Although viewed by most as an everyday and uncomplicated ingredient of British life, the public library is sociologically and historically intriguing. This book challenges the popular myth of the public library as an uncontroversial institution without a history. Blessed with a strong Victorian and Edwardian civic foundation, the public library after 1914 strengthened its standing and by the end of the century had developed into a progressive force for social growth and personal enlightenment. Alistair Black focuses on the emancipatory role of the public library, but at the same time he questions the institutional conservative impulse which has sometimes impeded the acceptance of mass and popular culture into public libraries, and their failure to reach certain sectors of society.

The Public Library in Britain, 1914-2000

History

Black, Alistair

Europe

The British Library

The Early Information Society: Information Management in Britain before the Computer

<p>Whether termed the 'network society', the 'knowledge society' or the 'information society', it is widely accepted that a new age has dawned, unveiled by powerful computer and communication technologies. Yet for millennia humans have been recording knowledge and culture, engaging in the dissemination and preservation of information. In `The Early Information Society', the authors argue for an earlier incarnation of the information age, focusing upon the period 1900-1960. In support of this they examine the history and traditions in Britain of two separate but related information-rich occupations - information management and information science - repositioning their origins before the age of the computer and identifying the forces driving their early development. `The Early Information Society' offers an historical account which questions the novelty of the current information society. It will be essential reading for students, researchers and practitioners in the library and information science field, and for sociologists and historians interested in the information society.</p>

Muddiman, Dave

Business & Money

Routledge

Public libraries have strangely never been the subject of an extensive design history. Consequently, this important and comprehensive book represents a ground-breaking socio-architectural study of pre-1939 public library buildings. A surprisingly high proportion of these urban civic buildings remain intact and present an increasingly difficult architectural problem for many communities. The book thus includes a study of what is happening to these historic libraries now and proposes that knowledge of their origins and early development can help build an understanding of how best to handle their future.

Books, Buildings and Social Engineering: Early Public Libraries in Britain from Past to Present

Pepper, Simon

Bagshaw, Kaye

Reference

In the information society, is the community focused library a real possibility? This book reappraises the relationship between the library and its communities through an examination of the rise and decline of ’community’ librarianship over the last three decades. The authors consider key models of community based library service and argue that bland assertions of community prevalence mask a complex and problematic relationship between a highly traditional public service bureaucracy and its users. The resulting uncertainty of purpose, they claim, explains much of the current ’crisis’ of the public library movement. Drawing on recent social science theory and empirical work in the field, this book offers a new and critical perspective on the current public library debate. It is essential reading for librarians, students of information and library science and all who have a stake in the future of the public library. As a case study of community, public service and the local state it should also be of value to those with an interest in community development, cultural policy and local government.

Understanding Community Librarianship: The Public Library in Post-Modern Britain (Evaluative Studies in Social Work)

Muddiman, David

Understanding Community Librarianship: The Public Library in Post-Modern Britain (Studies in Librarianship)

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Books by Black, Alistair