Library & Information History

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UNESCO and the Globalization of the Public

Library Idea, 1948 to 1965

Amanda Laugesen

To cite this article: Amanda Laugesen (2014) UNESCO and the Globalization of
the Public Library Idea, 1948 to 1965, Library & Information History, 30:1, 1-19, DOI:
10.1179/1758348913Z.00000000052

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library & information history, Vol. 30 No. 1, February 2014, 1–19

UNESCO and the Globalization of the

Public Library Idea, 1948 to 1965
Amanda Laugesen
Australian National Dictionary Centre, Australian National University,
Australia

In the two decades following the end of the Second World War, the public
library was promoted on a global scale by organizations such as UNESCO
and the various librarians who worked with it. This article explores the global
public library discourse that was shaped and promoted by UNESCO, placing
this discourse within its historical context of the Cold War, decolonization,
modernization, and internationalism. It also briefly examines some aspects
of the work that UNESCO undertook to promote the public library in devel-
oping nations. While much of this work was well intentioned, global public
library development was very much both a product and captive of its context.
The work of UNESCO and the librarians who worked with the organization
is a significant and fascinating chapter in library history that illuminates
not only the evolution of library thought, but also illuminates the global
work and thinking of international associations in the crucial decades of
decolonization and the Cold War.

keywords public library, globalization, modernization, decolonization, inter-

nationalism, UNESCO, education, Cold War, intellectual freedom, development

In 1949, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) published the first of several ‘Public Library Manuals’, entitled Public
Library Extension and authored by Lionel McColvin, British librarian and a major
figure in the development of public libraries in the United Kingdom. Jaime Torres
Bodet, recently appointed Director-General of UNESCO — himself a former head of
the Department of Libraries within the Ministry of Education in Mexico — wrote the
foreword to this manual on public libraries. In it, Bodet championed public libraries
as ‘storehouses of knowledge and of experience which are freely open to people of
every class, race, religion and age’; further, they were essential to any programme
of adult education, as well as being ‘practical demonstrations of international
co-operation’.1
UNESCO was established in 1946, with the declared goal of working ‘to promote
peace, and social and spiritual welfare by working through the minds of men’.2 Its

© CILIP 2014 DOI 10.1179/1758348913Z.00000000052

2 AMANDA LAUGESEN

programmes were varied, but most aimed at facilitating international cooperation in

the educational, cultural, and scientific fields as a means of furthering world peace.
Clare Wells writes that UNESCO saw its primary task to be the ‘promotion of peace
at the level of intellect and conscience’,3 and information and culture were crucial in
the work to be promoted and nurtured by UNESCO. The public library was envi-
sioned as a significant institution in the type of work the organization would engage
in and a key means to furthering its goals. In 1947, UNESCO declared that it must
‘open the doors [of libraries] and distribute the stored-up knowledge and delights for
the use and benefit of mankind’.4
Public libraries were to have many functions in aiding and supporting UNESCO’s
programmes, and on the tenth anniversary of the UNESCO Bulletin for Libraries in
1956, Edward Sydney, president of the Library Association in the United Kingdom,
declared that UNESCO had influenced and encouraged ‘almost every public library
enterprise in the world’.5 Through the 1950s and 1960s, UNESCO worked in various
ways to promote the development of the library, both as an idea and as an institution,
with a particular concern for developing nations. This work included organizing sur-
veys and conferences on the state of public libraries in Africa, Asia, Latin America,
and the Middle East, the development of public library pilot projects as demonstra-
tions, the sending of ‘experts’ to places in need of advice on, and technical assistance
for, library development, and providing grants for such development work. Adult
education, the fostering of international intellectual cooperation through means such
as the exchange of publications and the compilation of bibliographies, the promotion
of literacy teaching, the use of public libraries as community education centres, and
a more fundamental belief that reading fostered progress, civilization, and moderniza-
tion — all of these were essential components of UNESCO’s concern with the public
library.
This article will explore some of the ways in which UNESCO worked to promote
and shape the public library and the public library idea in the period from 1948 to
1965. It will explore the meanings invested in the idea of the public library promoted
by UNESCO and its various experts, and will place this discourse about the role and
value of the public library in its crucial post-Second World War context of decoloni-
zation, the Cold War, internationalism, and a preoccupation with development,
modernization, and modernity.
In the first few years after the end of the Second World War, a major concern for
UNESCO was the rebuilding and restocking of war-devastated libraries in Europe,
but, by 1950, attention had begun to turn to developing countries as they were begin-
ning to move out of colonialism and onto the path to modernity. Over the next
decade and a half, optimism reigned; despite a dearth of funding for much of the time
for many UNESCO programmes (and allied programmes funded by the developing
countries), there was a perception that much could be achieved. Great hopes were
held that problems like poverty, illiteracy, and low levels of education could be
addressed relatively easily — or at least that some progress could be seen within a
short space of time. By the middle of the 1960s, there was less confidence that there
were easy solutions to such fundamental problems, and some programmes such as
adult education (in which public libraries were often conceived as an adjunct) began
to shift in nature. Others, such as the pilot public library projects, were abandoned
entirely.
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 3

Through its first two decades, however, the public library idea was a powerful
one in the thinking of UNESCO and the many librarians and library associations that
supported it. As a result, the period after the Second World War saw attempts to
reshape and globalize the public library idea, with some degree of success. The library
profession and the institution itself underwent a process of globalization and stand-
ardization as well as development as a consequence, if only erratically. This article
first explores the ideological dimensions of the public library idea as taken up and
developed by those involved with UNESCO projects, and then explores its historical
context and evolution. It then moves on to examine briefly some examples of the
work undertaken by UNESCO through the period from 1948 to 1965 to try to realize
the spread of the public library as an institution.

The public library idea

The public library idea was first and foremost articulated in the UNESCO Public
Library Manifesto, published in 1949 and authored anonymously by French writer
and scholar André Maurois.6 In the manifesto, UNESCO expressed its belief ‘in the
public library as a living force for popular education and for the growth of interna-
tional understanding, and thereby for the promotion of peace’.7 The public library
was seen as ‘a product of modern democracy and a practical demonstration of
democracy’s faith in universal education as a lifelong process’. Libraries must be
operated by the people for the people and be open to all regardless of occupation,
creed, class, or race.8 Everyone should be offered the opportunity, through the library,
to continue to educate themselves, to develop their creative abilities, to aid in
the advancement of knowledge, and to use their leisure time ‘to promote personal
happiness and social well-being’.9 Libraries should also play a dynamic role in
community life, not telling people what to think but helping them ‘to decide what to
think about’.10 All of this was essential to democracies.11
Various public library manuals published by UNESCO both helped to articulate a
clear idea of what they believed the public library was about and provided practical
advice on how to establish and develop such institutions. Lionel McColvin was a key
figure in developing blueprints for public library development, and has been noted as
‘one of the most influential figures in the history of British librarianship’.12 During
the Second World War, McColvin’s work to reform British libraries was based on his
belief that libraries were universal institutions, and he applied this belief to his inter-
national library work after the war.13 He regarded libraries as both ‘instrument and
bulwark of democracy’.14 In his 1949 manual for UNESCO, he outlined various proc-
esses, systems, and methods that could be followed for the successful development of
a public library, wherever it might be established. It was largely assumed that public
library development could follow a universal framework, with the same fundamental
principles and ideas applied.
McColvin outlined some basic principles that he believed should underpin all
public library work. These included providing sufficient book stock, and book stock
that would match the community the library served; that library books should be
made useful to people through efficient organization and management coupled with
‘an understanding of books and people’; and that it was essential to be able to provide
4 AMANDA LAUGESEN

books to any community, however small it might be.15 He stressed the importance of
the involvement of state and local authorities in any effective modern public library
system, and argued for appropriate library legislation.16 McColvin was a strong
advocate of management and funding coming from a state, rather than local, level, if
at all possible: this allowed for greater coordination and cooperation, which in turn
provided the best service to the community.17 The importance of the role of the state
in providing funding and securing library legislation was something UNESCO would
frequently stress in its library work.
McColvin argued the importance of making books available to everyone several
times in his public library manual, which was otherwise devoted to practical advice:
In brief we have no doubt whatever that the public library must provide all people with
the best and most useful books that are able and willing to use them and must do so
freely and without discrimination against any social classes or racial and religious
elements.18

