About

What Library Web publishes

Library Web is a magazine and reference site about libraries, reading and the ways knowledge is preserved and discovered. We write about buildings and collections, about digitization and metadata, about how a catalogue works, and about what changes when most of a library’s material is born digital. The site is written for curious readers, not for specialists: no library-science jargon is assumed.

The work is organised into sections rather than a stream. Types of Libraries and How Libraries Work hold the reference material. Libraries of the World, Library Architecture and Reading & Culture are where we look at particular places and habits. Digital Library and Future of Knowledge follow the parts that are still being decided.

How the pages are written

Each page sets out to answer one question fully. Where primary sources exist we use them, and where they do not we rely on the most reliable secondary ones. Anything we cannot establish is left out or marked as unresolved rather than filled in with a plausible guess. We do not invent opening dates, architects, visitor numbers or study results.

Pages are checked before publication and revised when the facts change. The date shown on an article is the date it was last reviewed.

What we do not claim

Everything here is general information, published in good faith and without warranty. It is not professional advice, it may be incomplete or out of date, and it does not replace a librarian, an archivist or a specialist who knows your situation. The terms of use set out in full what that means.

Independence

Library Web is published independently. Any page carrying links that earn money shows a disclosure above the text, so you see it before you read.

Found an error, or know something we should know? The contact page has the address.