It took me four years of living 12 minutes away from Battersea Library to eventually register as a member. Despite its octagonal turret and red brick exterior, the 19th-century building was, embarrassingly, no match for the apps sucking my attention towards my phone – until the start of 2025, when the number of books stacked in piles across my tiny flat began to feel wasteful in terms of both paper and cost. I was spending £15 a pop on new hardback releases, only to let them gather dust within a matter of months of reading them, with some borrowed once or twice by passing friends. So, with trepidation, I meandered through the open arches to the shelves.
When the first public lending library opened in Manchester in 1852, it was so busy during its first week that a police officer was assigned to conduct crowd control around the overflowing borrowing desk. “This meeting cherishes the earnest hope that the books thus made available will prove a source of pleasure and improvement in the cottages, the garrets, and the cellars of the poorest of our people,” said Oliver Twist author Charles Dickens at the opening ceremony.
