Long day's journey into night

WHILE RECOGNISING that the British public library system is one of the best in the world, and has at various times and in various localities acted as a vital support system to education, science and technology, business and industry, as well as to that mysterious personage known as the ‘general reader’, or the ‘average layman’, I would like to take a brief trip through the Underbookwood of public library purpose, to try and work out why public libraries do all these good things, rather than other equally good things which are done by libraries in other countries, or by other information agencies in this country.