It was a bad day for the picture library business yesterday, or stock agencies as they’re erroneously called in the US. Bill Gates’s perpetually loss-making Corbis slashed 175 jobs, and PhotoShelter is closing its stock agency department PhotoShelter Collection next month. The blame is placed variously on the credit crunch, Getty Images, microstock, bad moon rising, cost of oil, what have you.

We’ve already been approached by some PhotoShelter contributors to see if we can offer a safe harbour for their image collections.

Big ships struggle and sometimes founder in stormy seas. Sprats like fotoLibra certainly get tossed around but usually carry on swimming. We have signed supplier contracts with most major UK book publishers this year, and at next month’s Frankfurt Book Fair we have 51 meetings already lined up. We haven’t got two pennies to rub together, but we’re supplying a great service to our clients and our member photographers are making money from our work.

And one day so will we.