Despite the existence of these subscription libraries, they were only accessible to those who could afford the fees and to those with time to read during the daylight. As stated by James Van Horn Melton, “one should not overstate the extent to which lending libraries ‘democratized’ reading” since “they were probably less important for creating new readers than for enabling those who already read to read more." For many people, these libraries, though more accessible than libraries such as the British Library, were still largely an institution for the middle and upper-classes.