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7 - Endowed libraries for towns

from PART ONE - THE EXPANSION OF BOOK COLLECTIONS 1640–1750

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Michael Powell
Edited by
Giles Mandelbrote  and
K. A. Manley
Giles Mandelbrote
Affiliation:
British Library, London
K. A. Manley
Affiliation:
University of London
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Summary

The libraries described in this chapter are diverse: they include libraries that were established and managed by municipal authorities; libraries that were freely accessible to the public but which were privately funded and managed; libraries that were privately founded and which remained privately managed; libraries that were established by the municipal authorities but which were organised on a subscription basis; and libraries that were run by municipal authorities for the benefit of only a handful of citizens within that municipality. Traditionally these libraries were simply described as ‘public’ in the sense of libraries for the use of the public (irrespective of finance) but, as Paul Kaufman pointed out many years ago, few terms in library history have been so loosely used. In this chapter we follow Kaufman’s definition of ‘public’ to mean those institutions which were supported by some secular body for the use of any responsible person. We therefore exclude libraries that were maintained under predominantly ecclesiastical control, as well as libraries that were housed in schools for the use of the institution but also open to inhabitants of the town. We thus omit a number of libraries that either saw themselves, or were seen by contemporaries, as accessible to the public without cost.

By this definition, public libraries in this period number no more than a couple of dozen in total and fall into two main categories: libraries that were either established or managed by municipal authorities, and libraries that were privately endowed and managed by a body of trustees. Of the first group, pride of place goes to Norwich, founded in 1608 by the Norwich Municipal Assembly, transformed into a subscription library for members in 1656 and turned into a lending library in 1716.

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The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland , pp. 83 - 101
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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