The closure of public libraries could affect the UK’s economic recovery, fears John P. Wilson
Around 400 years ago, Francis Bacon wrote that “the application of knowledge is power”, and since then this concept has underpinned strategies for learning and knowledge management. At that time much of the received knowledge was to be found in a very small number of libraries which were largely attached to cathedrals and centres of power. In fact so valuable were these books that they were literally chained to the shelves to prevent people taking them away.
It was not until the Industrial Revolution that increasing free time and a pent up demand for learning among the general populace began to be satisfied. Reading rooms containing newspapers and books were introduced by numerous communities and the mechanics’ institutes to reduce the personal cost of purchasing the texts.
James Silk Buckingham, a Sheffield MP who was chair of the Select Committee, was also able to encourage the Museums Act of 1845, and subsequently the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1850. These enabled local authorities to raise levies to establish museums and libraries – the first of which were established in Warrington.
But there was a flaw in the legislation. Although local authorities were given the power to raise money to establish libraries and museums there was no statutory obligation for them to do so. Unlike schools and health provision, libraries were not considered essential to life and the economy. As a result, this legislative flaw is now coming back to haunt us because local authorities across the country are closing hundreds of libraries.
At Grenoside in Sheffield, a reading room dating back to 1790 has just been restored with the support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, although there was no money to make it a library. Ironically, across the city 14 out of 27 community libraries are facing closure due to local authority cuts, partly brought on by swingeing reductions in central government support.
But Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie recognised the value of knowledge and learning in his financial success. He made his fortune in steel in the USA and sold his company in 1901 for the extraordinary amount of $480 million, yet he said that he would leave this world with the same amount of money with which he entered it. True to his word, he subsequently used some of the funds to establish more than 2,500 libraries around the world.
Yet now, the UK is witnessing the closure of libraries on a scale never seen before and it is a national disgrace. Libraries are the temples of our knowledge and manufacturing economies and their disappearance undermines those communities and the chances of recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression. Where are the likes of James Silk Buckingham and Andrew Carnegie when we need them?