He concluded his manual with a comment on his philosophy of librarianship,

writing that
the function of the public library [is] to provide every man with a full free opportunity
to secure, at his own free will, whatever books can give him for the better enjoyment and
utilization of his life, [and] surely it is a good thing for nations to seek to outstrip one
another in their efforts to make this opportunity the birthright of their peoples.19

One of the organizations with which UNESCO worked closely on library projects
was the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). A 1956 IFLA mem-
orandum on the value of public libraries built on the ideas laid out in the UNESCO
Public Library Manifesto:
It is the purpose of public libraries to make it possible for all men, according to their
needs and circumstances, to enjoy whatever benefits free access to books and related
forms of record may bring them. [. . .] Public libraries should promote and sustain free-
dom of thought and action, individual development, and the good of the individual and
the community. It is essential that nothing should be done to deny the principles of free
choice and liberty of thought; and that due regard should be paid to the differing needs
and abilities of potential readers.20

The memorandum went on to argue that state aid must be provided for public
library services, and that governments should adopt appropriate library legislation. It
concluded:
The functions of public libraries must be properly understood both by librarians and by
the public itself. If the accepted conception of the service is that it is a natural, essential
element in the life of any civilized progressive community and one of the fundamental
‘human rights’, it will be supported by all men of good will.21

In 1961, André Maurois authored a UNESCO pamphlet entitled Public Libraries

and their Mission, in which he continued, and further elaborated upon, this global
public library discourse. Here he linked reading to culture and civilization.22 He
argued that books ‘can take us out of ourselves [. . .] Through them we can escape
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 5

from the narrow little world we live in and from fruitless brooding over our own
selves’.23 Reading a great book, he believed, made one ‘always a better man for
having read it’.24 Hence public libraries were essential. Education could only go so
far, but the ‘citizen of a democracy who wishes to fulfil his duties conscientiously
must go on learning all his life’.25 He stated:
The public library must give children, young people, men and women the opportunity to
keep in touch with their times, in every sphere. By offering them, impartially, works
representing conflicting points of view, it enables them to form their own opinions and
preserve that attitude of constructive criticism towards public affairs without which there
is no freedom. [. . .] Every library is a centre for international understanding. By its very
existence, free from propaganda and prejudice and with no axe of its own to grind, the
public library serves peace as well as democracy.26

Maurois argued that a public library should be ‘a real centre of culture, propagat-
ing human knowledge and dispensing delight’.27 Public libraries were not a luxury;
they were essential ‘because it is only through books and reading that civilization can
be spread’. He continued: ‘There is truth in the saying that today the right to read is
one of man’s inalienable rights’.28 Of the librarian, Maurois declared: ‘He has the
culture of mankind in his keeping and serves as an intermediary between the products
of that culture, accumulated throughout the ages, and the people who are alive and
working today’.29 The librarian had to provide readers with guidance; otherwise they
were ‘likely to be swamped by the vastness of man’s culture’.30 The librarian was a
professional, but also required ‘a real passion for this noble ministry, an unbounded
passion, unfailing good will and a keen desire to help those who are searching for
knowledge’.31
Maurois noted that in UNESCO’s educational work ‘considerable emphasis has of
course been placed on libraries’.32 He went on to declare:
The aims of UNESCO and those of public libraries coincide, they are: to help the various
peoples to know each other better; to give a new stimulus to popular education; to
promote the ideal of equal opportunities for everyone to share in cultural life; to preserve
and protect the immense legacy of books bequeathed by man to man; and to give all
nations of the world access to the books published by every other nation. This common
ideal is the best guarantee that there will be ever closer co-operation between UNESCO
and libraries.33

He argued that public libraries would become more important parts of communi-
ties as more and more readers came into existence as a result of UNESCO’s literacy
programmes. Education was no longer a privilege but ‘compulsory for all’.34 Eco-
nomic and technical progress especially intensified the need for education, expanding
people’s horizons beyond day-to-day needs: ‘The higher the standard of living, the
more concerned people will be with their dignity as human beings, and the greater
will be their demand for the means of educating themselves’.35 Maurois also noted
that more countries were achieving self-determination. These new states needed a
sense of national identity — where would they get the knowledge necessary to shape
this new identity? The answer was from books. ‘A library is not only a valuable
instrument for the nation’s use — it helps shape the nation itself ’.36
6 AMANDA LAUGESEN

Through documents such as these published and promoted by UNESCO, ideas

about what the public library was, should be, and could be were articulated in the
two decades following the end of the Second World War. This discourse about the
global development and necessity of the public library was a powerful one, but it did
not exist free from the context which shaped it and in which it operated.

Unpacking the public library idea

The post-Second World War period saw the establishment of UNESCO and a strong
emphasis on the development of public libraries worldwide. This work did not spring
from nowhere; rather, it flowed from work undertaken in public library development
in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. Public libraries had,
by the end of the nineteenth century, become important social and cultural institu-
tions in these countries, and were staffed by librarians who increasingly regarded
and defined themselves as professionals. Library training and the establishment of
professional associations such as the American Library Association and the Library
Association (UK) helped to confer professional status on librarianship, although
claims to professionalism were somewhat tenuous.37
Public libraries began to be developed around the globe before the Second World
War, primarily through efforts within the British Empire and by the Carnegie
Corporation of New York. Within the dependent British Empire, library development
was erratic and partial, with most libraries tending to cater for the British elite. How-
ever, some did allow access to non-Europeans. The Carnegie libraries, funded through
the largesse of Andrew Carnegie, American philanthropist and businessman, were
restricted to English-speaking countries; nevertheless, they could become important
institutions, especially where few other libraries existed. For example, Carnegie
libraries in South Africa allowed access to non-Europeans (which other libraries did
not) and became important centres for Africans to access a range of material and
ideas, albeit only material published in English.38
The pre-Second World War period saw the emergence of a public library discourse
that focused on education, self-improvement, and ‘uplift’. Education was invested
with the power of being the solution to social conflict, especially in diverse societies
(such as that of the United States), and was a response to rapid changes brought about
by industrialization and urbanization.39 Thomas Augst has commented that within
the British and American tradition, public libraries funded by the state were seen as
an investment in the leisure and education of the working classes,40 thereby prevent-
ing, it was assumed, social discord and upheaval. Augst further comments on how
public libraries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came to be
regarded almost as temples to a civil religion that cultivated ‘public faith in secular
ideals of individual and collective progress’.41
The public library idea of the post-Second World War period would draw on this
Anglo-American discourse about the role of libraries in a modern society,42 and would
work within a context which already saw colonial (‘underdeveloped’) states as poten-
tial sites for the development of public libraries. Public libraries could function to
improve and unite the population wherever they existed, it was believed, and were
increasingly regarded as essential institutions for a modern progressive nation.
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 7

