Birmingham Free Libraries

The Public Libraries Act 1850, gave local boroughs the power to establish free public libraries but when a proposal for a municipal library in Birmingham was put to a referendum that year it was rejected. In the following years the supporters of the newly established Birmingham and Midland Institute included a library in the plans for their building being constructed on Paradise Street but by 1859 the project hit financial difficulties and had stalled. In the meantime, proponents of a council funded free library, lead by preacher, reformer and radical, George Dawson, had successfully campaigned for a second referendum on the matter in 1860. This time the result was positive, and the council stepped in and purchased a portion of the half-finished Birmingham and Midland Institute site, both rescuing the BMI project and securing a place for a municipal library. It would take another six years for this building to open so the Free Libraries Committee found a temporary home in a warehouse on Constitution Hill, alongside the railway line in an industrial quarter of town. The new, purpose-built, Central Library opened its doors on 6th September 1865. Use of the library was so heavy that the need for an extension was agreed but on 11 January 1879 a fire broke out behind a wooden partition serving as a temporary wall during building operations. The fire caused extensive damage, with only 1,000 reference library volumes saved from a stock of 50,000, and 10,000 from the lending library. A new building was constructed on the same site and the Central Library reopened on 1 June 1882. Over the next 40 years the building became increasingly unsuited to modern library services and a campaign to build a new premises began to take shape in the 1920s. By 1938 the Council had approved a plan to build a new library for the city, but war broke out meaning building work did not begin until the 1960s. In 1974 the library - and the BMI building - were demolished and a new Central Library building - an inverted ziggurat form, constructed in the Brutalist style - was opened (on the site originally occupied by Mason Science College) by Rt Hon Harold Wilson. At the time of its opening, this building was reputed to have been the largest non-national public library in Europe. During the following decades improvements were made, especially following a (smaller) fire in the early 1990s, and in 1998 public internet access was established. By the turn of the millennium changes in library service provision led to calls for a new premises for Birmingham Central Library. A new building, designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo, and renamed the Library of Birmingham was opened on 3rd September 2013 by Malala Yousafzai on a site adjoining the Birmingham Rep. It has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe.