So far, all of the descriptions of 'hygienic' libraries
have fitted into the same sort of model: middle class
librarians in public libraries worrying that
infectious disease might be spread by books contaminated by
the working classes. It does look very much like a
class-based thing.
Does anyone know of any examples in other sorts of
libraries, libraries aimed to a different sort of
clientele: private subscription libraries, learned
societies, universities or national libraries. Down to the
time of the last war at least, these would generally have
been the preserve of the middle and upper classes, and it
would be interesting to discover whether their custodians
were correspondingly less worried about the danger of
infection.
Mark
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