I agree with Maureen James and Eliza Fricker (The Argus, March 7 and 11) about the Jubilee Library.

Having looked forward impatiently to its opening, I now avoid the place. But then, like them, I'm only a book lover.

I'm baffled as to why the place wins so many awards. Architecturally it may be fine - as a railway or airport concourse.

As a library, where people may be expected to want to study quietly, it's inappropriate.

It's said to be wonderfully ecofriendly.

Well, as an ME sufferer I'm sensitive to environmental stresses and I start to feel unwell the moment I enter this building. I was sitting reading the other day when I became faint and dizzy.

I knew I had to get out before I collapsed. It took a day to recover from an hour in the place.

As an ME sufferer I also fondly recall the old library, with its miraculous utilisation of limited space.

Now, I have to drag about exhaustingly, trying to find things.

All those flimsy little cases scattered over a large area.

As a reference library it is of limited use. It ought to have non-loanable copies of all major texts, ready for consultation - say, a complete run of the Oxford Standard Authors editions of English poets and Boswell's Life of Johnson, or Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy.

Yet on my last visit I could find none of these. Admittedly, now they've abolished biography, I've no idea where to look for the Boswell.

As for its alleged popularity, a cursory glance suggests many visitors are Japanese students and the like, few of whom are using library books.

I've seen them talking on mobiles in the study area, a practice which should surely be banned.

In the old days it took a couple of seconds, at an issue desk, to have one's books stamped.

Now, one has to queue for ages - painful for ME sufferers - at a desk that does issues, returns, reservations, membership cards and general enquiries.

Books now have to be scanned by computer before one is issued with a flimsy receipt, like a bus ticket. Of course, one promptly mislays the receipt and so has no idea when the books are due back.

Umberto Eco speaks of two kinds of libraries - those designed to hide books and discourage readers and those that make discovery an adventure.

I'm afraid I classify the Jubilee Library among the first.

-Graham Chainey, Brighton