Lending Library - Municipal Corporation Libraries

Municipal Corporation Libraries

Municipal corporation libraries were to be for the use of shopkeepers and aldermen, and to disseminate knowledge, but the one in Bristol, according to its catalog, revealed that all the early books were not in English but were in Greek or Latin, limiting their usefulness. Other libraries that were bequeathed or endowed by individual citizens to towns and cities, were managed by a non-religious group of trustees, such as in Manchester, where the library was managed by a self elected body of up to twenty-four members, who also had the duty to purchase new books, even though they employed a full time librarian. In Leicester, the library was looked upon by townsfolk with civic pride, proclaiming that the library would bring fame, honor, and renown to the Corporation and place it was located. Bristol, Leicester and Manchester libraries all chained their books to the book press or desk for security purposes, at Leicester this was done right to the 1820s.