Public libraries, and more specifically public libraries in Scotland, have been the focus of my research career over the last thirty years. I have always considered the provision of free-at-the-point-of-use public libraries in communities to be one of the cornerstones of a civilized society that values social inclusion, wellbeing, education, and indeed the pursuit of happiness.
In 1913, Vladimir Ilich Lenin wrote:
They see to it that even children can make use of the rich collections; that readers can read publicly-owned books at home; they regard as the pride and glory of a public library, not the number of rarities it contains, the number of sixteenth-century editions or tenth-century manuscripts, but the extent to which books are distributed among the people, the number of new readers enrolled, the speed with which the demand for any book is met, the number of books issued to be read at home, the number of children attracted to reading and to the use of the library. (Lenin, VI. What can be done for public education? Рабочая правда [Rabochaya Pravda] No. 5, 18 July 1913).
There are 461 physical public libraries in Scotland, and in 2023-24 there were some 14.5 million visits to Scotland’s public libraries (compared to 6.2 million visits to cinemas, or 3.8 million attendees at Scottish Premier League football fixtures). Yet, libraries often only hit the headlines when a local authority proposes cuts to services, and action groups spring up to ‘save’ their library. In the last ten years, there have been 55 branch closures across Scotland. The loss of any library is to be lamented by those of us who love them for what they are, what they provide, and what they stand for. However, generally, the decision to close a branch is not taken lightly (22 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities have not closed branches in that period). Sometimes, small branches with limited opening-hours have, almost, made themselves unviable; they might have the physical space in the community but their services are too limited for them to remain open.
There is a contemporary trend for libraries to promote themselves as ‘not just about books’. This slightly infuriates me as they have never, in fact, just been about books. Back in 2013, I was asked to brief councillors, in a local authority which was proposing quite severe cuts to its library service, about the nature of contemporary libraries services. I spoke about the range of things that a modern public library provides and one (hostile) councillor asked, ‘and when did libraries start doing all this stuff?’. My response was that, with the sole exception of digital technologies, there was nothing in my list of activities and programming that Andrew Carnegie would not have recognised a century ago. The councillor was singularly dischuffed and unimpressed by this response.
The other thing that I had to cover in that session with local councillors concerned the legislation which governs Scotland’s public libraries, and particularly around the meaning of the phrase “adequate provision of library services”. Under Section 163(2) of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, Scottish local authorities have a statutory duty to provide an adequate library service. The word adequate (and the lack of a definition of it) has been one of the thorniest issues throughout my career.
Some want ‘adequate’ to be defined tightly, and in law. Often those in the vanguard of this are well-meaning groups fighting the closure of a particular library. This is, of course, completely understandable. But often, those advocating for a tight legal definition are focused more on ideas of service points (that is to say retaining their small library) in their community, and false calculations about the number of libraries per head of population or within geographic distances. That is very different from the actual services, facilities, and programming that a modern public library should offer.
What is adequate for Shetland may not be for Glasgow, and a tight classification of ‘adequate’ also runs a very real risk of defining it at the lowest common denominator instead of at the highest or at the very least most aspirational; the corollary being that quality of services (and quite probably budgets) become diminished. This debate about ‘adequate’ resurfaces periodically and has done so again in the last year. Two or three high-profile plans to cut library services have led to politicians coming under pressure to ‘define adequate’ and so an advisory group has been established by the Cabinet Secretary to explore this.
One of the most significant bodies of research work I have undertaken has been the creation (and two subsequent updates) of How good is our public library service? (or HGIOPLS for short). This is the quality standards framework for all of Scotland’s public libraries, across the 32 local authorities. Participation in HGIOPLS is required for library services to access the biggest additional pot of central government money, the Public Library Improvement Fund. More significantly, however, and in the context of this ongoing review of the meaning of ‘adequate provision’, the Scottish Government’s legal advice has been that ‘effectively sets a standard for adequate services and complements that legal requirement’. This has had a very significant impact for our research.
An adequate public library service delivers a multitude of different things, makerspaces, digital literacy, Bookbug, local history, enterprise hubs, skills development, supporting health and wellbeing, promoting social inclusion and much more. They are the last neutral public space open to everyone and where there is no expectation placed on anyone who walks in the front door.
They are not just about books, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that reading and literacy is their cornerstone. One in four adults in Scotland face low literacy, but libraries can provide vital pathways back to learning through lifelong learning opportunities, digital training, and through partnerships with community learning providers. Reading, and particularly reading in early years, can shape life chances. Reading for pleasure is one of the strongest predictors of a child’s future success, outweighing factors such as parental income or education. The Department for Work and Pensions found in 2006 that being read to at the age of five is a significant protective factor against poverty at the age of thirty.
One in ten children in Scotland do not have access to any books at home; this highlights the importance of free early literacy programmes such as Bookbug, delivered right across the network of public libraries, and the value of the Every child a library member scheme which automatically enrols all children in their local library service. In 2016, I led a review into the pilot of Every child a library and we found some staggeringly good practice; we also recommended that the scheme should focus on every child being an active library member. This recommendation was subsequently taken up by the Scottish Government and the notion of every child becoming an active library member was included in the 2018 Programme for Government by Nicola Sturgeon’s administration.
Public libraries have long been about supporting health and wellbeing although it is only, perhaps, in the last twenty years that this contribution has been articulated explicitly and recognised more widely. Not only do they provide (reliable) health information, but they also support dementia sufferers, and, through innovative partnerships with the like of Macmillan, support those with cancer. Bibliotherapy and ‘books on prescription’ often help manage conditions such as depression, isolation, and anxiety (especially for the over-fifties demographic). It has been estimated that public libraries health and wellbeing activities save the NHS around £3.2 million per annum.
So, libraries are not just about books, and they never have been. The ‘pride and glory’ which Lenin spoke of in the quotation at the start of this piece remains as relevant today as it was a century ago. Good research is about curiosity and about passion, and my curiosity about and passion for Scotland’s public libraries remains undimmed, even after nearly thirty years.
Suggested citation: Reid, P. (2025) Public Libraries matter. And here’s why, SLSS Research Blog (RGU), 2025/10. Available at: https://rgu-slss.blog/?p=2767
