Libraries (Public) - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition libraries-public

Definition :

Libraries (Public). The (English) Public Libraries Acts, 1855-1890, authorised the establishment, at the expense of the ratepayers, of free public libraries in municipal boroughs, Improvement Act districts, and parishes, in England, by the vote of a majority of two-thirds of the inhabitants, taking by voting papers, 'and not otherwise,' (Act of 1890, s. 2). These Acts were consolidated by the Public Libraries Act, 1892 (55 7 56 Vict. c. 53), amended in the following year by 56 & 57 Vict. c.11, which allowed the Act to be adopted in urban districts by the urban authorities instead of by direct popular vote. In rural parishes the parish councils had this power transferred to them by the Local Government Act, 1894. Land may be taken compulsorily. Libraries under the Act are absolutely free, save that a charge may be made to non-residents for the use of a lending library. The Act of 1892 provided that the library rate was not to exceed one penny in the pound in any financial year, and might be limited to one halfpenny by the adopting authority. This provision has been repealed by s. 4 of the Public Libraries Act, 1919, which substitutes a right of the library authority to limit the rate to such sum in the pound as it specifies by annual resolution. This Act empowers county councils to adopt the Public Libraries Acts for the whole or any part of their county, and provides for the reference and delegation of library powers to education committees established under the Education Acts.

The (English) Libraries Offences Act, 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 53), penalizes various kind of misbehaviour in libraries, and the Public Libraries Act, 1901 (1 Edw. 7, c. 19), empowers library authorities to make byelaws in respect of such misbehaviour, and to exclude from the libraries persons disobeying the byelaw. By the (English) Rating and Valuation Act, 1925 (15 & 16 Geo. 5, c. 90), s. 26, the expenses incurred by a library authority under the Acts of 1892-1919, not being a County Council, is to be levied in the library district as an additional item of the general rate. See Chitty's Statutes, tit. 'Libraries,' and the works of Chambers and Fovargue or Greenwood.