Cirrus@Austlit

‘Before the Second World War there were as many as 2000 subscription libraries, Mechanics' Institutes and Schools of Arts throughout Australia carrying mostly light fiction. Some masqueraded as public libraries and received small subsidies from local or state governments, although only about 3 per cent of the population used them. The watershed 1935 Munn-Pitt Report on libraries, funded by the Carnegie Corporation and sponsored by the Australian Council for Educational Research, provoked a storm of newspaper commentary around the country, and still makes fascinating reading. Libraries have never since attracted so much media attention. This was not surprising in view of the report's scathing criticisms.`Anyone wishing to carry away a favourable impression of the Public Library of Queensland,' the report observed, 'should never make the mistake of entering it ...' But this was no isolated case. As a whole, Australia 'was the better provider with local libraries in the 1800s than it is today' and the report concluded 'It is pathetic to observe the pride and complacency with which local committees exhibit wretched little institutes which ave long since become cemeteries of old and forgotten books.'’(Introduction 373)