ABSTRACT
The literature of public librarianship tends to see the 'community' approach as timeless and inevitable: libraries self evidently serve 'communities'. Arthur Marwick's decade of discontinuity provided the seedbed for many of the ideas underpinning community librarianship. It marked the end of the social stability and solidarity which had characterised post-war Britain. Economic weakness became real decline, as British heavy industry contracted under the impact of the 1973 oil crisis and the emergence of global competition. Displaying little of the complacency with which librarians are commonly charged, they began to develop a comprehensive critique of McColvin's 'modern' public library. This critique, in its turn, formed the basis of community librarianship. Mainstream community librarianship, as it had evolved by around 1983, was thus fertile with ideas for a new public library service. For some radical librarians, these questions linked naturally with the critique of the public library which focused on its role as a cultural institution of the state.
