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Originally Posted by Sarmat89
People got that strange idea that libraries are here for reading books for free. That is not what they are for, libraries exist to access out-of-print and commercially nonviable literature.
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Their reason may have changed over time, but the original motivation for public libraries was indeed to make reading widely available to those who could not afford books.
From the opening of the debate on the (British) Public Libraries Act of 1850:
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All the evidence taken upon that part of the subject tended to prove that the labouring population would be far more advanced if they had such opportunities as were afforded by means of public libraries to the working classes of other countries. There were two kinds of education—that imparted in schools, and that acquired by individuals themselves; and they had the authority of Gibbon for saying that the education which a man gave to himself was far more important than that which he could acquire from a teacher. In public libraries the opportunity of self teaching would be afforded to the labouring classes.
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Another, very Victorian, motivation:
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the establishment of parish libraries and district reading rooms, and popular lectures on subjects both entertaining and instructive to the community might draw off a number of those who now frequent public houses for the sole enjoyment they afford
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