Blog 9: The public library act 1850

The United Kingdom gave power to authorise a free public library service commencing from 1850. This was as a result of ruling government legislation. This of course was an exciting and necessary step forward in the library industry. AS universal access was now becoming available it was a huge benefit to those unable to attend their local public library or pay for a private or commercial subscription library. This move also enabled the lower classes to spend more time on pleasurable activities such as reading.

When this act was enforced it was criticized by local residents for enforcing unwanted taxes,  the new laws provided a large multitude of benefits to the local community including lower crimes rates, self improvement, improvement of literacy and reading levels, improvement with obtaining information for education pursuits the benefits outweighed to objectives to the move during the 19^th century.

                                        **courtesy of Wikimedia

Other legislation was passed following the establishment of The public library act 1850 comprising of The Public Library Acts of 1855 this was pushed by William Ewart. Thus allowed for population limits to become obsolete as small towns were prevented from establishing their own public libraries due to the lack of numbers, this was a fair and legitimate request that access to information and literacy should not be confiscated if one was living in an isolated and small area.

The funding was continuously inadequate and required help from donors such as Henry Tate, Andrew Carnegie and John Passmore Edwards to ensure that The public act 1850 could flourish.

Reflection on blogging experience

Research skills are required to accelerate the process of research this includes looking for credible reference points, using the advanced search options, and ruling out irrelevant detail or spend too much elaborating on a subject that wasn’t that important in the first place. My research strategy comprised of reading through resources before actually considering to use those resources as past of the research process.

References

The Public Libraries Act 1850, 2010, The Public Libraries Act 1850, Wikimedia Foundation, viewed 12 October 2010, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Libraries_Act_1850>