In the US most communities have public libraries. Buildings where one can go and read and check out books. Most also nowadays have computers with internet access, movies, audio books, magazines, plus they store many pubic record books. So lets say you want to know if your ancestor lived in such and such a place 100 years ago. The library is where most of those old books are kept.
In my community they also serve as places where small meeting rooms can be checked out. Often students (pre-college age) use these to study.
Oh and they are funded thru taxes. People can check out books provided they have a library card and books are usually kept out for about 2 weeks. Late books are assessed a small fine.
What I would like to know is do other countries have public libraries similar to this? So if say a person wanted to just check out a book rather than buying it, is there a place for this?
In general what are your libraries like?
Finally if some students wanted to get together and study away from their homes, where would they do it?
Here in Oz such libraries are quite common. Typically they are run by local municipal councils and thus funded via the property rates paid to the council. Municipal councils also receive funding from the state and federal governments, so there is money derived from income and other taxes that comes back.
There are also typically state libraries, which are much larger, and often have archival roles. The municipal libraries may or may not have a role in maintaining old records. Being a relatively young country we don’t have very old records to keep.
The universities also maintain significant libraries. These are usually open to the public, but there are usually no lending rights for the public. But the public can enter. A friend of mine at school used to use the university library in the city as his favoured study place. Nowadays this would be harder. You need a swipe card to gain after hours access to just about everything.
My father relates how when he was at university he and his colleagues would book a room at the local pub. It was warm, quiet, and they would study through the evening together over a beer. Not quite an option for high school students.
Germany: the general public libraries (as opposed to the scientific libraries at universities) are run by the municipiality and almost always called Stadtbücherei $cityname or Stadtbibliothek $cityname. Paid for out of the municipial budget, the main sources of which are the bites that cities get to take out of the federal income tax and VAT, plus municipial business and property taxes.
Examples for the cities where I live and work:
Stadtbibliothek Stuttgart - one central library and 17 satellite libraries, ~1.2 million media, for a city with pop. ~630k
Stadtbücherei Tübingen - one central library and 3 satellite libraries, ~200k media, for a city with pop. ~88k
Lending periods are somewhat longer than named in the OP, e.g. at Stuttgart I get a lending period of 4 weeks and can renew up to 8 times (DVD only once); the library card is 20€/year for adults, free for under-18s. (10 €/year for adults on welfare)
For specific reference purposes you’d probably better served in the city archives (requires special arrangements) or the state’s main reference library.
Students who want to study away from home can probably be accomodated in the local Stadtbücherei but that’s not very common; only in the last few decades libraries have introduced rooms for group as opposed to individual work.
Public libraries are common also in Spain. In the smallest communities the public library may be the one in the public school. It is very common for public libraries to be a “culture center” or part thereof, holding arts and crafts courses, study groups, the local branch of Official School of Languages, putting up plays…
Most university libraries are “restricted to University personnel” but that means other people have restricted access, not that they can’t access; for example, it may be the case that ‘outsiders’ can read in the library but can’t borrow books. Last time I visited my old university, they still had in place the same system where to enter the library you have to leave ID with the Librarian: uni if you have it, national otherwise; if you don’t have a uni ID it doesn’t matter how well the Librarian knows you, you can’t borrow; no ifs, buts, chocolate bribes or promises to bring it tomorrow.
Other institutions may also keep libraries but they’ll be specialized ones and access will be somewhat restricted; restrictions will depend on the nature of the association. For example, the Colegios de Abogados (the professional associations lawyers must join in order to be able to work as barristers) will have law libraries; historical societies will have libraries relating to their own field, etc.
Your description sounds very much the same as my local library in Cape Town, South Africa.
Plus things you didn’t mention, but which I’m sure are also common in the US and elsewhere, like kids activity and reading sessions, community notice boards, regular craft markets, talks held there in the evenings. I see school kids working there or using the computers most afternoons. Membership is free, and it’s supported by municipal taxes.
South Africa has libraries exactly like this. Not enough of them, especially in poorer areas, but just like this - check out books, use computers, study…this is my city’s central library, and this is my neighbourhood one.
ETA: like GreenWyvern just said, they’re tax-supported.
No, they don’t have them in Britain or any other part of Western Europe. You should send over people to explain this novel idea.
What exactly are these ‘book’ things ?
In the UK local authorities have a statutory obligation set by Parliament to provide local libraries for all residents. The complications arise over what constitutes a minimum service, especially as reducing the number of branches is a common way for authorities to try to reduce their budgets. But in theory everyone should have a local library from which they can borrow books.
The arrangements for local archives are slightly different. Those same local authorities also have record offices, usually (but not always) organised on a county basis. That is partly because there are certain types of records, such as their own archives, that they are required by law to make publically available. These record offices tend to be housed separately from the public libraries, although they will usually have a reference collection of books on local history that will often be better than that in the public library.
Libraries are changing fast, and in England, many of the more local ones are being closed down or switching to being run by volunteers.
In my youth, they were solely book repositories, with a small section for newspapers and magazines. These days they are, as described above, centres for all kinds of related stuff. The one in my medium sized town, still has a lot of books, and can have a choice from a great many more delivered next day on request. They have computers with free internet access; recorded media; and an art gallery for local artists. They also have frequent sessions aimed at pre-schoolers in a specially designed area.
Bigger cities like Birmingham have reference libraries with books in ‘stacks’ as well as all of the above. University libraries are accessible by arrangement and, of course, there is The British Library. “the national library of the United Kingdom and the largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. A Grade I listed building, the library is a major research library, holding around 170 million items from many countries, in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library’s collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 2000 BC.”
There are also specialist libraries like The Bodleian in Oxford.
I should add that in some very small towns they often wont have a library branch but the local public school library then often becomes a kind of school-pubic library where anyone can go in and look at books.
At ours they also have a big push for children and teens where they have regular activities such as game nights. HERE is a link to the YAAC the Young Adult Advisory Council where its the teens themselves who help run the events.
By the way, in the USA, a librarian is considered to be a professional expert. If a city has a library, and the city hires a Librarian, that person has the same amount of discretion as the city attorney or the city health director or the chief of police. Once the city hires a librarian, city politics have no control over his/her judgment while serving as the librarian. The city council cannot order the librarian to add or remove any particular book, for example.
Whether this varies by state law or not, I do not know, but it is the case in my state of Texas.
