Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION AND DEMOCRACY
with new times. Together these promise to have marked effects on television
output and conceptions of public service.
Public libraries
The public library network is arguably the nearest thing we have in Britain to an
achieved public sphere. There are almost 5,000 public libraries in the nation,
reaching into pretty well every sizeable habitation. 3 The network features several
of Habermas’s public sphere elements, including, first, information made available
to everyone, access being guaranteed without cost to individuals. Membership
is free to all who live, work or study in the local area, and public libraries
must provide free books for loan and access to reference materials, and must
have reasonable opening hours which facilitate access.
Second, the library service is publicly funded from taxation gathered centrally
and locally, but its operation is independent of political interest, being instructed,
under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, ‘to provide a comprehensive
and efficient library service for all persons desiring to make use’ of it. Should
one’s local library not hold the information for which one is searching, then the
national system of inter-library loan, supported by the existence of designated
copyright libraries 4 and the British Library at Boston Spa (which makes in excess
of 3 million loans per year), may satisfy one’s requirements.
Third, professional librarians, who provide expert assistance and advice to
users as a public service, without prejudice against persons and without hidden
motives, staff the library network. This is evident in the British Library Association’s
(LA) ‘Code of Professional Conduct’ adopted at its hundredth annual
general meeting in 1983. Here, among traditional professional claims of prime
responsibility towards clients, the LA pronounced that its ‘members have an
obligation to facilitate the flow of information and ideas and to protect and
promote the rights of every individual to have free and equal access to sources
of information without discrimination’ (Library Association, 1983, 2e). Such
professional ideals continue to be iterated by the LA’s successor, CILIP (the
Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals: www.cilip.org.uk/).
Public libraries are popular and much used. In excess of half the British population
are registered borrowers from their local library, one-third of them regularly
borrow from it, taking away ten books per year per member, and together they
make well over 300 million visits to libraries (ten times the total attendances at
professional football games). Ordinary citizens, from children to pensioners, may
visit their library confident of receiving a public service, whether they are seeking
reference material on a school project, advice on planning applications, or simply
to read a novel. It is no exaggeration to say that the public library network is the
jewel in the crown of the United Kingdom’s information infrastructure for the
overwhelming majority of citizens.
There have been several factors that have contributed to the growth of public
libraries from their inception in the mid-nineteenth century. These have ranged
from upper-class philanthropy, to paternalist sympathies, to fear of the untutored
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