Most "free" or public libraries operated for a long time as closed systems; if you wanted a book, you asked the librarian, who would then fetch it for you and issue it to you under rules that feel impossibly strict to today's library user. One book at a time only; wash your hands before reading; do not read too close to the fireplace; blacklisted from library access if you commit the cardinal sin of lending a library book to a friend! Multiple complicated methods of keeping

What with pub culture being so prevalent in Britain, it’s easy to forget that the Temperance movement – think teetotallers, abstention,...