The Second World War played an important role in shaping post-war thinking
about public libraries. As mentioned already, UNESCO’s raison d’être was the
furthering of world peace, and its formation was a direct response to the destruction
wrought by the war and the realities of the nuclear age. Many UNESCO librarians
had first-hand experience of the war’s devastations — including its damage to librar-
ies, books, and intellectual liberty. As we will see, the value of the library as the
means to intellectual freedom would be highlighted in thinking about public libraries
after the war. In addition, in the post-war context and in light of knowledge of the
Holocaust, racism was increasingly discredited, as was the colonialism of the old
European empires. Mankind was increasingly seen as fundamentally the same across
the globe, with only economic and technological disadvantages separating societies
(and these often seen to be the legacy of colonialism). UNESCO’s work was predi-
cated on this faith in the basic unity of mankind, and technical and economic assist-
ance was seen to be the primary means by which all people and all nations could
realize their full capabilities. Hence post-war library thinking also intertwined with
the agendas of modernization, nationalism, and ideas about development.
A central element that marked post-war public library discourse was the way in
which public libraries allowed for, and were regarded as a means to, intellectual
freedom. As mentioned in the 1956 IFLA memorandum, freedom of thought was
considered a ‘fundamental human right’. McColvin similarly saw this as a central
concern. When participating in a 1952 Latin American regional seminar on public
libraries, he made a clear statement about the value of access to books: ‘unless people
can read and have full free access to books they suffer an enslavement of the mind,
body and spirit which is totally inconsistent with democratic ways of life. Every
library [. . .] is a weapon to destroy their chains’.43
Two contexts shaped this linking of the public library to intellectual liberty and
human rights. One was the role of the UN and UNESCO in furthering the notion of
human rights. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in late 1948
and born out of the experience of the Second World War, provided a framework for
the idea of a universal humanity, all of whom shared the same basic rights and
freedoms, including freedom of thought and freedom of expression.44 A 1958 edition
of the UNESCO Bulletin for Libraries addressed the issue of ‘libraries and human
rights’, arguing that ‘[l]ibrarians everywhere have a vital part to play in making the
human rights and fundamental freedoms set forth in the Declaration [of Human
Rights] a reality’.45 Public library development work was thus conceived as being a
means by which librarians could further the realization of humanity’s basic freedoms.
The other context that shaped the prominence of intellectual freedom within the
public library discourse was the Cold War. It is worth considering here that although
the Cold War was rarely, if at all, directly mentioned in any of the public library
seminars and work of UNESCO, it was an essential part of the context in which the
organization operated. While UNESCO did work to further intellectual cooperation
across the Iron Curtain — for example, with joint bibliographical projects — much
of the rhetoric of UNESCO implicitly, if not explicitly, addressed the basic necessity
of democracy and individual freedom. In this, it tended to reflect the political
ideology of nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Cold War context of global public library activity can be seen in the language
of some of the librarians who worked with, and supported, UNESCO.46 Paul North
8 AMANDA LAUGESEN

Rice, incoming president of the American Library Association (ALA) in 1947, used
his speech at the Association’s annual meeting to promote the work of UNESCO,
but he put this into a post-Second World War and Cold War framework of under-
standing. ‘Believing as we do’, he declared, ‘that our libraries are one force that
assures that the United States can never succumb to fascism or any other kind of
totalitarianism, we should do everything we can to influence UNESCO to stimulate
such libraries everywhere’.47 In 1956, Lionel McColvin articulated similar sentiments
in stronger language, writing that ‘[t]he enemies of democracy are apathy and totali-
tarianism and both can be countered only by the spread of active individualism and
a sense of responsibility, both of which are little likely to flourish among those who
do not read books’.48 He went on to comment that ‘the primary purpose of any
worthy public library is that of facilitating and promoting individual freedom’.49 It
was better, he argued, to have no libraries at all than to have libraries ‘which seek to
make their users espouse any particular political, moral or religious cause’. He thus
regarded ‘with loathing [. . .] the expansion of libraries in totalitarian countries’.50
Librarians should always remember that they were ‘apostles of freedom’.51
Intellectual freedom was supposedly championed by Western nations in the face of
Soviet totalitarianism, yet the fear of Communism led to threats to curtail intellec-
tual freedom in these countries. Many librarians, however, fought against these
attempts to stifle dissent and impose censorship.52 American librarians in particular
made a strong argument in favour of intellectual freedom in a 1953 statement, ‘The
Freedom to Read’, which argued that the freedom to read was essential to the foun-
dations of American democracy.53 Librarians actively participated in, and helped to
articulate, the meanings of librarianship and the role of the library in society within
a larger discourse about the Cold War, and, in doing so, they helped re-shape the
meanings of the public library and its work.
Arguably, the work UNESCO undertook also served to promote a sense of
internationalism and went some way in the promotion of what Akira Iriye calls
the ‘global civil society’.54 He argues that, while international organizations were
influenced (and even manipulated) by Cold War and foreign policy concerns, they
nevertheless played an important role in keeping alive the idea of internationalism
and ‘one world’ during the Cold War period.55 By focusing too narrowly on the ways
in which international organizations operated within a Cold War framework, he
argues, we ignore their efforts in transcending the imperatives of the Cold War and
providing alternative visions of the future that could be subversive of the Cold War
framework.56 To some extent, librarians, in promoting their vision of the public
library through the post-Second World War decades, did imagine a world united by
books, libraries, and knowledge. Theodore Waller, Chairman of the ALA’s Interna-
tional Relations Committee in 1958, encouraged the association to further strengthen
ties with, and provide assistance to, the work of UNESCO, concluding his address to
ALA members at their annual meeting that year by declaring: ‘The world of books
is, in a deep and true sense, one world’.57 Waller explicitly referred to the idea of ‘one
world’, but much of the language used by UNESCO and its contributing librarians
in their various reports and publications also implied this ‘one-worldism’.
The internationalism of UNESCO’s library programmes was, however, always
mediated by Cold War concerns and the ideas of the people who dominated its
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 9

