Anne Louise Avery has written a brief history of the Boots' lending library, which got me started on a wiki-wander. Stories about England are always interesting because they point out subtle differences between our two countries. Boots is pharmacy chain in the UK. I imagine it is similar to Walgreens or Rite-Aid in the USA. From Ms Avery's story it appears that public libraries in England got a much later start than they did in the USA. Of course, we had Andrew Carnegie and they didn't.
She starts by mentioning a scene from the movie Brief Encounter from 1945. YouTube has the whole movie. Here is the scene:
Brief Encounter - David Lean (Legendado) - 1945 [HD]
In this scene, Laura picks up the latest novel by Kate O'Brien, who was a real writer:
Sisters Nancy & Kate O'Brien |
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto no.2 op.18 - Anna Fedorova - Complete Live Concert - HD
I'll have to listen to this sometime.
Update, a couple of hours later. Realized I hadn't looked up the prime instigator - Florence Boot, so I did.
Jesse and Florence Boot |
Via reddit
Walgreens and Boots have exactly the same ownership: a holding company called Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA)
ReplyDeleteThe first free lending library in England opened in 1852, by the Corporation of Manchester for the public benefit and education. Boots' libraries were subscription only - you paid an annual fee to borrow books - and they operated on a small, local scale.
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