A GLITCH which took down Barnet Council’s library system has been fixed – but people are still unable to renew books online.

Barnet Conservatives claim its library service, Vubis, which crashed at the start of March is mainly back up and running.

The error took down the online catalogue and the e-library system, and meant the authority was losing up to £200 a day in fines.

But while those systems are back up and running, anyone who wants to renew a book has to do so in person.

Labour councillor Anne Hutton said she was pleased that the service is now back online but said she is angry that the council took so long to repair the glitch.

She said: “They kept saying it was going to be up and running - it wouldn’t have been quite so bad if they were honest with us.”

Cuts worth £2.27million to libraries were approved last week, including leaving some unstaffed.

But during the glitch, how they will work was cast into doubt and there were calls to postpone the vote until the software was repaired.

Cllr Reuben Thompstone, chairman of the children, education, libraries and safeguarding committee, did not address the fact that people still cannot renew books online.

He said: "The central library IT system has now been restored and most services are available to residents.

“Residents are able to borrow and return books, as well as renew them in person. Users can access e-books and audio-books and adults can access library computers and the free wifi.

"Throughout the recovery phase all libraries have remained open and the extended opening hours at Edgware are again available. Some data does still need to be verified or manually re-entered. This will continue to affect users.

“Steps have been taken to make the central system more robust, limiting the likelihood, and impact, of such a failure occurring again in the future.

“We would like to thank residents for their on-going support and patience as these issues are resolved.”