The Circulating Library in Melbourne: its place in the book-trade and its influence on readers.

Circulating libraries were small businesses that loaned books for a fee. The majority of the public had little access to affordable books, so the circulating libraries—although few in number in the nineteenth century—began to increase considerably from the 1920s when genre fiction became increasingly popular. Their number peaked in 1940 with over four hundred libraires in operation that loaned more than ten million books each year. This thesis examines the locations and operations of the circulating libraries throughout Melbourne, until the mid-1960s, when the rate supported council libraries provided free loans and assisted in the demise of the commercial library.