Library history

A historical overview of the development of public libraries in Belgium, from the "popular" libraries of the 19th century to the public library movement in the early 20th century, the Destrée law of 1921 and the decrees of 1978 and 2009, which designed the modern network of public libraries in the French-speaking part of Belgium.

Describes the background to the appointment of John Wallace Metcalfe to the Public Library of New South Wales, Sydney, in 1923 and his subsequent grooming for the position first of Deputy, then Principal Librarian at that Library by the incumbent, William Herbert Ifould.

This three-part series traces efforts to establish a system of free public libraries in New South Wales from the time of publication of the Munn-Pitt Report in 1935 to the passing of the New South Wales Library Act in 1939. The series delves beyond the published accounts of events and describes the actions and interactions of the interested parties - the senior librarians at the Public Library of New South Wales, the Free Library Movement, the Library Group, the Libraries Advisory Committee, New South Wales politicians, the media, local government bodies, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Australian Council for Educational Research. There are also insights into the public and private views of key individuals, including Ralph Munn, W. H. Ifould, D. H. Drummond, and G. C. Remington. The third part outlines the immediate effects of the Libraries Advisory Committee Report and the protracted negotiations between the Government, the Free Library Movement and local government interests to finalise library legislation. The impact of the outbreak of war on library developments is described, together with the eventual implementation of the New South Wales Library Act.

A historical overview of the development of public libraries in Belgium, from the "popular" libraries of the 19th century to the public library movement in the early 20th century, the Destrée law of 1921 and the decrees of 1978 and 2009, which designed the modern network of public libraries in the French-speaking part of Belgium.

For World Book Day, C18th Libraries Online looks at one of the most famous and influential novels of all time: The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, usually simply known as Don Quixote. This iconic book, seen as the first modern European novel, was written by Miguel de Cervantes, often called one of the greatest writers in the Spanish language and indeed in world literature. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, and quickly translated into English and other European languages. It is today one of the most translated books ever after the Bible. The book has given name to the English adjective quixotic, meaning ‘foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals.’ It depicts a Spanish nobleman who was such an ardent reader of chivalric romances that he became insane and went to search for adventure as a knight-errant, together with the farmer Sancho Panza, his ‘squire.’ In one of the most memorable parts of the book, Don Quixote attacked windmills, imagining them to be giants.

Einen Schwerpunkt des Jahresberichts 2017 der Erlanger Buchwissenschaft bilden vier Aufsätze zu den Sammlungen des Nürnberger Arztes und Naturforschers Christoph Jacob Trew (1695–1769), die im Besitz der Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen sind. Der einleitende Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über die Bestände, in deren Zentrum die medizinisch-naturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek, historische und zeitgenössische Briefschaften sowie botanische Illustrationen von hohem künstlerischen und materiellen Wert stehen. Die Trew-Sammlungen sind bisher nur einem kleinen Kreis von Spezialisten bekannt und nur punktuell erforscht. Die Beiträge berichten über neue und zukünftige Aktivitäten aus der Erlanger Buchwissenschaft und Kunstgeschichte.
Weitere Beiträge und Berichte zeigen die Fülle und thematische Bandbreite Erlanger buchwissenschaftlicher Forschungen. Daniel Bellingradt gibt einen Einblick in seine Publikation zu gelehrtenmagischen Handschriften. Axel Kuhn widmet sich der populären Lesekultur und ihrer Funktion in der modernen Gesellschaft. Günther Fetzer fragt nach Merkmalen des Buchtyps ›Taschenbuch‹. Peter Lutz stellt die Gesetzesnovelle zur Bildungs- und Wissenschaftsschranke des Urheberrechtsgesetzes vor.
Der formale Berichtsteil ab S. 105 stellt die Entwicklungen in Forschung, Lehre und Institut im Überblick dar.

Article in Dutch discussing the function, use and transmission of a magnificent medieval manuscript, the Psalter of Saint Louis (Leiden, UL, BPL 76a). Made in Northern England at the end of the 13th century, it quickly came in the possession of the French Royal family. An inscription states that it was used by the young Saint Louis to learn to read. Thereafter the precious manuscript was used by various young princes and princesses of the French Royal dynasty and thereafter of the Burgundian (Valois) dynasty. It is mentioned in a newly discovered early-16th-century booklist that might contain the books used for the education of Margaret of Parma, natural daughter of emperor Charles V.

