Dennis Duncan

Use it or lose it: has the public library had its day?

Libraries were once a destination for all, from small children to pensioners. But their now shelfless rooms are increasingly used as local council surgeries

The library of Holland House, damaged by a fire bomb in October 1940. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 30 October 2021
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  • The Library: A Fragile History

    Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen

    Profile Books, pp. 258, £25

I write this in a garret a few doors down from the public library in Muswell Hill, north London. It is a nice irony that a century and a half ago, on the site where the free-to-join municipal library now stands, was a villa owned by one Charles Edward Mudie.

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