The WABAC machine, episode 1
This shift in focus from book to reader brought the agency into the lives of people; from being a collection at a distance, catering to bookish individuals, it became a source of stimulation and guidance for a wider segment. A visit to the library was not a trip to a dull enclave with solemn rows of books. [...] Visitors realized that they had come upon some kind of intellectual crossroads, a stimulating markeplace of information, ideas and expression.
Lowell A. Martin, describing an age of innovation in American public libraries during the 1920s, in Enrichment: A History of the Public Library in the United States in the Twentieth Century. (Lanham, M.D.: Scarecrow Press, 1998), 48.