Si Mazarin eut le goût de faire collection, le projet de fondation d’une bibliothèque publique est à mettre au crédit de Gabriel Naudé, entré à son service à la fin de l’année 1642. Encore fallait-il, au-delà de l’action du politique et du mécène, donner à ce projet sinon un statut, du moins un cadre juridique ou institutionnel susceptible de garantir ses solidité et longévité. En la matière la Fronde servit de catalyseur à la réflexion des deux hommes, puisqu’elle les amena à chercher les moyens de sécuriser la collection. La découverte d’un document inconnu nous donne l’occasion de jeter une lumière nouvelle sur les modèles et les voies juridiques de ce projet de fondation d’une bibliothèque publique, un projet voué à l’échec à très court terme - puisque la première bibliothèque parisienne de Mazarin est dispersée au début de l’année 1652 - mais dont l’établissement de la Bibliothèque Mazarine à partir de 1661 assura la réalisation.

Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags im Sammelband „Biographien des Buches“ steht ein Exemplar des "Herbarius latinus", ein pharmakologisches Handbuch, gedruckt und verlegt bei Peter Schöffer in Mainz 1484, das sich heute im Bestand der Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen befindet. Über sechs Stationen wird die Exemplargeschichte des Buchs entfaltet: von der Mainzer Offizin zum Pariser Verleger Henri II Etienne und als Geschenk Henris zum ungarischen Humanisten Johannes Sambucus, weiter nach Nürnberg in eine unbekannte Privatbibliothek und wenig später in die bedeutende Bibliothek in die Nürnberger Bibliothek des Arztes und Naturforschers Christoph Jacob Trew. Die Trew-Sammlungen gelangten  nach seinem Tod als Schenkung in die Universität Altdorf und und nach der Auflösung der Universität an ihren heutigen Aufbewahrungsort, die UB Erlangen. Diese letzte Station wurde kurzfristig  unterbrochen durch einen Ausflug des Exemplars, das von dem drogensüchtigen Erlanger Bibliothekar Mehringer gestohlen wurde, in den Münchner Antiquariatsbuchhandel die Bibliothek des Bibliophilen Otto Schäfer in Schweinfurt.

In der Raumsoziologie entstehen Kommunikationsräume auf der Grundlage der Wahrnehmung sozialer Güter von handelnden Akteuren in räumlichen Anordnungen. Damit ist der Rahmen für mögliche Strategien benannt, denen der Herbarius und sein kommunikatives Angebot zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten und an wechselnden Orten ausgesetzt ist. Das Schriftmedium ‚Buch‘ wird als Artefakt und Gegenstand symbolisch-kommunikativer Handlungen, von Praktiken und Bedeutungs-zuschreibungen, in den Blick genommen. Der Beitrag hat zwei Ziele: erstens zu zeigen, wie Methoden der historischen Buchforschung zur Rekonstruktion der Bewegungen eines Buchexemplars in Raum und Zeit genutzt werden können, und zweitens, das Medium Buch in den Kontext neuerer Diskussionen um das Konzept der Objektbiographie und der Materiellen Kultur zu stellen.

Slides for a exhibit opening talk for the U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign talk. The exhibit called "The good, the bad and the ugly: conservation treatment and decision making through the ages". The exhibit ran from September 27, 2019 to December 20, 2019 at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University Library, 1408 W. Gregory Drive.

Este atlas contiene la historia de la producción del libro y de las bibliotecas desde sus orígenes, desde la Antigüedad, con la invención de la escritura, hasta el siglo XIX, momento en que se produce la transformación de la producción en industrial, y se generaliza la lectura y la difusión del texto escrito. Se describen los objetos y los materiales que servirán de soporte para los libros, así como las técnicas para su elaboración a lo largo de la historia.
Los mapas y las ilustraciones de los materiales y de los productos resultantes de la evolución del libro son las claves, junto con un texto claro y conciso, de este atlas. Como compendio y síntesis de la historia del libro, pero además por los datos específicos que se aportan, textuales e ilustrativos, va dirigido tanto a especialistas como a estudiantes de diversas disciplinas, como la historia, la filología, la biblioteconomía, la documentación o el arte, así como a cualquier persona que sienta curiosidad por la cultura escrita.

