ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one particular library in this emergent vision of a libraiy network, or grid: the Manchester Central Library (MCL) which was opened in 1934 to wide acclaim, as an architectural triumph and as a statement against the economic pessimism of the time. In Britain, public libraries emerged in the nineteenth century as a universal library, of a kind. They developed between their inception in 1850 and the First World War from being poorly funded, thinly scattered, isolated and essentially urban civic institutions, to institutions that were relatively well resourced, fairly widely available and recognized as an important national asset with increasingly homogenized modes of operation. Before 1934 Manchester's main public library was never fortunate enough to occupy purpose-built premises, despite Manchester being, in the words of the librarian James Duff Brown, 'the cradle of the public library movement'. A public library in Manchester was first opened in 1852, the first public library to open in the country.
