page_title: Public library
section_title: Enlightenment-era libraries
hierarchical_section_title: Public library / History / Enlightenment-era libraries
context_page_description: A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also civil servants.
  There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries: they are generally supported by taxes; they are governed by a board to serve the public interest; they are open to all, and every community member can access the collection; they are entirely voluntary in that no one is ever forced to use the services provided; and they provide basic services without charge.
  Public libraries exist in many countries across the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. Public libraries are distinct from research libraries, school libraries, and other special libraries in that their mandate is to serve the general public's information needs rather than the needs of a particular school, institution, or research population.
context_section_description: Claude Sallier, the French philologist and churchman, operated an early form of public library in the town of Saulieu from 1737 to 1750. He wished to make culture and learning accessible to all people.
  The Załuski Library (Polish: Biblioteka Załuskich, Latin: Bibliotheca Zalusciana) was built in Warsaw 1747–1795 by Józef Andrzej Załuski and his brother, Andrzej Stanisław Załuski, both Roman Catholic bishops. The library was open to the public and indeed was the first Polish public library, the biggest in Poland and one of the earliest public libraries in Europe.
  At the start of the 18th century, libraries were becoming increasingly public and were more frequently lending libraries. The 18th century saw the switch from closed parochial libraries to lending libraries. Before this time, public libraries were parochial in nature and libraries frequently chained their books to desks. Libraries also were not uniformly open to the public. In 1790, The Public Library Act would not be passed for another sixty-seven years.
  Even though the British Museum existed at this time and contained over 50,000 books, the national library was not open to the public, or even to a majority of the population. Access to the Museum depended on passes, for which there was sometimes a waiting period of three to four weeks. Moreover, the library was not open to browsing. Once a pass to the library had been issued, the reader was taken on a tour of the library. Many readers complained that the tour was much too short. Similarly, the Bibliothèque du Roi in Paris required a potential visitor to be “carefully screened” and, even after this stipulation was met, the library was open only two days per week and only to view medallions and engravings, not books.
  However, up until the mid 19th century, there were virtually no public libraries in the sense in which we now understand the term, i.e. libraries provided from public funds and freely accessible to all. Only one important library in Britain, namely Chetham's Library in Manchester, was fully and freely accessible to the public.  In Germany, there was another occurrence of an accessible public library. The Ducal Library at Wolfenbüttel was open “every weekday morning and afternoon” and loaned its books to the public. Between 1714 and 1799, the library loaned 31,485 books to 1,648 different users. These types of public libraries, much closer to the present-day concept of the public library, were extremely rare as most libraries remained difficult to access.
  In A.D 1820 the State Central Library, Kerala started functioning in Trivandrum, India which is not only India's first public library but also the first such institution outside of Europe. However, there had come into being a whole network of library provision on a private or institutional basis. Subscription libraries, both private and commercial, provided the middle to upper classes with a variety of books for moderate fees.
  The increase in secular literature at this time encouraged the spread of lending libraries, especially the commercial subscription libraries. Commercial subscription libraries began when booksellers began renting out extra copies of books in the mid-18th century. Steven Fischer estimates that in 1790, there were "about six hundred rental and lending libraries, with a clientele of some fifty thousand". The mid- to late 18th century saw a virtual epidemic of feminine reading as novels became more and more popular. Novels, while frowned upon in society, were extremely popular. In England there were many who lamented at the "villanous profane and obscene books" and the opposition to the circulating library, on moral grounds, persisted well into the 19th century. Still, many establishments must have circulated many times the number of novels as of any other genre.
  In 1797, Thomas Wilson wrote in The Use of Circulating Libraries: "Consider, that for a successful circulating library, the collection must contain 70% fiction". However, the overall percentage of novels mainly depended on the proprietor of the circulating library. While so
caption: The British Museum was established in 1751 and had a library containing over 50,000 books.
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