The Public Library

A treatise on library history, policy, and practice written in the early 20th century. It examines the rise and role of public libraries in Britain, urging their integration with adult education and their coordination into a national system. Drawing on history and current practice, it defines what a complete public library service should include—from lending and reference work to children’s, rural, and technical services—and how governance and funding must adapt. The opening of the book sets a reformist tone: after noting that recent legislation averted financial collapse but left bigger aims unmet, it calls for urban and rural libraries to be coordinated into an economic, national service and criticizes how little sociologists have valued libraries. It then sketches the movement from post-Waterloo self-help and Mechanics’ Institutes through Ewart’s permissive Acts, highlighting Edward Edwards’s advocacy, the early focus on museums, debates over taxation and “dangerous” knowledge, uneven municipal adoption, philanthropy (notably Carnegie), and the crippling penny-rate limit. The narrative shows how consolidating Acts and Scottish provisions improved matters but left libraries isolated from schools and other educational agencies until the Adult Education Committee pressed for change; a later Act removed the rate cap and enabled county-based rural systems, yet deeper structural reforms were deferred. Turning to practice, the book contrasts progressive with perfunctory services, then defines the lending library’s purpose, the shift to open access, the value of branches over mere delivery points, and liberal borrowing to encourage serious study amid chronic shortages of books. It outlines the reference library’s tools and functions, notes local special collections, and treats newspapers and periodicals as “current history,” best curated alongside ready-reference works to foster informed citizenship. It advocates study rooms, small class spaces, and, crucially, robust children’s departments modeled on the best American examples, illustrated by the Croydon junior library’s lectures, storytelling, classification training, and close work with schools. The section closes by introducing the need for commercial and industrial library services, signaling a detailed treatment to follow.