The purpose of this paper, originally published in 1956, is to examine the assumptions about people's needs for and rights to information which lie behind the establishment of privately and publicly owned libraries, to consider how far these assumptions are valid, and finally to discuss the proper part to be played by privately owned libraries in the national library service.
Identifies and reflects on the assumptions in quotations from charters and terms of reference of a variety of libraries and from official statements about library provision.
Publicly supported libraries should satisfy the demands of the general reader for everything that is in print, including foreign material, and in doing so should give greater consideration to the geographical and temporal convenience of the reader in the case of both reference and loan material; that all demands on the interlibrary loan system should be met where possible from the stock of publicly supported libraries: that special libraries should give priority to the demands of their special clients but that they should consider increasing services to outsiders on a fee basis.
Suggests that it would be possible, when assessing the different categories of library, to have slightly varying criteria in mind and each librarian would be able to gauge the quality of his services by reference to explicit particular ends.
