I have to ask, was there an expectation that the rest of the western world was unaware of libraries?
Indeed. I have the distinct impression that the OP assumed that Americans invented libraries.
They use scanners etc. now. But in the olden days, starting prolly at the beginning of the 19th century, each book had a little cardboard pouch glued inside the front cover which held a ticket detailing the book.
When a person took out a book the librarian laboriously by hand withdrew the ticket and put it in a tray of that day’s date; and stamped the date of return on a slip by the book’s pouch. So the client knew when to return the book.
After two weeks they would check the tray now out of date and note the tickets now showing unreturned books.
It was immensely complicated.
To be fair to Urbanredneck, libraries are a fairly recent phenomenon.
Actually, it’s still there. It just took a millennium or two to rebuild after the last fire.
Eh. Alexander was a Johnny-come-lately. (Though I doubt it was exactly a public lending library.)
The devil you say!
The taxpayer-funded public lending library as we know it is basically a British invention of the mid-nineteenth century. Prior to that there were subscription libraries (private institutions which you could join and which maintained a library which usually offered borrow, but sometimes just reference) and parish/parochial libararies (church-run, religious/moral in focus, open to the public, usually didn’t offer lending) and of course libararies associated with learned societies and educational institutions. The US went through a similar development, but slightly behind the UK. The public library movement in both countries received an enormous impetus in the late nineteenth century from the Carnegie Trust. the movement spread though other European countries at the end of the nineteenth/start of the twentieth century.
Ever heard of the word - question?
In fairness to the OP, “the first free public library supported by taxation in the world was the Peterborough, New Hampshire Town Library which was founded at town meeting on April 9, 1833.”
However, as mentioned, the ubiquity of the public library owes a great deal to Andrew Carnegie, who founded libraries worldwide (though mainly in the Anglosphere) starting in his birthplace of Dunfermline, Scotland.
I’m not sure that tax-payer funded doesn’t apply even to those libraries of the Anciant World and later: they took upkeep, and that money was definitely extracted from the masses paying taxes and tribute — just as with modern taxes, whether they liked it or not. Even the Vatican Libraries are paid for with monies taken from the faithful.
‘The oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom.’ is Chetham’s, founded in 1653; and many after.
And as for lending: In 1212 the council of Paris condemned those monasteries that still forbade loaning books, reminding them that lending is "one of the chief works of mercy."
History of Libraries
And of course, just before civic libraries in Britain, they had circulating/subscription libraries from the 18th century or earlier to recent times, whereby you paid an annual fee to join. I’ve seen books from the 1920s with ‘Mudie’s’ labels stuck on the front cover.
It was actually a pretty efficient system, pre computer. I challenge you to come up with a better one. At my local library, regulars would have the books open at the appropriate page (same as seasoned travellers do with passports) and the librarian would stamp them all in a few seconds. If the books were returned in time, they were just left in a container; if late, they had to be taken to the desk where the fine would be calculated.
Don’t forget the customer tickets. Each person had a number of tickets equal to the number of books they could borrow. The ticket from the book was placed in the customers ticket which was like a little pouch. This meant they knew who had which book, and you couldn’t sneak a late book back onto the shelves as you wouldn’t get your ticket back if you did. It was simple, but elegant.
Some of the London Boroughs have moved to what they call ‘Idea Stores’. These have library and other council services all in one place. So you can borrow a book, pay your council tax, complain about the bin men, all in one convenient location.
But the library part doesn’t feel right to me. They have a small number of books on display shelves, mainly best selling paper backs. Anything else can be ordered from a computer terminal and will appear in a chute. No browsing of endless shelves, no smell of dusty paper, no teenagers making out in a quiet corner, and no librarian saying ‘shush!!’
nm - excessively snarky
I never had to deal either with the card being slipped out or with tickets. The closest to the “ticket” system is what we did in 6th-8th grade in my school:
one of the positions that students had to fill in any class group was delegado de la biblioteca, “class representative for the library” or, less literally, class librarian. The delegado would pick up everybody’s requests for books and books to be returned once a week and take them to the library. This was set up because in general the volumes weren’t that big and it was more efficient than lines.
The librarian had a file for each student listing what books they had out. Most students were allowed two books per week, with a maximum of three out at the same time; voracious readers could be allowed more at the librarian’s discretion.
It’s not a weird question. I actually saw a YouTube video with American living in some country that said they had to pay a fee for a library card. I thought it was Germany, but someone said that Germany has free libraries. And, no, I don’t think the person I watched was lying.
Both things could be true: a fee for the picture and card, but reading at the library without a card is free, and borrowing with the card is free.
Sweden’s first library to be both free and open to the general public dates back to 1800 at the very latest, and there were discussions in the Swedish parliament about supporting such libraries with government funds as early as 1828. I believe, though I could be wrong, that the Brits were at it far earlier than that.
Anyone know about countries in Asia like Japan and Korea?