Abstract
Public libraries grew out of a 19th century liberal tradition that favoured the enlightenment of the people. This is now threatened by changes in political and social priorities and the subordination of an ‘idealist’ society, which gives priority to a world of values, to a ‘sensate’ society, which locates its values in what can be experienced by the senses. As a result of this, of the wiring of society and of increasing pressures on time, the social importance and moral status of the public library have suffered, and human connectivity has suffered with it: people retreat to their homes and ‘drop out and log on’. Technology has both liberated us and brought new forms of enslavement. Public libraries, as perhaps the last great public space, could yet become agents for transforming a private and selfish technology into a public and benevolent one.
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