After realising retrospectively how fortunate I was to have had so much good-quality free reading material, I went on to think about the people of the past and wonder what they had in the way of public libraries.
There is a lot of information about the libraries of the past available online. I now know that the public libraries I used were preceded first by libraries that charged their members then later by free libraries that were established by Victorian social reformers primarily for the improvement of the working classes.
Predecessors of public libraries
As books were an expensive luxury, for many centuries only people at the higher levels of society had their own private libraries.
Ecclesiastical, vocational, social and educational establishments also had collections of books, semi-private libraries that only selected people had access to.
Circulating libraries, or lending libraries, were established in the 18th century. It was just the books that circulated: these were not mobile or travelling libraries!
Circulating libraries were run for profit, so subscriptions and borrowing fees were payable. Although there were costs, borrowing a book was very much cheaper than buying it would have been. By joining a circulating library, even people who could afford to buy books would get a lot more reading material for their money.