programmes; it also engaged with particular ways of thinking about developing

nations and those countries emerging from colonialism. It needs to be noted that
despite the somewhat utopian ‘one world’ rhetoric, not only did Anglo-American
library thinking tend to dominate the work of UNESCO: Western librarians domi-
nated its work. Donald G. Davis Jr and Nathaniel Fels have shown the ways in which
the IFLA through much of this period was dominated by Western librarians.58 To an
extent, UNESCO was similar: although many librarians from developing nations
were included in seminars and regional programmes, it was the Western librarian
who was nearly always considered the ‘expert’.
UNESCO’s global library work engaged with a significant way of thinking about
the world that dominated the 1950s and 1960s: modernization theory. As a number
of historians have made clear, development and modernization were seen (especially
by Americans) as a path to ensuring that countries emerging from a colonial state
would become liberal capitalist democracies — with the stress more often on capital-
ism than on democracy.59 Michael Adas has written that, after the Second World
War, ‘the modernization paradigm supplanted the beleaguered civilizing mission as
the pre-eminent ideology of Western dominance’.60 Adas comments that the modern-
izers’ ideal was ‘a world of industrially competitive nations interacting in a capitalist,
free-trade, global framework’ and that they shared an emphasis on scientific and
technological measures of human worth and achievement.61 The modernization
framework was attractive for a variety of reasons, not least in that it conceived of
social, economic, and political change as fundamentally integrated.62 For the West,
modernization and development, promoted through Western aid and technical assist-
ance, would help emerging nations move towards modernity, and prevent them
taking more radical political paths (that is, turn to communism as an alternative path
to modernity).63
Global library work promoted by UNESCO engaged with the discourse of
modernization and development, although it was less concerned with the linking of
modernization to national security (as United States government aid and development
programmes were). Most fundamentally, the UNESCO public library discourse
imagined public libraries as integral to the creation of a modern state. In presenting
the library as a universal model that could be adapted to any conditions with
similar results such as progress, political freedom, and social development, UNESCO
thinking accepted the assumptions of modernization theory.
Development programmes were not, however, always merely imposed on emerging
nations. The attractions of modernization (both the American and the Soviet models
of development) for developing nations were considerable.64 Librarians and politi-
cians in developing nations found the linking of libraries to nation-building and the
potential of future development one of the compelling reasons to embrace the public
library.
The linking of national development and the library was not entirely a post-Second
World War product, although it reached its fullest, global articulation in that period.
For example, George Roe’s study of Indian librarian S. R. Ranganathan makes clear
that Indian librarians explicitly linked the library to anti-colonialism and nationalism
in the period before the Second World War. While Ranganathan was wary of linking
the library movement to the political agenda of the Indian National Congress, he saw
10 AMANDA LAUGESEN

the library as a vital means of enabling self-empowerment.65 Trained in England

between the wars, librarians such as Ranganathan also helped in the shaping of, and
spread of, the global public library idea. Ranganathan’s presidential address to the
Eighth All India Library Conference in Nagpur in January 1949, not long after
Indian independence had been achieved, echoed many of the public library ideas also
articulated by UNESCO and linked the future success of India and all its citizens to
the effective spread of libraries across the nation.66
Public libraries, literacy, and adult education were seen by UNESCO to be essential
to development, and developing nations largely embraced this idea (in theory, if not
in practice). In 1953, a seminar was held in Ibadan, Nigeria, to address library needs
for Africa. Acknowledging that the continent was undergoing a process of rapid
change, libraries and education to help facilitate this change were vital. The report
that came out of the seminar commented that as mass education programmes taught
basic skills such as literacy, it was essential to have libraries, or new literates would
‘probably stagnate or slide back into illiteracy’.67 In 1955, a similar seminar was held
in Delhi, India, to address issues facing public library development in Asia. Abul
Kalam Azad, the Indian Minister of Education, gave the inaugural address and argued
that libraries should be ‘a part of a national plan of educational development’.68
Through the 1950s and 1960s, the Indian government did go some way to incorporat-
ing library development into its economic plans, although development was
hampered by a lack of central library planning.69
Another library seminar held in Enugu, Nigeria, in 1963 concluded that ‘[i]n
addition to their cultural contribution libraries have an essential role to play in the
economic and social progress of every nation, state and community’. Public libraries
were essential in countries where educational opportunities were limited ‘[a]nd yet,
these are the people who, to a large degree, must make their new governments work
and must understand and control the great social and technical changes taking place
so rapidly’.70
In 1962, UNESCO made education, especially the fight against illiteracy, its top
priority.71 Universal literacy was articulated as a basic goal of UNESCO, and educa-
tion was given a central place in the articulation of economic and social develop-
ment.72 There was little place for traditional societies and cultures in this conception
of the modern library and education. As one librarian noted at a Latin American
library seminar in 1952, cooperation between Latin American countries could work
because of their common heritage, ‘except for the indigenous people who have not
yet become fully assimilated into the evolving cultural pattern’.73 The goal of literacy
and education, patterned along the lines of developed nations, did not allow for much
preservation of, or acknowledgement of, traditional cultures and social organization.
The language used reveals the assumptions about the literate and those without
Western-defined literacy: the ALA’s William Carlson, for instance, praised UNESCO’s
efforts in helping to ‘effectively and quietly roll back the dark curtain of ignorance
that rests over all who have not mastered the mysteries of the printed word’.74
Citizenship was also connected to public libraries and development within the
UNESCO public library discourse. Robert L. Hansen, a Danish librarian who par-
ticipated in the 1952 Latin American seminar, saw libraries playing an important role
in ‘improving’ the population. He argued that ‘[t]here must be no economic obstacle
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 11

preventing any reader from increasing his personal knowledge for the benefit of
society as a whole [. . .] The social value of a citizen increases when his intellectual
and material knowledge increases’.75
The modern public library was linked not only to modernization, but also to
modernity. While community and the nation were important, so was the individual
self. The conception of the public library (see, for example, Maurois’s language
above) conceptualized a private, individual intellectual relationship with the library
and the knowledge contained therein. As Alistair Black has argued, this was an
important feature in the discourse surrounding the public library as it developed in
Britain during the inter-war period.76 This idea flowed through into post-war public
library discourse. Even further, however, the type of library work undertaken by
UNESCO also focused on the making of the individual as a productive citizen. In
focusing on the library as a means to adult education and in discussing the work of
the Industrial Social Service travelling library (SESI) in Brazil in 1952, for example, it
was commented that the library would provide industrial workers with reading and
would make the typical worker ‘a good family man, conscious of his duties and
responsibilities, and with higher standards of skill and productivity, [and] he shall
improve his own and his children’s minds’.77 This discussion, although not explicitly
political, engaged with an idea of the library as helping to produce a particular type
of citizen — indeed, even performing something of a normalizing and disciplining
function within society.
It is therefore possible to see the ways in which the idea of the public library
evolved in the period following the Second World War, building on existing ideas
about the public library and its role in society. In the context of the Cold War and
decolonization, and with a sense of the possibilities of internationalism, the public
library was assigned new meaning by UNESCO and its library experts as a bastion
of intellectual freedom, the basis for a modern nation and progress, and a means for
the individual to become a better and more productive citizen.

