Scottish Circulating and Subscription Libraries as Community Libraries

Abstract

Before the advent of public libraries, people who wished to borrow books for home reading frequented circulating and subscription libraries . These libraries were run on commercial principles but can be regarded as community libraries, providing cultural and educational reading material to a predominantly local community. Private subscription libraries were favoured in Scotland before they multiplied in England, while commercial circulating libraries owe much to Alan Ramsay's famous library in Edinburgh.