"Arsenals of scientific and technical information": public technical libraries in Britain during and immediately after World War I.

ABSTRACT

Although from its inception in 1850 the public library in Britain displayed an economic dimension, attempting to respond in relatively general ways to technical, scientific, industrial, and commercial needs, it was not until the First World War that the institution's "materialist" role achieved anything like the standing of its traditional sociocultural function. The war generated a series of economic, social, political, and technological problems and proposed solutions. There was considerable anxiety concerning the anticipated escalation in postwar international competition arising from the loss of foreign markets. The war brought into sharp relief Britain's relatively poor scientific and technological infrastructure. Total conflict engendered extensive social and political disaffection and an accompanying fear of impending radical change. In addressing these problems and tensions, the government initiated a policy of reconstruction in the second half of the war. One element of this policy was a planned extension of public library services, including an upgrading of technical and commercial information provision through the establishment of new "dedicated" departments. In the closing years of the war and in its immediate aftermath, public technical and commercial libraries (generically termed "technical libraries" in this article) emerged in some of Britain's large cities. An analysis of plans and statements from librarians, the business world, and political elites in support of these new "workshop" libraries throws light on contemporary discourses concerning the future of the economy and sociopolitical ideas. However, outside the grand issues of economic policy and social and political stability, discussion surrounding the intended purpose and practices of technical and commercial libraries reflected debates and tensions in the library and information world concerning the nature, status, and identity of librarianship, its relevance to information work and documentation, and the future of the public library in the postwar world.

INTRODUCTION

What makes the public library such a fascinating subject of sociological study, both historically and now, is the multiplicity of dichotomies, or contradictions, that one can observe in its professed purpose and in its everyday functioning. This is true of the public library in Britain, and it is no doubt also true of public library development elsewhere. In Britain, certainly, the public library has throughout its history been both liberating and controlling in its outlook and practices. It has provided access to knowledge for both economic gain and cultural enrichment. It has catered to both high and popular culture. It might be suggested, therefore, that the public library has been a very clever institution, with a capacity to accommodate and negotiate various and sometimes divergent values and beliefs.

One manifestation of this cleverness has been the public library's ability to reconfigure itself in the light of social change and social crisis. It has proved itself to be a highly adaptable institution, or, in modern information management--speak, a successful "learning organisation" (Marquardt & Reynolds, 1994; Senge, 1990). The term learning organization is used here not in the sense of the public library's role as a disseminator of knowledge to society (although the public library has of course been at the forefront of this) but specifically in terms of the ways in which the institution's professional staff and political managers have displayed competence in observing social change and reacting to it, through adjustments made to policy and to services. The public library has often demonstrated that it can be a "reactive" force, responsive to external stimuli and sensitive to society's shifting demands. At the same time, intriguingly, it has frequently displayed a distinct political and social conservatism, a capacity to be reactionary in the face of "liberal" ideology and culture.

THE WARTIME PUBLIC LIBRARY AS A "REACTIVE" AND "REACTIONARY" FORCE

The public library's capacity to react, yet also be socially and politically reactionary, was clearly evident in both world wars. In World War II public libraries heroically satisfied a sudden increase in demand for reading and developed a radical agenda--through the blueprint that was the McColvin Report--for postwar progress based on larger library authorities and greater state control (Black, 2004). However, some librarians clung to a conservative, parochial conception of a national library structure based on the retention of small and inefficient local government authorities free from state control. Similarly, the Library Association revealed its conservative credentials when it advised that books provided for military personnel, in their camps, dug-outs, tanks, and troop ships, should be high-brow rather than popular, whereas the generals advised that the troops were better off reading Punch rather than Plato (Hung, 1999).

Earlier, in World War I, in an equally conservative fashion, public libraries were sometimes mobilized as propaganda machines, peddling a jingoistic message. For example, the library committee in Leamington Spa congratulated itself for providing "suitable works exposing and denouncing German aims and methods, and stimulating British ideals and patriotism." (1) Articles appeared in local newspapers proudly advertising the acquisition of new titles like The Germans in Africa, which was said to trace the efforts of Germany to secure an African empire through intrigue and trickery. (2) Newspapers critical of the war's prosecution were occasionally withdrawn, as in Bermondsey in south London in 1915. (3) Attacks on Lord Kitchener, the head of the army, in the Times and the Daily Mail led the Bradford Public Library Committee to consider withdrawing the papers. (4) Overtly propagandist material was purveyed at the government's behest. Bolton Public Library, for example, distributed government pamphlets entitled The Great War and How It Began (300 copies) and If the Kaiser Governed England (4,000 copies) (Ellis, 1975, p. 127). In some places literary propaganda and censorship was backed by lectures of an anti-German nature. For example, in an Oldham Public Library lecture in October 1914, entitled "The Great War," it was argued that the war was being fought in honor of the British Empire, an institution that was said to be both synonymous with civilization and opposed to the enslavement of smaller nations by militarism, the latter being described as a feature of German imperialism. (5)

On the other hand, in contrast to these examples of negative, propagandist activity, the public library became part of the spirit of reconstruction that arose in the second half of the war, contributing in its small way to the vision and planning of a better postwar world. The Ministry of Reconstruction, established in 1916, brought public libraries, along with other educational and social institutions, into its remit. (6) The need at the time for libraries to be progressive and reactive was detected by the librarian W. E. Doubleday, who in 1917 predicted change, as a result of the war, in the relationship between social classes, in political conditions, and in educational systems. Public libraries, he advised, ought first to be "awake to this re-adjustment," and second, "should occupy a much more prominent position in the future than they have done in the past." (7) On both counts the public library achieved a certain success during the war. The war served as a watershed in terms of the formulation of…