Libraries, Knowledge and Public Identity
Libraries, Knowledge and Public Identity
This chapter discusses the identification of libraries as a national and public issue and the establishment of librarianship as an identifiable profession. The public identity of libraries lay in their collections and how such collections were shared and interpreted. As repositories of history and current knowledge, their principles of selection and presentation denoted national and local aspirations, linked by a scale of values broadly defined as social, to a sense of the past. The chapter also highlights the Public Libraries Act of 1850, also known as the Ewart Act, which gave power to local authorities to levy rates for the development and support of local libraries. This authority given to local authorities meant that all decisions respecting local libraries were subject to notions of public identity.
Keywords: libraries, librarianship, public identity, Public Libraries Act, Ewart Act, local libraries
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