UNESCO’s library development work

Surveys undertaken by UNESCO through the 1950s established that most emerging
nations had few, if any, public libraries and that their needs were great.78 The
programmes that UNESCO worked on, often in collaboration with local govern-
ments, aimed to address this problem and to start countries on the road towards
library development, often as an adjunct to their programmes focused on educa-
tional development and literacy. This final section will briefly examine a few of the
ways in which UNESCO programmes worked to globalize the library as an idea and
institution.
One of the main ways in which UNESCO sought to develop public libraries glo-
bally was through sending ‘experts’ to developing nations to survey library needs and
provide advice and technical assistance. Through the 1950s and 1960s, these experts
travelled to the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa to advise countries, many of
which were ‘new’ nations, on what they could do to develop their library systems.
UNESCO sponsored librarians from countries such as Britain, the United States, New
Zealand, and Australia in this work.
12 AMANDA LAUGESEN

In 1954, A. G. W. Dunningham, a New Zealander, went to Indonesia to advise

its Ministry of Education on public libraries. He met with Indonesian librarians,
surveyed existing conditions, and provided reports to the Indonesian Ministry of
Education. His advice included suggesting the formation of library associations and
the establishment of some small demonstration libraries.79 Dunningham’s commit-
ment to Indonesia was significant: he stayed for two years.80 H. V. Bonny, an Austral-
ian librarian, travelled to numerous developing nations to survey library needs and
provide expert advice. In 1958, he travelled to Iraq, reporting on a lack of adequate
library facilities.81 Bonny also undertook library work in Jordan, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, and Nigeria.82
Frank M. Gardner, an American librarian, went to survey the work of the Delhi
pilot public library (discussed below) from November 1951 to June 1952. He
concluded his report in the ALA’s Bulletin by stating:
I have seen enough already to convince me that in a program of social betterment, the
provision of public libraries is a primary need, and that such libraries will be eagerly used
and roundly enjoyed. North American and European librarians have a great job to do in
passing on their knowledge and experience in whatever way they can. The extension of
public library service to all the world should be our twentieth century purpose.83

In 1960, Gardner reported on the state of public libraries in South Asia, after a
three-month visit that included visits to India, Pakistan, West Pakistan (Bangladesh),
and Iran. One of his primary conclusions was that all the countries he visited ‘need
libraries. They are at the point of development when books in quantity are necessary
for culture, economic, social and political development’.84
American librarians also travelled abroad during this period under the auspices of
the Department of State and/or with the support of foundations such as the Rockefel-
ler Foundation.85 In 1952, Lawrence S. Thompson, of the University of Kentucky,
returned from Turkey, one of the allies of the United States in the region. Reflecting
a concern that some library professionals expressed in the 1950s and 1960s, Thomp-
son commented that while the United States was exporting its military, industrial,
and agricultural equipment to countries such as Turkey, those countries would
know very little of its culture. He argued that one thing that needed export was
‘the Anglo-American variety of librarianship’.86 In 1957, Harold Lancour, from the
University of Illinois Library School, travelled to British West Africa to survey the
state of its library facilities; he was accompanied by British librarian Stanley
Horrocks, who had been assigned to the UNESCO pilot library in Enugu, Nigeria.87
Seeing the political change taking place in West Africa, Lancour concluded his report:
In Africa they are making the decisions which will change the destiny of millions. The
West African, as the American, has put his faith in democracy. The library is going to
play a big part in the educational development of the future. I hope our response will be
adequate.88

Both Thompson and Lancour articulated the importance of the library expert from
countries such as the United States in spreading and developing the public library
globally, and urged their fellow librarians to assist in this work. They not only helped
to promote the public library idea in the countries to which they travelled, but reiter-
ated its value to librarians and the broader community at home. These American
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 13

librarians were perhaps more inspired than some of their non-American colleagues to
inflect their language with Cold War concerns about democracy (and this reflects
their sponsorship by the Department of State and the government’s efforts in techni-
cal assistance and cultural diplomacy through this period as part of the Cold War),
but they capture the missionary element of the work of these library experts. Ronald
E. Day has described UNESCO’s documentation experts in this period as ‘missionar-
ies of modernity within the guise of development specialists’, a description which
might equally be applied to some UNESCO librarians.89
This sense of library work as missionary work can be traced back to the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries, when library work was conceived of in terms of
reform and uplift. The language of post-war librarians echoed this romanticization
of library work as missionary work, reminding us of Thomas Augst’s likening of
public library work as promotion of a secular faith in progress. Lucile M. Morsch,
who became President of the ALA in 1957, perhaps most explicitly imagined the
librarian as a modern missionary of progress and the book. She used her inaugural
address to urge American librarians to get involved in international work, exhorting
them:
If you believe, as I do, that the American library is one of our country’s most priceless
possessions, with a gospel of service to be spread around the world by every possible
means, to make this world a better place to live in and to further the causes of interna-
tional understanding and international peace, you will find ways of your own to do your
part in foreign countries or at home to spread that gospel.90

It can be assumed that the ideological sentiments expressed by many librarians

— the furthering of international cooperation and world peace; the desire to assist
developing countries — were sincere. However, the decision to work with UNESCO
and to develop ties with institutions and librarians around the globe also represented
a desire to promote their profession’s status. This was not only in the international
arena: they were also emphasizing the importance of the profession and the institu-
tion within their own countries. In defining a place for libraries and librarians
as essential to the post-war world and integral to the future development of many
nations, as well as linking libraries to the securing of universal human rights,
librarians were staking a vital claim for their work and their profession into the
future.
Also representing attempts to globalize the library profession in this period was an
emphasis on library training. It was recognized that many developing countries had
inadequate, even non-existent, training for librarianship. Where library schools
existed, they faced problems such as funding, a lack of skilled teachers, and a lack of
textbooks in local languages and textbooks adapted for local conditions.91 It was
strongly urged in many UNESCO seminars and surveys that effort and money should
be invested in developing library schools. As Berta Becerra Bonet, Director of the
Cuban Library School, reported: ‘Any delay in their [library schools’] establishment
would be highly prejudicial to the progress of civilization in our continent, and to the
welfare of our peoples’.92
UNESCO therefore helped support the development of library schools. For exam-
ple, in 1963, a Regional Centre for the Training of African Librarians was opened for
14 AMANDA LAUGESEN

French-speaking African librarians in Dakar, with the support of both UNESCO and
the government of Senegal.93 An East African School of Librarianship was also estab-
lished in Kampala, Uganda, for the training of librarians from English-speaking
African countries.94 It began teaching courses in 1964.95
Library education as well as the formation of library associations accelerated
through the 1950s and 1960s. Library associations were established in many locations:
for example, the West African Library Association (1953), the Pakistan Library
Association (1957), and the Asian Federation of Library Associations (1957).96 Library
associations largely echoed the discourse of the global public library as articulated by
UNESCO. Anis Khurshid, in the first edition of the Quarterly Journal of the Pakistan
Library Association in 1960, commented on the need for a pilot public library in
Pakistan and argued that ‘[a] modern public library is an instrument for creation of
informed and reflective public opinion in a democratic society’.97 In 1961, Khawaja
Noor Elahi commented that the library could be ‘considered an asset of primary
importance to a civilised society’ and went on to welcome the work of UNESCO
expert Lionel C. Key (an Australian) in surveying Pakistan’s library needs.98 Dr
Mahmud Hasain, President of the Pakistan Library Association, addressed the third
annual conference in Dacca, commenting that the library was ‘not only a symbol of
the educational and cultural strivings of our global society, it is also, possibly, one of
the most potential deterrents against global suicide’.99 He argued that libraries could
help ‘cut through the jungle of racial, religious and ideological prejudices’.100 ‘Our
existence as a civilized people depends on freedom of thought. If we desire to protect
and cherish it and if we want to ensure the same for our future generations, we must
see that the average citizen’s mind is free and informed’.101
Library associations were also suggested as an important means to improving the
profession and raising its status within local communities. Library associations could
help set professional standards.102 At the ‘Public Libraries for Asia’ seminar in 1955,
it was noted as essential that librarianship ‘be recognized as a profession in its own
right’.103 UNESCO experts thus did much to try to promote the library profession on
a global scale.
Through the guidance of experts, the public library discourse was extended
globally; through the establishment of library schools and library associations, as well
as libraries, the profession became increasingly standardized. Developing nations
embraced the potential offered by such institutions to further their goal of becoming
modern nations, although limited finances would often undermine real and lasting
achievements. In turn, library experts not only exported the public library idea and
its institutional apparatus around the globe, but also emphasized the importance of
the library and the librarian to a modern world, as well as to themselves.
Another major element of UNESCO’s practical work in public library development
through the 1950s and into the 1960s was helping to sponsor the creation of demon-
stration public libraries. UNESCO assisted in the establishment of these pilot libraries
in several places around the globe. The first was established in Delhi in India, the
second in Medellin, Colombia, and the third in Enugu, Nigeria.
The plan for the Delhi pilot public library had been to establish a ‘typical public
library on Western lines’.104 When it was founded in 1950, the Delhi Public Library’s
purposes ‘were to provide the people of Delhi with a public library service using
modern techniques [. . .] and to demonstrate the use of modern library techniques
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 15

