Great City Libraries of Britain: Their History from a European Perspective

Abstract

In continental Europe, ‘public’ libraries developed along different lines than in Great Britain. In countries such as, in particular, Germany and France, there is a clear distinction between the academic public library, rich in research materials for scholars, and the general public library, which concentrates on lending and information functions. The former kind of public library has never been found in Britain, where the public library system is more centralized and where ideas of ‘popular culture’ have held sway. This article looks at reasons why academic public libraries did not come about. Leeds is taken as an example of a modern city library system, but rooted in its nineteenth-century beginnings.