The history of libraries
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The history of libraries
Thoemmes , Kinokuniya
- : set
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This title is part of the "Nico Editions" imprint, which re-publishes works relating to the history of the book. Each series of works provides sub-series of books on specific subject areas, published in groups of six to 12 volumes. Additionally, there are one-off projects of multi-volume works, as well as collections of articles on themed topics extracted from journals and similar sources. Works are selected from all major languages and make available scholarly and rare works on all aspects of the history of the book from the dawn of printing to the 20th century. Most of the great national libraries of the Western world were founded in the 17th and 18th centuries, but libraries had existed not only pre-printing in medieval times, but as far back as the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia and Greece. The early collections were by nature purely of a religious and political content. A greater output of secular writings diversified the nature of collections and by 39 BC, Rome had its first, but short-lived, public library.
In the Middle Ages, libraries were largely monastic, episcopal and academic; and it is only in the Renaissance, with the invention of printing, that libraries became a focus for princes, nobles, merchants and scholars. This series assembles primary source materials on the history of public, private and circulating libraries, as well as their design and their users. Later collections will also include catalogues of famous collectors. This eight-volume collection focuses primarily on the formation of the great libraries of England, and also encompasses state and royal collections, as well as other private collectors and collections. The arrangement and equipment of libraries is described in the book of John Clark; the making, use, and circulation of books as a literary culture during the Middle Ages is told by Ernest Savage who gives insights into the relationship of books with monks, monasteries, cathedral and church libraries. It has chapters on the libraries ar Oxford and Cambridge, but these two centres are treated separately in the works of Macray and Sayle.
The British Library, orginally part of the British Museum, is given full treatment by the library historian Edward Edwards. His compaion volume, "Libraries and Founders of Libraries", covers other libraries and collections both ancient and modern. The oldest work in the collection is the two-volume "Repertorium" which has bibliographical and historical descriptions of the contents of public and private libraries and those sold by auction.
Table of Contents
- "Repertorium Bibliographicum - or Some Account of the Most Celebrated British Libraries", William Clarke, 1819, 2 vols, 360/416pp
- "The Care of Books - An Essay on the Development of Libraries and their Fittings, from the Earliest Times to the End of the 18th Century", John Willis Clark, 1902, 456pp
- "Old English Libraries, the Making, Collection, and Use of Books during the Middle Ages", Ernest Albert Savage, 1911, 392pp
- "Libraries and Founders of Libraries", Edward Edwards, 1865, 528pp
- "Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, with Notices of its Chief Augmentors and Other Benefactors, 1570-1870", 1870, 800pp
- "Annals of the Bodleian Library", William Dunn Macray, 1890, 568pp
- "Annals of Cambridge University Library 1278-1900", Charles Sayle, 1916
- 168pp.
by "Nielsen BookData"
