Newcastle's arching Tyne Bridge, Liverpool's modernist Philharmonic Hall and the classical rotunda of Manchester's central library, which held 300 readers in what was then the country's biggest reading room outside the British Library in London, were all products of the civic and, in some cases, philanthropic determination of local leaders.

ECONOMIST: Depression architecture

Founded in 1898, the firm, with its famous Readers Guide to Periodical Literature and other high-quality library indexes, long occupied a comfortable niche: collecting, analyzing and cross-referencing published works.

FORBES: Mousetrapped

The library might subsidize the purchase of the e-books from the publisher and make them available at no cost to certain readers, said Coates.

FORBES: Bilbary E-Books Set To Reconnect Publishers With Libraries