This paper reviews the history of attempts made by public libraries to develop services for the “disadvantaged” and socially excluded. Overall, it argues that the focus of public libraries on social inequality and division has been patchy and ambivalent and that action in this field has been hampered by a legacy of universal but passive service provision which has favoured the middle class. It concludes by noting, however, that the current context of rapid technological and cultural change provides an opportunity to reconfigure the service, and it urges that libraries prioritise the creation of a socially inclusive “information” society.
Open to all? Working Papers no.2 (1999).
Public libraries and social exclusion: the historical legacy
Author: Dave Muddiman
Publisher: Resource
Date published: 2000