The recession continues to menace but with, as yet, no significant bloodshed, except perhaps to the inflated art market. The sale in February of Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s private collection was an exception, pulling in a record sum, but it was a rare example of an auction that lived up to the “once-in-a- generation” hype. Next, the art world gathers for the 53rd Venice Biennale (June 7), where Steve McQueen is representing Britain after the success of his film Hunger. The real financial test will come at Art Basel, the leading trade fair, which opens on June 10. Outwardly, the major galleries are putting on their best slap: the V&A has a sumptuously gaudy survey of Baroque design and the Whitechapel Gallery in East London reopens this weekend after a two-year refurbishment.

The National Campaign for the Arts is lobbying to protect government spending on the arts from being cut, and in June will publish a manifesto based on consultations with artists and arts organisations. It will have tough messages for Government. The five main areas of attention are investment and sustainability, creating careers, infrastructure and policy, education and learning, and participation and access.

The successor to Andrew Motion as Poet Laureate is due to be announced at the end of April. If Carol Ann Duffy wins it would be the first time that a woman has held the position in its 400-year history. Jackie Kay, Benjamin Zepheniah, RogerMcGough and Simon Armitage have also been touted. Though the work of the laureate veers towards the purple on the occasion of royal births, deaths and marriages, Motion still believes that the role has a serious purpose. He said recently that it “allows you to have conversations and to open doors, and wallets, for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow”. However, he also tells his successor to “preserve some time for yourself. Otherwise you’ll be in the situation that I was . . . going round the world, telling everybody else to write poetry and not being able to bloody well write it myself.”

In June the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will announce the results of its Public Library Review. Led by Barbara Follett, the Culture Minister, it has been analysing how to get people through the door; how to ensure that libraries are open when the public want to use them; that staff have the skills to deliver a modern service; and assessing the growth of the e-book. And, crucially, “should libraries be silent places for reading? Or should they be social places for people to meet and discuss, perhaps with coffee shops or internet cafés?”

Whatever head-scratching has gone on around these questions let’s hope the answer to the last is: Of course libraries should be quiet; any cafe should be well away from people trying to read, research or just take a break from the world around them by losing themselves in a book. Libraries should also be cherished and protected as havens. Never mind the e-book. Shouldn’t libraries be about real books? The ones with pages you can turn? Does this sound curmudgeonly? Good. Libraries, and the principle of libraries, are so precious that to see them destroyed under a sea of latte — and precious few books on shelves—would be criminally depressing. Come mid-June a report, “including specific action points”, will be published for wider consultation.

There had been speculation that the 62nd Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24) would open with Ron Howard’s latest Dan Brown blockbuster Angels and Demons (out May 14). But instead, the Disney/Pixar cartoon Up is taking the honours. The story of an elderly man who dreams of a big balloon adventure and a young boy keen to come along for the ride will be the first time that an animation has opened the event. After the huge critical and commercial success of Slumdog Millionaire the hunt will be on in Cannes (and in Venice, Telluride and Toronto), for more inventive, low-budget gems that could enchant a global audience.

Away from the festival circuit, there’s the conspiracy thriller State of Play (April 24), the animated movie Coraline (May 8), a big-screen outing for Captain Kirk and buddies in Star Trek (May 8) and Terminator: Salvation (June 3). A personal favourite is Sam Raimi’s insane, funny and gross return to the horror movie with Drag Me To Hell (May 29). Cat-lovers should take a little kitty chill pill before going in.

The West End awaits Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot (April 30, Theatre Royal Haymarket), after its UK tour, while Sam Mendes’s Bridge Project, a transatlantic troupe of star actors, arrives at the Old Vic to do The Cherry Orchard (adapted by Tom Stoppard) and The Winter’s Tale (May 23). Two weeks later the National Theatre beams Helen Mirren as Racine’s transfixing Phèdre into 50 British cinemas and countless more around the world. Despite the recession, the lights show few signs of dimming.