IT is two years since City of York Council handed over all York’s libraries to a new “community benefit society”.

Since then, the city’s libraries and archives have been run by a mutual society, the Explore Libraries and Archives Mutual. This is mainly funded by the council, but operates independently.

The initial aim was partly to save money - the council hoped to save £450,000 over three years on library spending - but also to free the city's library service from the shackles of local authority management.

The new library mutual was eligible for tax breaks not available to the council. And the aim was always that it would also apply for charitable status - enabling it to tap into grants and other funding sources available to charities but not local authorities.

Now, two years on, the organisation has learned that it has been designated a charity by HMRC. "This opens up the world of charitable philanthropy to us," said Explore chief executive Fiona Williams.

When Explore split from the council, there were some concerns about the future of the library service - not least from unions representing staff.

But two years on, the city's libraries appear to be thriving. The number of 'active borrowers' is up, the home library service has been relaunched, a new 'e-magazine' service has been started, and while fewer people are visiting the city's libraries than before, the decline is much smaller than the national average.

Charitable status now puts the city's libraries in a strong position to raise money through donations.

Our libraries are too important to be put at risk.

We'll need to keep a close eye on how Explore performs in the year to come, therefore.

But so far it seems the experiment has been a success. There could be exciting times ahead.