I think we're all agreed here that public libraries are a good thing. Most of us probably also have a sense that they are not in the best of health. (Unless, that is, you've long felt that the real job of a library is to provide cheap DVD rentals and internet access; in which case you can now walk into your dreams, albeit on a limited number of days each week.)

Culture minister Margaret "Promhater" Hodge has also been mulling this over. And her thoughts were delivered to the Association of London Libraries last week. I think we can safely say they'd be filed under "blue sky thinking".

It starts out rationally enough, with a suggestion for weekend and evening opening. Many libraries' hours have been radically cut back in recent years, and a 34% decline in loans presumably has something to do with the shrinking opportunities to borrow books. (Hodge appears to think the extended hours can be paid for in London by pooling IT resources among different boroughs, and by the Starbucks concessions the public is obviously thirsty for.)

But the ideas get steadily stranger: Wouldn't it be great if libraries offered loyalty cards, "that give users a one-day travelcard or a pair of cinema tickets for every 10 visits"! Hey, maybe they could do a tie-in with Amazon: "You've borrowed the book - now send a new copy to a friend"! And let's try "outreach" to boys by stocking comics (and cross our fingers that they haven't noticed we've been stocking them for decades)! And shouldn't we think about teleporting books into readers' homes, and giving teenage readers a free Bacardi Breezer per visit! (Hodge, we know, is not afraid to be controversial, though I must confess she didn't actually make the last two suggestions.)

Her proposals for home deliveries and modernising buildings begin to sound reasonable, until you hear her scoffing at calls for more resources, on the grounds that "there ought to be scope for efficiencies through greater collaboration".

She would, no doubt, also shush at the evidence of Tim Coates, author of the library report Who's In Charge? Responsibility for the Public Library Service. He points out that since the London Borough of Hillingdon made investment in book stocks its priority, the use of its libraries had doubled. Smell the fragrance, granddad. Something as old-fashioned as that is never going to speak to the Google generation: the bookstacks are the perfect place for speed dating and paintball!