National planning for public library service: the work and ideas of Lionel McColvin

Library Trends, Spring, 2004 by Alistair Black

Unlike in the First World War, the government recognized from an early stage how public libraries could act as an antidote to psychological stress on the home front. In 1940, at the behest of a Ministry of Labour anxious to improve the welfare of industrial workers in the interest of production, the Board of Education issued a memorandum to library authorities, calling their attention to the importance of maintaining and, if possible, extending their services. (11) The memorandum explained that "The public libraries afford recreation and instruction to vast numbers of readers and, when the hours of darkness come and the possibilities of outdoor recreation are less, increasing numbers will find in books a relief from the strain of war work and war conditions." (12)

In most places, although not everywhere, wartime conditions brought with it the boom in reading and library activity that the government had hoped for. Book loans soared. The blackouts and air raids produced a minor revolution in public library opening hours: earlier opening, reduced half-day closing, and some Sunday opening. Further flexibility in the operation of services was evident in the availability of extra lending tickets and the prolongation of loan periods. The reading boom appeared to maintain its momentum throughout the war: "Blitz or no Blitz--the demand for books goes up," trumpeted the Daily Express in 1944. (13) The public library was believed to have an important role to play in relieving the stresses and strains of war. The editor of the Library Association Recordwrote in the depths of the national crisis of May 1940 that "Books in war time can be a refuge into which we make our way to escape the slings and arrows of outrageous conflict ... a storehouse from which to draw sure knowledge and rich emotion to clarify our minds and strengthen our souls for the tasks to which we

have set our hand" (Smith, 1940, p. 133).

McColvin and others in the library movement recognized that the boom in reading and in library use provided a fertile soil in which new plans for the public library could be planted and, hopefully, grow. Renewed faith in the public library's popularity boosted confidence in the possibility of further, fundamental advance. After all, if popularity and use could be achieved without extra financial investment, as had been the case since the start of the war, think what could be done if the service were to receive significant new resources?

Reconstruction and the Sense of Renewal

In explaining that "we fight not for a world fit for heroes but for a world fit for ordinary people to live in freely and fully," McColvin was reflecting a wider sense of the hope for, and possibility of, renewal that swept the nation, certainly from 1942 onwards (MR, p. v). McColvin was inspired not just by the prospect of reconstruction but of revivification also. He urged the deployment of "the utmost vision and foresight" if opportunities were not to be lost in achieving postwar improvement (MR, p. v).