Libraries Within the Library

by Mandelbrote, Giles

• ISBN13: 9780712350358
• ISBN10: 0712350357
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-02-28
• Publisher: British Library Board

Summary

The earliest libraries belonged to temples and administrative bodies, resembled our modern archives, and were usually restricted to the aristocracy, nobility, theologians, and for the use of scholars. Dispersed along the shelves of the British Library today are many volumes that once stood side by side in these private libraries, products of the fervor for collecting and conserving new ideas put forth by great thinkers of the day during the medieval period and the Renaissance in Europe. The essays collected in this volume explore some of the most important printed collections that were brought together in order to form the modern British Museum Library in 1753, casting new light on the individuals who originally assembled them and making use of important new primary source material sure to interest scholars of the history of collecting, antiquarian book dealers, and academic librarians alike.

Author Biography

Giles Mandelbrote is curator of British Collections, 1501–1800 at the British Library and joint editor of The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, Volume II: 1640–1850. Barry Taylor is curator of Hispanic Printed Collections, 1501–1850 at the British Library and editor of the Electronic British Library Journal.