ABSTRACT
Although containing enclaves of deprivation, the London Borough of Holborn in the mid-1950s (later, in 1965, Holborn was absorbed into the larger, new London Borough of Camden) was a prosperous area of central London. It contained a large number of government and commercial offices, including the historic Inns of Court where lawyers practised and trained in large numbers. These properties, with their high rateable value, not only made the Borough one of the wealthiest in the country, they also brought tens of thousands of commuting workers into the area each day. Library provision in the Borough, however, was inadequate to meet the demands of what was a large and sophisticated ‘daytime’ readership.
