Limited space means there will be no Polish book collection housed at Douglas’s Henry Bloom Noble library.

The decision comes after members of the Polish community offered around 150 books to the library to be housed there to loan for a trial period.

Councillor Catherine Turner said she was sad it was not possible to accommodate them.

The council’s regeneration and community committee reached the decision after taking advice from the borough librarian who said they only had space for books in the island’s official languages of Manx and English.

Even books in those foreign languages studied in Manx schools had been discarded some years ago, she said, owing to limited space and the fact that they were not read.

Councillors thought if they allowed the request it could open the floodgates to requests from other other foreign language speakers, placing further demand on the limited space available.

By way of compromise, it was decided the library may be able to collaborate with Polish-speaking volunteers to build up a Polish language collection of e-books available on the library’s website.

However, this would need to be funded by the Polish community and would run for a trial six-month period. In addition, it was noted the library’s e-book contract was due for renewal in six months’ time so if any Polish language service were to continue it would be dependent on the new supplier offering foreign language books, which not all do.

Douglas’s main library shut its doors after 12 years on Victoria Street at the end of November,2015. It relocated to the former Top Shop building in Duke Street in January 2016. The new building offers better IT facilities for its customers and costs less in rent but also has less storage space.