By John Pateman
Continuing the Our Culture series, John Pateman exposes the hidden class politics of Britain’s public libraries. Far from being neutral spaces of learning, he argues they were hijacked to be instruments of social control designed to instill bourgeois values although still retained a positive educational function for working people. He traces their history from the working-class pithead libraries to today’s funding crises, and asks how libraries might yet be transformed into genuinely democratic, community-led spaces serving working-class needs.
It is an uncomfortable truth but libraries and cultural spaces operate as state-run or privately owned institutions of social control. Their true purpose is hidden by capitalist ideology which presents them as inherently democratic and open to all, but their roots can be traced back to the mid nineteenth century at a time when the ruling class was seeking mechanisms to manage the idle time of the proletariat, in the wake of the Chartist movement. The working class was making demands for more economic and political power, and ‘seditious’ literature was circulating in Chartist reading rooms and public houses.
The public library, along with public museums, art galleries and parks, were designed to kettle and control the workers, divert them from the excesses of industrial capitalism, and instill bourgeois values in them. Fast forward to today and the situation has not fundamentally changed. Libraries, museums and galleries are the soft power tools of capitalist hegemony. The fact that they are facing a funding crisis is just another contradiction of capitalism. The real challenge they face is not economic but political: how can they be transformed into agents of progressive social change?
One of the models for this predates the 1850 Public Library Act. Operatives’ Libraries – owned and managed by the working class – emerged in Nottingham in the 1830s. They were a response to the Mechanics’ Institutes (forerunners of the public library) which were aimed at skilled workers with middle-class aspirations.
Operatives’ Libraries were located in pubs and offered political books that were banned in Mechanics’ Institutes. One of the objectives of the 1850 Public Libraries Act was to snuff out Chartist and Operatives’ Libraries. Another progressive model emerged in the South Wales coalfield in the 1930s where pithead libraries were established, run by the miners themselves, with collections that featured the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. These were eroded by the 1964 Public Library Act which still governs public libraries today. There is a clear pattern here of the ruling class co-opting any cultural spaces that threaten their position and power.
Despite their role as instruments of state power, the working class has been able to successfully subvert their ideological purpose and use public libraries as valuable tools of education and enlightenment for working-class communities.
Public Libraries as Tools of Capitalist Hegemony
As Marx and Engels pointed out in The Communist Manifesto, ‘The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.’ The public library is no exception to this rule. Take, for example, its strategies and policies. These are worded in a way which suggests that public libraries are ‘open to all’, but the evidence suggests that public libraries are disproportionately underused by working-class people compared to their percentage of the population; and they are disproportionately overused by the middle class. Everything flows from this, because the middle class can make demands on the library to buy books, offer services and run programs that align with their class interests and values.
The same can be said when we look at the staff who work in libraries. The public-facing staff may be drawn from relatively wide social strata, but the professional librarians, middle and senior managers are almost exclusively middle-class. Librarianship, like most professions, is dominated by the middle class, who impose their values on how the library operates and who it serves.
Next, let’s consider library systems. These processes and procedures have not changed significantly since the first public library was opened in Manchester in 1852. Now, as then, they are designed to exclude what the Victorians called ‘the undeserving poor.’ All aspects of the library are tightly controlled – there are rules around who can join the library, how many books can be taken out, how long they can be kept for. There are also sanctions for those who break these rules. For example, ‘behaviour policies’ can be used to exclude working-class people. Local council bylaws make it an ‘offence’ to sleep in the public library. Instead of modern technology being used to break free of these rules, it is used to monitor, police and enforce them.
Finally, and most importantly, there is the public library culture. This ensures that the status quo is maintained and that there are no radical departures from ‘the way we do things around here.’ The result of all these measures is plain to see – a recent IPSOS survey found that 66% of the English population aged 17+ are library non-users (have not used a library in the past 12 months). A significant portion (44%) haven’t used a library in over three years. Nonusers are less likely to hold a degree and less likely to be in the AB social classification.
It is worthwhile noting that, while professionals such as teachers, doctors or managers are classified as AB (‘middle class’), they can also be viewed as part of the broader working population who sell their labour.
