Abstract
Andrew Carnegie's largesse to local councils throughout the world to enable them to establish public libraries is well-known. He always attached the condition that such libraries should be free. But 'free' can mean different things in different cultures, especially in towns where a penny rate was quite insufficient to support a library service. This article looks at Carnegie's contributions to the development of public libraries in New Zealand, where the idea of allowing the public to enjoy the free borrowing of books was not universally adopted and led to often bitter correspondence with Carnegie. Only three libraries were to establish genuinely free libraries before 1938. Many others took Carnegie's money but unashamedly charged subscriptions to their users. Research on the history of libraries in New Zealand on which this paper is based was funded by Creative New Zealand.
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