ABSTRACT

The passage of the Public Libraries Act did not spark an immediate boom in new public library building construction. The first British practical treatise to tackle both library management and the design of public library buildings appeared very shortly after the passage through Parliament of the Public Libraries Act, 1850. Most of the earliest British public libraries were indeed combined with museums, or art galleries, or both. The Papworths also drew their readers' attention to what they called the 'most remarkable public buildings for libraries in Europe'. Another contemporary prototype which would quickly have become well known to library designers was the Boston Public Library. The first new British building entirely funded under the Public Library Act to open its doors to the public was in Norwich, where in 1857 the combined public library, museum and art school was completed, seven years after the city had adopted the Act of 1850.