Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a general overview of the public library movement's origins and objectives, including its social control and social engineering dimensions. The most commonly experienced 'library place' in our society is the public library. The public library remains an extremely important civic institution and organ of cultural production. Library buildings have become 'inspiring public places'. The public library represented a new Victorian building type which was frequently conceived in conjunction with other cultural facilities, most notably museums and art galleries. In a number of cities the inter-war years saw the construction of second-generation central library buildings, representing an opportunity to re-think both the technology and the image presented by public buildings. The book draws on testimony from the general public obtained from a Mass-Observation Archive 'directive' on public library buildings, commissioned in 2005.