Libraries were always part of the centres of learning in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic worlds according to Richard Ovenden. As he said, they were “tools for education passing down knowledge from one generation to inform the next.”
The idea of public libraries began to emerge in the 17th century with the creation of the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It has been “a library of legal deposit for 400 years,” according to its own website. It has more than 13 million printed items. It was one of the first such libraries as it was opened to non-members of Oxford University. It was a public library. In the 18th century the idea that libraries could be tools of self-improvement arose.
Ovenden explained that “libraries became part of a movement to broaden education for the benefit of individuals but also society as a whole. I remember with deep fondness the first library I even encountered. It was called the University of Manitoba Extension library which was designed for people from the sticks, like Steinbach, which did not have a public library. My mother drew it to my attention and I am forever grateful to her for that.
As a rural resident, I discovered that I could order books from a catalogue and within a couple of weeks of making an order, I would receive in a brown paper container the books ordered if available and if not a reasonable facsimile in the opinion of the library staff. Most astonishing to me was that I did not have to pay anything for the privilege. I did not even have to pay to send them back by mail. How was that possible? The provincial government which supported libraries in bigger centres around the province justifiably thought it should do something as well for the unwashed masses in the hinterland. What a delight!
I will never forget one time I ordered books including a spy novel. I loved spy novels as a lad, as I do as an aged man. To my disappointment I did not get the book I ordered. But the librarian, bless her soul sent an alternative. A book by a writer I had never heard of, Ian Fleming. It was Dr. No. It was the first in a series of James Bond novels that delighted me until he died.
I will never forget the thrill of opening those brown packets. Life never got better than that. It was my personal introduction to civilization! My life was changed forever.