Operatives’ Libraries and Pithead libraries
Operatives’ Libraries and pithead libraries are examples of working-class people taking full control of cultural institutions, and excluding the middle classes entirely. Operatives’ Libraries were highly democratic – there were no grades of membership and all members had a single vote in the committee election. The library was located in a public house and open at times when working-class people could use it. Books were selected by a vote of the members.
Regular political debates were held in the libraries, which had links with benefit societies, trade unions and co-operative societies. Let us compare these libraries with modern public libraries, which are run by and for the middle class. Library members have no say over how the library is run, the staff it hires, the books it buys, the programs it offers or the services it provides. Public libraries are exclusive, standalone cultural institutions which are mostly open during weekday hours when working-class people are at work, and when only the leisured middle classes can use them. Public libraries have strict rules banning the holding of political meetings in their buildings in the name of ‘neutrality’. Books are selected by mostly white, middle-class librarians, reflecting their cultural biases and values.
Pithead libraries were established in response to the 1850 Public Libraries Act which created public libraries that did not meet the needs of the working class. Pithead libraries were located in the local workmen’s or miners’ institute or hall as a communal response to a community’s needs, and these communities were justifiably proud of what they had achieved for themselves without the assistance of local authorities or the ‘charitable benevolence’ of millionaires such as Andrew Carnegie. Pithead libraries, which were funded by the miners themselves, were democratic and independent. Local leadership, organisation and finance enabled practical experience in management and self-expression, without dependence on external forces or the hierarchical structures of civic and religious entities.
Again, we can contrast these miners’ libraries with public libraries today, which are designed to meet the needs of the middle class. Public libraries are neither democratic nor independent. They are nominally under the control of elected councillors, but the day-to-day operations are managed by middle-class professionals. The working class pay for the public library through their council tax but they have no say in how the library is run.
Today, more and more libraries are being run by charitable trusts – also managed by white, middle-class professionals – or community volunteers, who also tend to be white and middle-class. Working-class control of culture would look like the Operatives’ and pithead libraries – established, organised, financed and run by the workers themselves, the ultimate self-help, independent, working-class public library that could give its members some power and control over at least one part of their lives.
The crisis facing libraries is ideological rather than economic
Public libraries, which are run like private businesses, serving the interests of the middle class, are now in danger of going out of business. They face an existential crisis. The number of English public libraries declined from 2,939 in 2010 to 2,589 in 2023, a 12 percent reduction. Between 2005/6 and 2024/5, the percentage of the English population visiting public libraries fell from 48 percent to just 26 percent.
What is more alarming is that 82 percent of library visits in 2024/25 were made by just 9 percent of the population, which indicates that public libraries are becoming increasingly more reliant on these ‘super-users’, who are mostly middle class. This crisis is only partly about money – public library funding was reduced by 53 percent between 2005/6 and 2024/5. But the underlying cause of the crisis is the capitalist ideology that underpins the traditional model of the public library, which has not fundamentally changed since the mid nineteenth century.
This model is characterised by a strategy that focuses on maintaining the status quo, appeasing the middle class and controlling the working class; a staffing structure which concentrates power at the middle and top of the library and disempowers the front line workers; systems that are exclusive and punitive; and a complacent, entitled culture that is resistant to change because ‘we have always done things this way.’
There are other public library models that have proven effective in engaging working-class people. China and Vietnam, for example, have community-led libraries whereby the local community has a direct say in how libraries are operated. In these libraries the community is at the centre of everything the library does. The staff structure is a flexible matrix with staff members organised into teams. Power is distributed and shared throughout the library. Services are delivered inside and outside the library via outreach teams which go into working-class communities and promote the benefits of using public libraries. The culture is characterised by autonomy, independence, and organisational learning.
Another public library model – the needs-based library – can be found in Cuba and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where every effort is made to ensure that working-class people use the public library, especially those with the greatest needs. In these libraries, the staff structure is a fluid holacracy with staff members organised into interconnected but autonomous Working Circles. This removes power from the management hierarchy and distributes it across the entire workforce.
Authority is determined by skills and lived experience rather than professional qualifications. Library services are co-produced (i.e. planned, designed, delivered and evaluated) by staff and community working in partnership. Library systems enable and encourage working-class participation in the life of the library. The library culture is shaped and determined by the needs of the working class.
