Introduction

Libraries in the early 21st century seem to be experiencing wildly contrasting fortunes.

Wherever we look in the world, we can find examples of investment in new buildings and facilities. Great cities, it seems, or those aspiring to be great, still build grand libraries, or ambitiously re-develop old ones. Spectacular new public libraries have recently been opened in places as contrasting as Helsinki in Finland (Oodi, 2019) and Tianjin in China. New York Public Library (New York Public Library, 2019) is engaged in a massive, and massively expensive, renovation of its two principal buildings, masterminded by the Dutch architectural practice Mecanoo, also responsible for the architecturally-dazzling Library of Birmingham in England (Birmingham City Council, 2019).

Universities throughout much of the developed world have also poured huge sums into their libraries, nowhere more enthusiastically than in the United Kingdom, where the pressures placed on universities by the rapid commodification of higher education, and the attendant emphasis on the student experience as a factor in competition, have produced some stunningly good new libraries and many large-scale re-developments.

On the other hand, UK public libraries in general face what many see as an existential crisis (Press Association, 2016). As a consequence of the imposition by central government of an austerity programme that has seen massive cuts in public spending, public libraries have been engulfed by a funding crisis that has led to widespread reductions in library services, significant job losses, and several hundred library closures. Just over a year after the ￡188 million Library of Birmingham opened to the public in 2013, more than half the staff were facing redundancy and services were being axed (British Broadcasting Corporation BBC, 2014).

Even where public libraries have fared somewhat better than their counterparts in the UK, they often face major financial pressures, and always the challenge of digital disruption, and its widespread concomitant, the almost orthodox belief that public libraries are rendered obsolete by some combination of Google and the Kindle. Academic libraries by contrast appear to have weathered, so far at least, the digital revolution. They have largely retained their leading role in the provision of access to digital resources, faced fewer challenges to the longevity of the printed word, and enjoyed a renaissance when it comes to physical space.