This paper has two major objectives: to present findings on how educational libraries in both Great Britain and Ireland acted as facilitators for the promotion of both literacy and popular education of the new social classes in the 19th century, and how they enhanced self studies and motivated for further reading, both scientific literature, newspapers and fiction. The library as a cultural context to promote cultural change for the young workers, of both gender, constitutes the frame of the presentation. There are at least two main ways of defining culture, as normative or as descriptive. In this paper the normative view will be used as the point of departure, considering the book collection and other material in the library as well as the physical room and its facilities as the cultural context for the students. This context will be evaluated as a facilitator for cultural change and analyzed according to Enlightenment ideals. Furthermore, the development of the industrialized states and requirements in the societies will be considered. In an educational setting the library constitutes a difference from the classroom. It presents a multiplicity of texts and social activities. To analyze and discuss how the library constitutes a context for promoting literacy as well as popular education, another point of departure will also be taken. This is drawn from Deleuze’s philosophy and some of his main concepts, becoming, difference/multiplicity and the metaphor rhizomes will be employed. Difference is about being heterogeneous and in a process of becoming in relation to space, time and accident, Deleuze claims. The educational library has today this multiplicity and is in itself like the rhizomes by its many spaces to work, making unnoticeable transitions of actions and activities, and a material difference for everyone. These concepts will here be implemented on libraries belonging to a different century. In this study the educational libraries are limited to libraries in the Mechanics’ Institutes, institutes founded in the 1820s and later to serve young adults of the new and industrialized working class. The library was in many ways appreciated as the nave in these institutions. The research has been carried out on two libraries, in Glasgow, Scotland, and in Cork, Ireland. The institutions were, however, not limited to these two countries, but spread from Scotland to England and European countries like France, Germany and some of the Scandinavian countries, as well as to the United States, Canada and Australia.

The paper is based on qualitative data from document studies, mainly primary sources from two different archives: 1. The University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Special Collection 2. Cork County References and Local Studies Departement Secondary sources comprise both texts on Mechanics’ Institutes in Great Britain and Ireland and studies of the Enlightenment and the social, economic and cultural changes in 19th century Great Britain and Ireland.

The findings so far suggest that the libraries meant a difference for the students in both institutions: for their self studies and for their further reading. But during time the libraries changed the content of the book collection due to interaction with the patrons.