"Better libraries for everyone!": the development of library services in the Western Cape in the 1940s

Abstract

This article examines the political, social and cultural ways in which institutions such as libraries helped to shape the reading practices of Black and White South Africans in the Western Cape in the 1940s. An examination of several institutions involved in library development in this period (the Society for Book Distribution, the Hyman Liberman Institute, and the Cape Libraries Extension Association) shows that geography, class, and race were the primary determinants of who had access to “free” information in this period.


Innovation No.28 2004: 22-30