Roosevelt’s Libraries

In recent media interviews, the Government has outlined the need for a ‘Rooseveltian’ programme of public works and public investment to accelerate Britain’s recovery from COVID-19. In so doing, they are hoping to invoke the ‘New Deal’ ushered in by President Roosevelt between 1933 and 1943 to steer the USA out of the Great Depression.

One of the lesser-known dimensions of the New Deal was a nationwide programme of reinvestment in public libraries as ‘social infrastructure’ in support of economic recovery. It is indeed a lesson from history that our current administration would do well to learn.

In 1934, after 5 years of crushing economic depression, only two American states — Massachusetts and Delaware — offered a full, free public library service to their populations. In Massachusetts, the 1934 library budget amounted to around $1.08 per capita, while in most other states it was just $0.02 (source: ‘A New Deal in Libraries’, Swain, M, JStor).

With tax income in sharp decline, Local and Federal Government was unable to stop the tailspin in library provision. It wasn’t that they lacked library buildings — the wave of investment by Andrew Carnegie and others at the turn of the century had create the beginnings of the US library network — but they could hardly pay basic maintenance bills, much less employ staff.

Enter the Works Progress Administration (WPA, later renamed the Works Project Administration), the New Deal agency established by Roosevelt which employed more than 3m Americans using tax dollars. For 8 years, WPA workers set about building the infrastructure of modern America — they built museums, schools, hospitals, courthouses, sidewalks roads….and libraries. Lots and lots of libraries.

In all, over the 8 years before it was disbanded due to the impact of WWII on under-employment, the WPA built more than 1,000 public libraries across the length and breadth of the USA. It was a staggering investment in place-making, education and, crucially, the employability of everyday Americans.

Fast-forward to today in modern Britain and it is easy to see the parallels. After 10 years of public austerity ushered in under the Cameron Government, our own Local Authorities are struggling to maintain library provision. Budgets for libraries have been cut by at least 25% and even though many Councils have been able to retain their library buildings, the services have been hollowed-out and stripped of their professional staff. The number of professional library workers in public libraries has fallen by 25% since 2010, while at the same time the volunteer workforce has tripled.

This shrivelling of the UK’s public library network — until recently the envy of countries worldwide — represents a shrivelling of opportunity for some of the nation’s most deprived communities.

Roosevelt’s reforms were based on the notion that there are some problems so profound that they can only be solved through the targeted intervention of central Government. If (and it is a big ‘if’) the Government really wants to usher in a similar ‘Rooseveltian’ wave of economic recovery, and in the process to protect or save hundreds of thousands of jobs, then libraries would be the perfect place to start.

A WPA-style investment in library building in local communities across the UK, matched by a job creation programme to ensure that those libraries are staffed by dedicated professional librarians would create a platform to support local businesses and local jobseekers. It would extend and enhance the reach of healthcare and social services. It would create educational opportunities for millions of kids from every class and background. It would also provide a much- needed platform to close the ‘digital exclusion gap’ and ensure that everyone is able to engage with services and support online.

A New Deal for Britain’s libraries and librarians would have the same effect that it did in Roosevelt’s Depression-era America. It would send a message — that everyone has a right to the dignity of work, a decent education and the opportunity to get on. That every community is stronger when it has a professionally-run and adequately-resourced library at its heart. That the economic future of the nation rests on a literate and ambitious population.

If this Government really wants to echo Roosevelt’s reforms, it is time to invest in Britain by investing in libraries and librarians.