Page 102 - DLIS101_LIBRARY_AND_INFORMATION_SOCIETY

Unit 8: Library Development

help. A significant service provided by public libraries is assisting people with e-government access Notes
and use of federal, state and local government information, forms and services.
Internationally, public libraries offer information and communication technology (ICT) services,
giving “access to information and knowledge” the “highest priority.” While different countries and
areas of the world have their own requirements, general services offered include free connection to
the Internet, training in using the Internet, and relevant content in appropriate languages. In addition
to typical public library financing, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and business fund
services that assist public libraries in combating the digital divide.

Origins as a Social Institution

The culmination of centuries of advances in the printing press, moveable type, paper, ink, publishing,
and distribution, combined with an ever growing middle class, increased commercial activity and
consumption, new radical ideas, massive population growth and higher literacy rates forged the
public library into the form that it is today. Public libraries are not a new idea; Romans made scrolls
in dry rooms available to patrons of the baths, and tried with some success to establish libraries
within the empire. Naturally only those few that could afford an education would be able to use the
library, where those less than rich or without control of money; women, children and slaves of course
could not. In the middle of the 19th century the push for truly public libraries, paid for by taxes and
run by the state gained force after numerous depressions, droughts, wars and revolutions in Europe,
felt mostly by the working class. Matthew Battles states that:
“It was in these years of class conflict and economic terror that the public library movement swept
through Britain, as the nation’s progressive elite recognized that the light of cultural and intellectual
energy was lacking in the lives of commoners”.
Libraries had often been started with a donation, an endowment or were bequeathed to various,
parishes, churches, schools or towns, and these social and institutional libraries formed the base of
many academic and public library collections of today. Andrew Carnegie had the biggest influence
in financing libraries in the United States of America, from the east to west coast. From just 1900 to
1917, almost 1,700 libraries were constructed by Carnegie’s foundation, insisting that local
communities first guarantee tax support of each library built.
The establishment of circulating libraries by booksellers and publishers provided a means of gaining
profit and creating social centers within the community. The circulating libraries not only provided
a place to sell books, but also a place to lend books for a price. These circulating libraries provided
a variety of materials including the increasingly popular novels. Although the circulating libraries
filled an important role in society, members of the middle and upper classes often looked down
upon these libraries that regularly sold material from their collections and provided materials that
were less sophisticated. Circulating libraries also charged a subscription fee; however the fees were
set to entice their patrons, providing subscriptions on a yearly, quarterly or monthly basis, without
expecting the subscribers to purchase a share in the circulating library.
Circulating libraries were not exclusively lending institutions and often provided a place for other
forms of commercial activity, which may or may not be related to print. This was necessary because
the circulating libraries did not generate enough funds through subscription fees collected from its
borrowers. As a commerce venture, it was important to consider the contributing factors such as
other goods or services available to the subscribers.
Many claims have been made for the title of “first public library” for various libraries in various
countries, with at least some of the confusion arising from differing interpretations of what should
be considered a true “public library”. Difficulties in establishing what policies were in effect at
different times in the history of particular libraries also add to the confusion.
The first libraries open to the public were the collections of Greek and Latin scrolls which were
available in the dry sections of the many buildings that made up the huge Roman baths of the
Roman empire. However, they were not lending libraries.

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