[Buddha-l] A candid question

[Stephen Hodge]

Franz Metcalf wrote:

> The public library is one of America's two or three greatest (or is it 
> only?) gifts to the world.

Implying that public libraries originated in the British North American 
colony ?  This is debatable -- depends how one defines "public".  There was 
a library open to the learned public as far back as the C15th in England. 
Wiipedia has some useful dates.  But the public library phenomenon seems to 
have caught on by the mid-18th century in many places simulateously.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge