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 Membership Libraries Information |
What are membership libraries?Membership libraries, and the origins of the public library in the United States, date to the establishment of the so-called "social libraries." The first of these was the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin. The social library, in the eighteenth-century sense of the term, described a voluntary company or society of individuals who pooled their resources to buy books and to secure a place to house them. Usually these libraries were merely book repositories, with no provision for reading on the premises, but were open on a regular basis for members to borrow or return books. These libraries were "public" in the sense that they were open to the general public, not that they were "free." Persons using these libraries expected to pay for that privilege. During the first half of the nineteenth century, a number of forces contributed to the increasing number of public libraries in the United States. Among these was the notion of the library as a center for the study and enjoyment of literature and the arts, with a reading room and art gallery, which led to the establishment of athenæums (Redwood Library added "Athenæum" to its name in 1833); the self-education movement, which was a factor in the formation of lyceums; the rise of industrialization, which led to the establishment of mechanics' and apprentices' libraries; and the swelling merchant and business class, which produced the mercantile libraries. During the early period (circa 1730-1860) of library development in the United States, hundreds of such libraries were established. After the Civil War the free public library as we know it today-established by law, supported by taxation, and free to all citizens of the community-developed. Eventually the free public libraries absorbed or replaced almost all of their precursors; fewer than twenty survive. For the most part, those which survived have defined and articulated a special niche for themselves, as specialist or research libraries, for example, or as institutions in which the quality of their collections, programs, and services are such that they continue to attract the support - financial and otherwise - of their members. Most of the surviving membership libraries (see table below) are active members of the recently formed Membership Libraries Group. | |
Surviving Membership Libraries
Athenæum of Philadelphia 1814 |