issue of transport problems getting to somewhere where a library might be still open.”