The Public Library's Function and the Fiction Question

The fiction question—i.e., whether or not light literature should be provided in public libraries—has exercised men's minds since 1850 and before, and there is every sign that it is still very much alive today. One may perhaps wonder that members of a profession having broadly the same objects in life have not yet reached unanimity on this fundamental point, but we are far from an agreed philosophy of librarianship: we are not at all clear as to what a public library is for.