History Mystery Monday: What were Hygienic Libraries?

You may have noticed a quirky sign above the entry to a little café near Newmarket Station in Flemington- Girdwood’s Hygienic Library. These days you can grab a takeaway coffee from the café, but in the past, you were able to borrow a very clean book or two! So, what were hygienic libraries, and how did they come about?


In the 1880s, the discovery that disease could be passed on by bacteria led to businesses adapting the way they operated, to reduce the spread of disease. Although there’s mention in newspapers of libraries sterilising their books from the late 1890s (such as this article in the Armidale Express and New England Advertiser in 1899), the practice didn’t become commonplace in Australia until the 1930s. Hygienic lending libraries began popping up, with many in the Moonee Valley area. These private subscription libraries, including one located inside Girdwood’s Newsagency and Stinton’s on Puckle Street in Moonee Ponds, started advertising that their books were wiped with formaldehyde or fumigated, to ensure their any trace of bacteria had been removed. This practice put the library customers at ease, knowing that they could enjoy their books without the worry of picking up something unwanted along with them. Stintons Hygienic Library in Moonee Ponds (renamed Mason’s in the 1960s) even ran a Hygienic Book Club!

Image from Moonee Valley Libraries Community Heritage collection


Eventually, the increase in funding to public libraries and the decrease of diseases such as polio, tuberculosis and the Spanish flu led to the decline of hygienic libraries. By the 1950s the practice of decontaminating returned library books had all but ceased.


Until recent times! Echoing hygienic libraries of yesteryear, libraries are now revisiting the practice of ensuring our books are extra squeaky clean, with quarantine rooms and antibacterial wipes very much a part of life in modern libraries today.

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