circulating library

Among its innovations, the store established a circulating library for travelers wintering in Pasadena’s grand resort hotels, who often preferred to rent a book rather than lug it home.

Lee’s essay reminds me of my time renting books from a circulating library in Mahim, a Mumbai suburb, in the 1960s.

In the past, books were more often borrowed than bought, even among middle-class Victorians, who would pay to join for-profit circulating libraries so that they could rent books and get rid of them after reading.

The stacks, which were to have been demolished to make way for the Foster-designed circulating library, have been mostly empty since 2013, to the dismay of some scholars and preservationists.

Mid-Manhattan has 1.4 million visitors a year, half of whom come from outside Manhattan, Mr. Marx said, making it “the city’s central circulating library.”