MANIC Street Preachers bassist Nicky Wire spoke out against budget cuts putting public libraries at risk of closure.
The bassist with the Blackwood band told reporters that the possible closures of more than 450 libraries across the UK felt like an attack on the "soul of the country", and that public libraries offered people the chance to discover new and different worlds.
The Manics sang "libraries give us power" in their 1996 hit A Design for Life - a lyric inspired by the words above the entrance to Newport Library which read "Knowledge is power".
The Manics' version of the well-know saying can now be read on a plaque outside the central library in Cardiff.
Nicky Wire, whose brother Patrick worked at Blackwood Library for two years, said in an interview with The Guardian that he had used libraries to help him study for his ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, and that they helped him to develop as a person.
Protests were held across the UK last weekend against local councils proposing library closures as they try to cope with reduced budgets.
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