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A quick correction on the original post; also some more on how the word "efficient" might possibly be interpreted. // Quoting the original post I made: "If I can end this paragraph with some library rhetoric, not amiss in the current times, a council has to by law provide a comprehensive eduction, but likewise by law has to provide a comprehensive library service - and the two very much do compliment each other." That is currently not technically true, though it would have been closer to being true in 1965, the Thatcher era removed the instruction to authorities to convert to the comprehensive system. Even so though and even without this instruction the comprehensive system continued to expand. More recent developments include specialist schools, which though can be seen/ argued as "best characterised as developments from, rather than challenges to, comprehensive education". To put things into context 90% of schools in England are currently comprehensive. So I think if I were to rephrase I would could say something along the lines of in 1965 authorities were compelled to provide for a comprehensive education, but also by law at that point authorities were obliged to provide a comprehensive library service, and this is a service they are still legally obliged to provide. Or more simply: "our councils, in meeting their legal obligations for a state education, provide for a comprehensive eduction, they also though by law have to provide a comprehensive library service -- and the two very much do compliment each other." It's interesting that the instruction to convert to a comprehensive education system was made in 1965, a point when 'comprehensive' principles were very strong. Looking at this has also brought to the surface in my own mind the question of the value of our institutions (a model of society from sociology) to our society: health and social service, the economy and commerce, government, education, but also cultural heritage which (I think!) the libraries fall within (this isn't a complete list, I'm not sure where, e.g., the armed forces and religeon would fall). Any assessment of the libraries for the purposes of understanding their value and theory of the value of libraries otherwise would have to include their value to our society (intrinsically, but also extrinsic - joining the dots up between our beliefs and the libraries and civilization and Humanity). References: History of education in England, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_England#19th_century Circular 10/65, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_10/65 Comprehensive school, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_school#United_Kingdom // Could "efficient" be interpreted as efficient for a library user to retrieve an item of literature. There is a cost (and sometimes expenses also) to read an item, and if the value of the outcome exceeds the inputs needed then people will seek to read. Hence the imperative to provide an "efficient" library service, it's basically of no use if it isn't. An interesting aspect to this is new technologies and the process of exhausting all the possibilities of those new technologies, and in this instance in terms of efficiency of retrieval of literature and reading for the library user. (This is a management task, and I'm not entirely convinced they are being at all too expedient about it, nor that the Government is superintending the library service adequately in respect of this.) Being a "comprehensive" library service (this was the vision) their remit is the whole of literature, and so an audit of retrieval costs could be made here (I would certainly like to see it as a member of the public). But also at the frontline an audit of the values of the community (all stakeholders) that a community library serves, and the efficiency with which a library service for their needs can be provided. The latter audit would draw on the knowledge of the former. It makes sense with new technologies for the libraries to maybe resurrect some principles of community librarianship and venture out into the communities asking how literature can once again be applied in the context of new technologies, auditing the "efficiency" (in the sense of the Act) of the libraries, taking a strong interest in what people want literature for and the service that can be provided, demanding people tell them what exactly they need a library to do for them in the day and age we live in, because with new technologies it might just be possible. Abstracting out the subject I think is UK society is changing, and if libraries think they can retire to a museum at this point they had better think again. if it is going to become more "efficient" to read (i.e., less 'cost & expense' to myself to read what was previously out of bounds either as a physical item or conceptually otherwise), then I think it is a fundamental principle of economics that there will be more reading.