They are places for gathering, for contemplation and joy, discovery, leisure and wonderment. They are places of authority, disquiet, curiosity and serenity, dissent, reform and battle. They are also amongst the few remaining truly public buildings, in a world where urban spaces feel highly privatised or secularised, and where most establishments only welcome you in if you’re willing to buy something. The library is a space which doesn’t impose any expectations on you or your wallet and, in that sense, it feels like the purest form of public benefit, which is almost revolutionary in the contemporary epoch.

When Amazon recommends a book to you based on an algorithm, it is motivated to do so not by care or interest in you but by a desire to sell it to you. Naturally, we are dazzled by its predictive power. But it doesn’t resonate in the way in which powerful advice and encouragement can be given by a caring and interested person exercising full command of their knowledge and authority. Care and interest are the domain of librarians, and my observations and experiences have been that the impact is limitless.