Introduction

This text has sought to discuss the nature of the services on offer in the modern public library, where those services originated from, and how librarians have dealt with the service challenges facing them in the modern era. This final chapter will reflect on all of this and pose some questions for the future; as a result it may appear more polemical in tone than the chapters that have preceded it as it seeks to ask some fundamental questions.

Predicting what will happen to public libraries over the years to come is a difficult endeavour. Certainly voices predicting their demise seem to be built on flimsy foundations, but equally it would be a brave commentator who argued that the future will be completely trouble-free and rosy. How society is synthesizing information is changing in a revolutionary way and public libraries may or may not fit into that. There is, however, an in-built ignorance in doomsayers who predict the demise of public libraries. The drop in book issues is a definite cause for concern, but in truth they should never have been used as the primary benchmark for the success of public libraries, and in a world where the modern person has a multitude of calls on their leisure time it seems complacent in the extreme to do so.

Public libraries: an outdated concept?

The first question that society and the profession will have to consider is whether the public library is a concept that has served its purpose. The original reasons why they were introduced could be argued to be of lesser importance today, since literacy and numeracy rates are now much higher than they were in the Victorian era. Book prices have come down considerably, especially since the collapse of the Net Book Agreement in the 1990s. Thus many more people are now able to afford books than they could even 20 years ago.

Equally, however, the concerns with ensuring that everyone is able to access the best materials have not in any way dissipated. Although many can afford to buy what they need, many still cannot, and without a public library service they would be excluded from accessing the materials that enhance their life through the enjoyment of the recreational, learning and cultural experiences that libraries provide.