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041		7	_aen _2iso639-1
050		4	_aZ
100	1		_aBaker, Ernest A. _q(Ernest Albert), _d1869-1941
245	1	4	_aThe public library
264		1	_aSalt Lake City, UT : _bProject Gutenberg, _c2025
300			_a1 online resource : _bmultiple file formats
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_acomputer _bc _2rdamedia
338			_aonline resource _bcr _2rdacarrier
500			_aRelease date is 2025-07-28
505	0		_aI. Historical sketch -- II. What is a library service? -- III. Library extension -- IV. Rural libraries -- V. A national library service -- VI. Training in librarianship.
508			_aCarla Foust, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
520			_a"The public library" by Ernest A. Baker is a treatise on library history, policy, and practice written in the early 20th century. It examines the rise and role of public libraries in Britain, urging their integration with adult education and their coordination into a national system. Drawing on history and current practice, it defines what a complete public library service should include—from lending and reference work to children’s, rural, and technical services—and how governance and funding must adapt. The opening of the book sets a reformist tone: after noting that recent legislation averted financial collapse but left bigger aims unmet, it calls for urban and rural libraries to be coordinated into an economic, national service and criticizes how little sociologists have valued libraries. It then sketches the movement from post-Waterloo self-help and Mechanics’ Institutes through Ewart’s permissive Acts, highlighting Edward Edwards’s advocacy, the early focus on museums, debates over taxation and “dangerous” knowledge, uneven municipal adoption, philanthropy (notably Carnegie), and the crippling penny-rate limit. The narrative shows how consolidating Acts and Scottish provisions improved matters but left libraries isolated from schools and other educational agencies until the Adult Education Committee pressed for change; a later Act removed the rate cap and enabled county-based rural systems, yet deeper structural reforms were deferred. Turning to practice, the book contrasts progressive with perfunctory services, then defines the lending library’s purpose, the shift to open access, the value of branches over mere delivery points, and liberal borrowing to encourage serious study amid chronic shortages of books. It outlines the reference library’s tools and functions, notes local special collections, and treats newspapers and periodicals as “current history,” best curated alongside ready-reference works to foster informed citizenship. It advocates study rooms, small class spaces, and, crucially, robust children’s departments modeled on the best American examples, illustrated by the Croydon junior library’s lectures, storytelling, classification training, and close work with schools. The section closes by introducing the need for commercial and industrial library services, signaling a detailed treatment to follow. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534			_pOriginally published: _cLondon: Daniel O'Connor, 1922
653			_aPublic libraries -- Great Britain
653			_aLibrary extension -- Great Britain
856	4		_uhttps://archive.org/details/publiclibrary00bakerich/page/n7/mode/2up
856	4	0	_uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76583
999			_c117308 _d117308