ࡱ> +-*] "bjbjzpzp * b b"     2NPPPPPP$|tt NN@M :03433 tt 3 B b: Name: Clare Gill Affiliation: School of English, Queens University Belfast Paper Title: Taking out the Trash: Belfasts Free Public and the fin de sicle Doctrine of Improvement. As a direct response to the rise and unequivocal predominance of the novel in the fin-de-sicle literary marketplace, alarmist, hyperbolic and often emotional articulations on the effects of pernicious literature were regularly enunciated across a variety of platforms throughout the late-Victorian period. The potential contaminating effects of popular fiction were widely felt at this time, and alongside the increasingly voiced notion that reading required urgent policing, cynical critics of popular reading habits also began to underscore the necessity for the provision of practical guidance for the working classes in the selection of appropriately chosen reading materials. Free public libraries, long since criticised for being the preserve of trashy novels, magazines and vagrants, came under great pressure throughout the period to be seen to be marshalling their readers towards more nourishing literary fare and away from the most recent Marie Corelli novel or the latest issue of Titbits. This paper will examine the response of one public library, Belfasts Central , to these wider debates about popular fiction, education and self-improvement. Belfasts Central was founded in 1888 under the direction of its first chief librarian, George Hall Elliott, a devoted Unitarian with a fervent belief in the educative and redemptive function of literature. This paper will draw upon a diversity of archival materials including library records, annual reports, correspondence, pamphlets and unpublished black lists of immoral books, in order to outline the various attempts made by the library to encourage self-improvement through judicious, systematic reading practices. The material and symbolic construction of texts in the late nineteenth-century world of books was determined by an intricate network of publishers, printers, newspaper editors, influential reviewers and readers; this paper will go some way to illuminating the significant nature of the roles performed by libraries and librarians in the selection, circulation and policing of reading practices in one free public library at the fin de sicle. LY  j k  !"hWhW6OJQJaJhWhWOJQJaJhWhW6OJQJhWhWOJQJhWhW5OJQJLj k ef!"dhgdWgdW(/ =!"#$% s2&6FVfv2(&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv&6FVfv8XV~ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@ 0@_HmH nH sH tH <`< NormalCJ_HmH sH tH DA D Default Paragraph FontZiZ  Table Normal :V 4 l4a _H(k (No List PK![Content_Types].xmlN0EH-J@%ǎǢ|ș$زULTB l,3;rØJB+$G]7O٭Vc:E3v@P~Ds |w< " " " $ $ 1Y! $ $ WaW" $ @" @UnknownG*Ax Times New Roman5Symbol3. *Cx Arial9GaramondACambria Math hKg'Kg'eۆ\\ r4  2qP 80!xx Taking out the trash:O'Toole Linda.MoloneyOh+'0  4 @ L Xdlt|Taking out the trash:O'TooleNormalLinda.Moloney2Microsoft Office Word@@c@?@?\՜.+,0 hp    Taking out the trash: Title  !#$%&'(),Root Entry F.1Table 3WordDocument*SummaryInformation(DocumentSummaryInformation8"CompObjr  F Microsoft Word 97-2003 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.89q