under Asian situations’.105 In 1956, Frank M. Gardner concluded that the Delhi
project was an inspiration for similar initiatives in Asia.106
In 1954, the Medellin pilot public library was opened in Colombia. Medellin was
a centre for industry, with a large industrial working-class population with high rates
of illiteracy.107 The Medellin library was to cater for this working-class population,
and it was noted by UNESCO that one of the primary aims of the library was
‘Fundamental Education’.108 Its book stock reflected this emphasis on fundamental
education, including ‘simple manuals on arts and crafts, light reading matter and
books on religion, history, geography, travel and applied science, with works of art,
art reproductions, general and specialized encyclopaedias, bibliographies and bilin-
gual dictionaries’.109 It was planned to later include books of a ‘higher cultural stand-
ard’.110 At the library’s third anniversary, the Director, Julio Cesar Arroyave,
affirmed that the library had met a real need in the local community.111 He noted that
in 1957 the library had about a million patrons, with branches catering to a hospital,
a military barracks, and a working-class ‘shanty town’.112 The Medellin library also
ran a mobile library service. Arroyave believed that the library had made a significant
impact on Colombia, while influencing several other countries, notably Panama,
Ecuador, and Bolivia.113
The Enugu library in Nigeria was the third pilot public library. It was a joint
initiative between the Eastern Nigerian government and UNESCO, and was launched
in 1957.114 Enugu had a population of some 89,000 people in 1961, with many people
working in the rail and coal industries.115 Literacy rates in 1953 were about 10 per
cent,116 and in 1961 most of the users were Europeans living in Enugu, although some
African men, mostly young and likely to be students or clerks, also frequented the
library.117 Despite these facts, Stanley Horrocks’s 1961 assessment of the library was
that it was largely a success. He concluded that the library could serve as a site of
training for future librarians, it could function as an information and research centre
for industry and commerce, and it could be ‘a place where people of similar cultural
interests can meet and exchange views’.118 As I have argued elsewhere, these UNESCO
libraries could not exist free from their complicated political and social context:
Nigeria in particular was a country that was the product of colonialism and deeply
riven by ethnic conflict; only a few years later, the country would subside into a
brutal civil war. Libraries could not prevent such conflict: in fact, arguably they
reflected and even amplified some of the tensions that fed the Nigerian conflict, as
the Enugu library was located in the Eastern region, a more prosperous and Western-
oriented region than others.119 The cultivation of nationalism and progress through
a library and other such ‘modern’ institutions was rarely as simple as it seemed.
J. Stephen Parker comments that the pilot public libraries were largely successful
as local libraries, but less so as demonstrations; by the mid-1960s, the idea of pilot
libraries was largely abandoned.120 What they demonstrated was a faith in the theory
of the public library as a universal institution which regardless of local conditions and
needs could be easily set up and then duplicated by local communities. What the
UNESCO librarians came up against on the ground, however, were the realities of
local conditions such as low rates of literacy, economic, social, and political prob-
lems, lack of the right kind of book stock, and the fact that creating more public
libraries was ultimately not a high priority for struggling developing nations.
16 AMANDA LAUGESEN

A change in approach
While the 1950s could be said to be a time of optimism and faith in the possibilities
of the future of development, by the middle of the 1960s, the rhetoric had been
tempered somewhat. For example, in Quito, Ecuador, in 1966, a meeting of library
service professionals more realistically addressed the problems facing Latin America
than did the earlier 1952 regional seminar, and acknowledged the slow rate of progress
and change.121 Josefa Sabor, in her report submitted to UNESCO in advance of the
meeting, pointed out a number of ongoing problems faced in library planning and
development in Latin America. She saw libraries as failing to have much influence
because of ‘the absence of a doctrine, a set of principles, a clear understanding of their
aims’,122 and urged a greater degree of professionalism for librarians in the region.
Sabor also argued that while Latin American nations had based their approach to
library development on the North American model, that model had failed to work in
countries with limited resources, rapidly growing populations, and inadequate means
for training librarians.123 Overall, Sabor’s lengthy report to UNESCO argued for a
much more pragmatic approach to library development in Latin America that
properly acknowledged the region’s particular problems and conditions.
As early as 1958, it had been acknowledged how difficult it would be to achieve all
that was expected on the small budgets given to UNESCO. Luther Evans, an Ameri-
can librarian who became Director-General of UNESCO, frankly acknowledged that
‘many of us in UNESCO are beyond our depths in what we are assigning ourselves
the responsibility of doing’. He went on: ‘We are caught in a trap. The countries
expect miracles from us’.124
In 1966, American librarian Lester Asheim, who had worked with the ALA’s Inter-
national Relations Office and done much work abroad over the preceding few years,
gave a series of lectures which he turned into a thin volume, Librarianship in the
Developing Countries. He took a sober look at the issue of building libraries and a
library profession across the globe, and stated quite clearly that the solutions that
applied to library problems in countries such as the United States did not necessarily
apply elsewhere.125 Asheim particularly pointed to the different traditions and values
in many countries that saw little desire for libraries or for the valuing of the library
profession; ‘mere economic aid will change almost nothing’, he concluded.126 He went
on to argue that there was still useful work that American librarians could engage in
abroad, but that changes needed to be made; the outlook was considerably muted
from the optimism that had dominated only fifteen or so years previously.
By the late 1960s and 1970s, thinking about modernization and development had
similarly begun to shift fundamentally. New frameworks for understanding the rela-
tionship between what was increasingly called the ‘Third World’ and the West were
emerging, including dependency theory, which posited that the developing world was
both exploited and permanently disadvantaged by the West.127 In this new approach
to the developing world, faith in universal frameworks of development, with develop-
ment achieved relatively easily, was considerably revised. As a result, the expectations
that rested on what the public library could achieve were also modified.
Nevertheless, UNESCO continued, and continues, to value the public library as an
essential global institution that can help achieve greater international understanding
and the intellectual freedom of the individual. The most recent incarnation of the
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 17

UNESCO Public Library Manifesto from 1994 restates UNESCO’s ‘belief in the pub-
lic library as a living force for education, culture and information, and as an essential
agent for the fostering of peace and spiritual welfare through the minds of men and
women’.128 The public library continues to be invested with the hopes of a global
civil society and a better future for all.

Notes
1 24
L. R. McColvin, Public Library Extension (Paris: Ibid., p. 8.
UNESCO, 1949), p. vi. 25
Ibid., p. 12.
2 26
UNESCO Courier, 6.6 (June 1953), 2. For basic Ibid., pp. 12–13. Emphasis in the original.
histories of UNESCO, see M. C. Lacoste, The 27
Ibid., p. 18.
Story of a Grand Design: UNESCO 1946–1993 28
Ibid.
(Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 1994) and F. Valder- 29
Ibid., p. 25.
rama, A History of UNESCO (Paris: Unesco 30
Ibid.
Publishing, 1995). 31
Ibid.
3
Clare Wells, The UN, UNESCO and the Politics of 32
Ibid., p. 26.
Knowledge (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1987), 33
Ibid., p. 29.
p. 45. 34
Ibid., p. 30.
4
Quoted in ALA Bulletin, 41.1 (January 1947), 35. 35
Ibid.
5
UNESCO Bulletin for Libraries (hereafter UBL), 36
Ibid., p. 31. Emphasis in the original.
10.11–12 (November–December 1956), 255. 37
See, for example, the discussion of the feminization
6
The assertion that Maurois was the author of the of American librarianship from the turn of the
1949 UNESCO Public Library Manifesto is made twentieth century by D. Garrison, Apostles of Cul-
by B. Thomas, ‘Books and Libraries’, Scandinavian
ture: The Public Librarian and American Society,
Public Library Quarterly, 40.1 (2007) <www.splq.
1876–1920 (New York: The Free Press, 1979). She
info/issues/vol40_1/07.htm> [accessed 14 September
comments on the ongoing preoccupation over the
2011].
7 issue of professionalism (ibid., p. 186).
The UNESCO Public Library Manifesto, in L. R. 38
A. G. Cobley, ‘Literacy, Libraries and Conscious-
McColvin, The Chance to Read: Public Libraries in
ness: the Provision of Library Services for Blacks in
the World Today (London: Phoenix Press, 1957),
South Africa in the Pre-Apartheid Era’, Libraries
Appendix A, p. 249.
8 and Culture, 32.1 (Winter 1997), 63–65. See also
Ibid.
9 M. K. Rochester, ‘The Carnegie Corporation and
Ibid., p. 250.
10 South Africa: Non-European Library Services’,
Ibid.
11 Libraries and Culture, 34.1 (Winter 1999), 27–51.
Ibid. All of these ideas can be found reiterated 39
in various UNESCO publications in the following Garrison, p. 42.
40
years; see, for example, UNESCO Courier, 6.6 T. Augst, ‘Faith in Reading: Public Libraries,
(June 1953), 2. Liberalism and the Civil Religion’, in Institutions
12
A. Black, ‘National Planning for Public Library of Reading: The Social Life of Libraries in the
Service: the World and Ideas of Lionel McColvin’, United States, ed. by T. Augst and K. Carpenter
Library Trends, 52.4 (Spring 2004), 902. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007),
13
Ibid., p. 905. p. 164.
41
14
L. R. McColvin, The Public Library System of Ibid., p. 174.
42
Great Britain: A Report on its Present Condition J. S. Parker, UNESCO and Library Development
with Proposals for Post-War Reorganisation Planning (London: The Library Association, 1985),
(London: The Library Association, 1942), p. 5. p. 76, notes that the Anglo-American library
15 tradition was a key influence in UNESCO’s work.
McColvin, Public Library Extension, pp. 6–7, 10.
16 43
Ibid., pp. 13–14; see also ch. 3. L. R. McColvin, ‘The Open-Access System’, in
17 Development of Public Libraries in Latin America:
Ibid., pp. 70, 73.
18 The Sao Paulo Conference (Paris: UNESCO, 1952),
Ibid., p. 98.
19
Ibid., p. 104. p. 54.
20 44
UBL, 10.7 (July 1956), 149. A copy of the UN Universal Declaration of Human
21
Ibid., p. 150. Rights can be found on the United Nations web-
22
A. Maurois, Public Libraries and their Mission site, <www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/> [accessed
(Paris: UNESCO, 1961), p. 6. 16 September 2011].
23 45
Ibid., p. 7. UBL, 12.11–12 (November–December 1958), 253.
18 AMANDA LAUGESEN
46
D. G. Davis, Jr, assisted by N. Fels, ‘“With Malice
toward None”: IFLA and the Cold War’, Libraries
and Culture, 36.1 (Winter 2001), 1–15, has also
shown the ways in which Cold War politics
operated within IFLA.
47
P. N. Rice, ‘Toward Mutual Understanding’,
address given 4 July 1947, reproduced in ALA
Bulletin, 41.7 (August 1947), 248.
48
McColvin, The Chance to Read, p. 223.
49
Ibid., p. 225.
50
Ibid., p. 227.
51
Ibid., p. 228.
52
See L. S. Robbins, Censorship and the American
Library: The American Library Association’s
Response to Threats to Intellectual Freedom,
1939–1969 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996). See
also the ‘Intellectual Freedom’ issue, ALA Bulletin,
47.10 (November 1953), 452.
53
See copy of the 1953 statement reproduced in
Robbins, pp. 188–95.
54
A. Iriye, Global Community: The Role of Interna-
tional Organizations in the Making of the Contem-
porary World (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2002), p. 7.
55
Ibid., p. 53.
56
Ibid., pp. 93, 95.
57
T. Waller, ‘The International Relations Program of
the American Library Association’, ALA Bulletin,
53.1 (January 1959), 50.
58
Davis and Fels, pp. 5–6.
59
The most influential modernization ‘theorist’ was
W. W. Rostow with his concept of the five stages
of economic development. See, for example, O. A.
Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Inter-
vention and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005); G. Rist, The
History of Development from Western Origins to
Global Faith (London: Zed Books, 1997); M. E.
Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American
Social Science and ‘Nation Building’ in the Kennedy
Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2000).
60
M. Adas, ‘Modernization Theory and the Ameri-
can Revival of Scientific and Technological Stand-
ards of Social Achievement and Human Worth’, in
Staging Growth: Modernization, Development and
the Global Cold War, ed. by D. C. Engerman, N.
Gilman, M. Haefele, and M. E. Latham (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), p. 35.
61
Ibid., p. 37.
62
M. E. Latham, The Right Kind of Revolution:
Modernization, Development and US Foreign
Policy from the Cold War to the Present (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2011), p. 3.
63
Ibid., pp. 32, 53.
64
Michael Latham has commented, however, that the
postcolonial visions of modernization were differ-
ent from those of the United States as they sought
to combine elements of both the American and the
Soviet experiences and theories of development:
ibid., p. 67.
65
G. Roe, ‘Challenging the Control of Knowledge in
Colonial India: Political Ideas in the Work of S. R.
Ranganathan’, Library and Information History,
26.1 (March 2010), 22–23.
66
S. R. Ranganathan, Library Needs of Renascent
India: Presidential Address, Eighth All India
Library Conference, Nagpur, 20–22 January 1949
(Delhi: University Press). See especially pp. 3–5.
Roe also argues that after independence, Ranga-
nathan saw libraries as ‘an integral part of the task
of nation-building’. Roe, p. 28.
67
Development of Public Libraries in Africa: The
Ibadan Seminar (Paris: UNESCO, 1954), p. 14.
68
Public Libraries for Asia: The Delhi Seminar (Paris:
UNESCO, 1956), p. 15.
69
J. Patel and K. Kumar, Libraries and Librarianship
in India (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001),
pp. 87–88, 103.
70
UBL, 17. 2 (March–April 1963), supplement, 107.
71
UBL, 17.4 (July–August 1963), 203.
72
P. W. Jones, International Policies for Third World
Education: UNESCO, Literacy and Development
(London: Routledge, 1988), pp. 107, 111.
73
A. E. Gropp, ‘Inter-American Action Required’, in
Development of Public Libraries in Latin America,
p. 34.
74
W. H. Carlson, ‘The World Wakes Up to Read’,
ALA Bulletin, 52.8 (September 1958), 633.
75
R. L. Hansen, ‘Public Library Laws’, in Develop-
ment of Public Libraries in Latin America, p. 41.
76
A. Black, The Public Library in Britain (London:
The British Library, 2000), p. 72.
77
N. M. Piraja, ‘The SESI Travelling Library’, in
Development of Public Libraries in Latin America,
p. 81.
78
See, for example, the surveys in appendix attached
to Public Libraries for Asia, pp. 155–61.
79
UBL, 8.1 (January 1954), E6.
80
UBL, 10.7 (July 1956), 168.
81
UBL, 12.5–6 (May–June 1958), 126.
82
UBL, 12.7 (July 1958); 12.11–12 (November–
December 1958), 291; 14.3 (May–June 1960), 128;
15.1 (January–February 1961), 46; 19.3 (May–June
1965), 128.
83
F. M. Gardner, ‘Founding a Public Library in
India’, ALA Bulletin, 49.9 (October 1955), 498.
84
UBL, 14.4 (July–August 1960), 145.
85
For a discussion of the ALA’s International Rela-
tions Office, see M. S. Dalton, ‘The International
Relations Office, 1956–1972’, Library Trends, 55.3
(Winter 2007), 609–22.
86
L. S. Thompson, ‘Books are Basic beyond the
Bosphorus’, ALA Bulletin, 46.6 (June 1952), 195.
87
H. Lancour, ‘Impressions of British West Africa’,
ALA Bulletin, 52.6 (July 1958), 419.
 UNESCO AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IDEA, 1948 TO 1965 19