Democratising public libraries
If a Left government came into power it could repeal the 1964 Public Libraries Act, which failed to define what a ‘comprehensive and efficient’ public library service looks like in practice. As a result, the quality and quantity of public libraries became a postcode lottery. A new People’s Library Act could be passed which would define the key elements of a community-led and needs-based library. The Act would include a monitoring and evaluation framework which local working-class communities could use to assess the effectiveness of their library services.
The Act would define a people’s library as one that gives democratic control to the working-class community and staff. This would mean that public libraries would be taken out of the control of local councils, charities and volunteers, and placed under direct working-class control. The local working-class community would elect half of the members of the Library Soviet, or governing body; the other half would be elected by a Workers’ Council representing the library workers. The Library Soviet would be responsible and accountable to the local community for delivering library services that meet the needs of the working class.
These needs would be central to the people’s library strategy. The library would only be staffed by working-class people, and they would be hired based on their lived experience. Library systems would be enabled with no tight controls on how people used the library. The library culture would be accessible and welcoming to all working-class people, particularly those with the greatest needs. The people’s library would be funded by the central government, from general taxation, which would enable central planning and the distribution and redirection of funds to meet working-class needs, based on local population size and demographics.
Instead of the current fragmented public library system, operated by a plethora of local councils each pursuing their own political agendas and priorities, there would be a National People’s Library Service with the British Library at its centre. This would enable the development of a National People’s Library Strategy which all libraries would deliver, via a Five Year People’s Library Plan, tailored to local circumstances. There would be standardised staffing structures and systems in all libraries. The Library Soviet would hold monthly public accountability meetings and produce an annual report outlining library performance against national standards and local targets. The Library Soviet would be elected annually at the AGM which would be open to all working-class people, who would set key targets for the coming year.
Reclaiming public libraries
Public libraries have never belonged to the working class and so it is not a case of reclaiming them, but transforming them from the traditional model to become community-led and needs-based. There are many ways to start this process. For example, working-class people can attend Council committee meetings where public library finances and policies are discussed and agreed. These meetings are not well advertised and, on the many occasions that I attended them as a Chief Librarian, I never saw a member of the general public in attendance (unless a library was under threat of closure). The public cannot speak at these meetings, but they provide valuable insights into the governance of public libraries, the mindset of the ruling class, and the relationship between elected officials and paid officers.
Better still, working-class people can put themselves up for election as local councillors and campaign for better public libraries and cultural services. If elected as an Independent they can put themselves forward for the Cultural Services Committee, where library matters are discussed and decided. If they are elected on a party platform, they can seek to become the Cultural Services Portfolio Holder (or shadow, in opposition) or even Leader of the Council. Working-class people can also put themselves forward to serve on the boards of charitable library trusts, or as volunteers within ‘community-run’ libraries.
Another way forward is for working-class people to apply for jobs in public libraries, although there is a class ceiling when it comes to professional positions. However, front line library workers can step into their own power and take local initiatives, as professional staff and managers spend most of their time behind the scenes.
Working-class library workers can increase their power and influence in the workplace by joining a union and campaigning for improved library services. They can also put themselves forward for places on the union executive, and use this as a platform to build alliances between the public library and local communities. Working-class community members can lobby their local councillors for improved library services and write letters to the press calling for increased opening hours and bigger library budgets. They can also put in requests for books by progressive authors and argue that newspapers such as the Morning Star and journals like the Communist Review should be stocked by the library. These are all steps in the right direction, but the capitalist system will always contain and restrict the development of truly democratic public libraries.
In terms of immediate policy and practical ideas, when a recent survey asked working-class non library users what would make libraries more appealing they suggested: extended open hours (‘better access hours for working people’); a wider selection of books (more choice and variety, newly released titles, specific authors / titles of interest); and improved accessibility (better access in rural areas, convenient locations, easy parking or public transport options).
John Pateman comes from a Romany gypsy background and worked in public libraries for over 40 years, at all levels from Library Assistant to Chief Librarian. He was Head of Libraries in Hackney, Merton and Lincolnshire in the UK and Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. He pioneered the development of community-led and needs-based libraries in the UK and Canada. He founded Information for Social Change and the Cuban Libraries Solidarity Group.
Be sure to read the other articles in the Our Culture Series:
Culture as Class Struggle: An Interview with Jenny Farrell
Our Culture: RIP British Working-Class Cinema (1935 – 2025) by Brett Gregory
