The public library is a cultural and educational institution that provides free, open access to books and other information resources for the general public, funded typically through government or municipal support rather than private subscription. Modern public library systems developed chiefly in nineteenth-century Britain and the United States, building on earlier subscription and parish libraries, with philanthropic support, most famously from Andrew Carnegie, funding thousands of library buildings across the English-speaking world. Public libraries have since expanded their institutional role well beyond book lending to include community programming, digital access and literacy services, and are widely regarded as a foundational institution of public education and civic life.
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Public libraries and learned societies developed together in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as parallel institutions for the free circulation of knowledge, and many public libraries began as the private collections of learned societies.
Salons and, later, public libraries both served as institutions extending access to literature and ideas beyond aristocratic or clerical circles.
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