EDWARDIAN photographs often suggest a more tranquil era, partly because some were carefully posed, as in this view of the reading room in Keighley Public Library.
A marble bust of donor Andrew Carnegie, presented by his friend Sir Swire Smith, kept a watchful eye on its habitués.
The scale of this department reflected a time when people got their news and opinions from papers and periodicals.
Opened in 1904, Keighley Public Library took 20 daily and 16 weekly newspapers, 64 weekly magazines, 63 monthlies and two quarterlies, proving so well patronised that it was often difficult to find a vacant chair.
A Keighley News correspondent signing himself ‘a ratepayer of 23 years’ standing’ deplored a “regular practice” of people “standing over you at the Free Library, reading the paper which you are perusing”.
Another source of “friction” persisted until 1928, when betting news was blanked out of the papers.
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