88 108
Ibid., p. 420. Ibid., p. 2.
89 109
R. E. Day, The Modern Invention of Information: Ibid.
110
Discourse, History and Power (Carbondale: Ibid.
111
Southern Illinois University Press, 2001), p. 35. Julio Cesar Arroyave, ‘Report on the Pilot Public
90 Library for Latin America, Medellin, December 17,
L. M. Morsch, ‘Promoting Library Interests
throughout the World’, ALA Bulletin, 51.8 1957’, UNESCO/CUA/84, p. 1, UNESCO online
(September 1957), 581. archives, Unesdoc <http://www.unesco.org/new/
91
See some of the concerns raised by E. A. L. en/unesco/resources/online-materials/publications/
Martinez, ‘University Library Schools’, in Develop- unesdoc-database/> [accessed 10 October 2013].
112
ment of Public Libraries in Latin America, pp. 115, Ibid.
113
120–21. Ibid., p. 2.
114
92
B. B. Bonet, ‘Other Library Schools’, in Develop- Horrocks, p. 7.
115
ment of Public Libraries in Latin America, p. 125. Ibid., p. 11.
116
93
UBL, 18.3 (May–June 1964), 101–02. Ibid., p. 10.
117
94
Ibid., p. 102. Ibid., pp. 18, 21.
118
95
UB, 19.3 (May–June 1965), 128. Ibid., p. 50.
119
96
S. H. Horrocks, The Regional Central Library at For a more detailed discussion of this, see A. Laug-
Enugu, Eastern Nigeria (Paris: UNESCO, 1961); esen, ‘“An Inalienable Right to Read”: UNESCO’s
Promotion of a Universal Culture of Reading and
UBL, 12.1 (January 1958), 21; UBL, 12.2–3 (Febru-
Public Libraries and its Involvement in Africa,
ary–March 1958), 95.
97 1948–1968’, English in Africa, 35.1 (May 2008),
A. Khurshid, ‘A Pilot Public Library Project in
67–88.
Pakistan’, Quarterly Journal of the Pakistan 120
Parker, pp. 184, 173. L. Asheim, Librarianship in
Library Association, 1.1 (July 1960), 22.
98 the Developing Countries (Urbana: University of
K. N. Elahi, ‘The Role of Libraries in West Paki-
Illinois Press, 1966), p. 72, similarly pointed to the
stan’, Quarterly Journal of the Pakistan Library
lack of success of the UNESCO pilot public librar-
Association, 1.2–3 (January 1961), 1, 4.
99 ies as demonstration models.
Dr M. Hasain, ‘Presidential Address’, Quarterly 121
J. Sabor, ‘Reconsideration of the Concept of
Journal of the Pakistan Library Association, 1.4
Library Functions in the Light of Economic, Social
(April 1961), 9.
100
and Cultural Development Planning, UNESCO
Ibid. Meeting of Experts on the National Planning of
101
Ibid., p. 11. Library Services in Latin America, Quito, Ecuador:
102
As argued by M. S. Page, ‘The Position of Public Paper Submitted in Advance of the Meeting,
Librarians in Latin America’, and A. Villalon, ‘The December 10, 1965’, UNESCO/LBA/Conf. 29/7,
Assessment of Library Staffs and of Candidates p. 1, UNESCO online archives, Unesdoc <http://
for Employment in Libraries’, in Development of www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/resources/online-
Public Libraries in Latin America, pp. 157, 159, materials/publications/unesdoc-database/> [accessed
160. 10 October 2013].
103
Public Libraries for Asia, p. 36. 122
Ibid., p. 5.
104
Gardner, ‘Founding a Public Library’, p. 495. 123
Ibid., p. 8.
105
F. M. Gardner, The Delhi Public Library: An 124
L. H. Evans, ‘UNESCO: Problems and Prospects’,
Evaluation Report (Paris: UNESCO, 1957), p. 13. ALA Bulletin, 52.9 (October 1958), 674.
106 125
Ibid., p. 88. Asheim, p. 30.
107 126
‘The Pilot Public Library, Medellin, Colombia, Ibid., p. 46.
August 11, 1955’, UNESCO/CUA/69, p. 1, UNESCO 127
Latham, Right Kind of Revolution, p. 165.
online archives, Unesdoc <http://www.unesco.org/ 128
IFLA/UNESCO Public Library Manifesto 1994
new/en/unesco/resources/online-materials/publications/ <http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s8/unesco/eng.htm>
unesdoc-database/> [accessed 10 October 2013]. [accessed 20 September 2011].

Notes on contributor
Dr Amanda Laugesen is currently a Director of the Australian National Dictionary
Centre, Research School of Humanities and the Arts. Her most recent book is
Boredom is the Enemy: The Intellectual and Imaginative Lives of Australian Soldiers
in the Great War and Beyond (2012). Her current research focuses on publishing and
library work in developing countries during the Cold War period.
Correspondence to: Dr Amanda Laugesen. Email: amanda.laugesen@anu.edu.au