Betting, billiards and smoking: leisure in public libraries

Abstract

Rate-supported public libraries were established in Great Britain in the mid-nineteenth century with mixed objectives of educational progress and recreational reform. Although librarians upheld the concept of public libraries as educational establishments and normally deprecated the recreational uses of libraries, the public demand upon libraries was principally of a leisure nature. This article traces the origins of public libraries in the nineteenth-century campaign for recreational reform and evaluates the reaction of librarians to the uses of two specific leisure forms in public libraries, namely newsrooms and games rooms. It shows that public libraries were significant providers of leisure facilities, but that their potential to develop a leisure function was curtailed by the library profession's desire to change the image of the library from a leisure orientated institution to one of educational and information priorities.