تقدّم هذه المقالة نظرات في مفهوم الـ(كتاب) في العصور الوسطى بين القرنين (5هـ/11م – بداية 10هـ/16م). فهي تناقش، استناداً إلى فهرس لمكتبة دمشقية تعود إلى القرن السابع الهجري/ القرن
الثالث عشر الميلادي، الكيفية التي واجه فيها المعاصرون آنذاك، التحدي المتمثّل بتحديد ما هو المقصود بالكتاب. ويقودنا التركيز على القسم المتعلّق بالمخطوطات المركبّة (أيْ: المجاميع) إلى مسألة أن صاحب هذا الفهرس التوثيقي قد استخدم تعريفين للكتاب لا يمكن التوفيق بينهما البتّة: الكتاب بوصفه وحدة نصيّة قائمة بذاتها (متّخذاً من العنوان معياراً رئيساً)، والكتاب وفقاً لشكله المادي. وتوضّح عمليات الفهرسة التي التجأ إليها هذا الكاتب، الطبيعة الفضفاضة لما كان يعرف بالـ(كتاب) في المرحلة الزمنية الوسيطة، التي تنحصر بين حقبة التكوين الإسلامي (القرون: من الأوّل إلى الرابع للهجرة/ السابع إلى  العاشر للميلاد) والعصور الحديثة.

William Herbert Ifould (1877-1969) was Principal Librarian of the Public Library of New South Wales from 1912 to 1942, spanning critical years for library services in Australia, including the two Wars, the Great Depression, the Munn-Pitt Report, the campaign of the Free Library Movement and the passing of the New South Wales Library Act.  He has however been neglected by scholars of this period of Australian library history.  This study examines Ifould's activities during these years, and assesses his significance for the Public Library of New South Wales, for free public libraries and for the library profession in Australia.  The study involved the examination of primary and secondary materials by and about Ifould in libraries, archives and private hands, and works on his Library and Australian librarianship of the period.  There were interviews and correspondence with people who knew him, including former members of his staff, friends, neighbours, contemporaries in other libraries, members of his family, former users of the Library, and the sole surviving Library Trustee from the Ifould era.  The study describes how Ifould achieved status as a public figure, a public servant and a professional librarian, and helped to create a hospitable climate for library development.  It shows the lengths to which he went to achieve his objectives, including the completion of the Library building, the securing of benefactions, the development of the Library's collections, the containment of costs and the selection of staff.  It provides the first detailed accounts of the Libraries Advisory Committee, which Ifould chaired, the passing of the Library Act and the formation of the Library Board of New South Wales.  It also reveals the extent to which his successor, John Metcalfe, was indebted to him.  The study concludes that Ifould's role throughout the period was highly significant, and that he played a critical role in laying the foundation for free public library services in New South Wales.

This book is part of a four volume box published at the occasion of the Erasmus Prize 2008, won by Ian Buruma.
It contains reproductions of all the 90 illustrated folios of one of the most beautiful and well known manuscripts of Marco Polo’s "Book on the Miracles of the World" (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, français 2810) and detailed explanatory descriptions on these miniatures, as well as information on the historical background. The book also contains a 45 page introduction on Marco Polo, his book, and travelling in the Middle Ages.

Marco Polo’s Boek over de wonderen van de wereld. Toelichtingen bij de miniaturen, de tekst en de historische achtergronden aan de hand van 86 folio’s van het handschrift van het Livre des merveilles van Marco Polo bewaard in de Bibliothèque nationale de France te Parijs (manuscrit français 2810) door Jan de Klerk en Hanno Wijsman, met een inleiding en een nawoord over het handschrift en de historische context door Hanno Wijsman,
’s-Hertogenbosch (Stichting Erasmusfestival) & Louvain (Peeters), 2008.
243 pages; 100 colour illustrations

From the end of the Second World War to the mid-1980s, many changes occurred in Ontario’s public libraries. Annual statistics reported dramatic expansion. Improved economic conditions, advances in technology, new buildings, revised legislation, and changing public attitudes reshaped this social agency. Within the library profession, specialized skills and ideas about the management of services also developed rapidly.

However, throughout this important transitional period there was a fundamental continuity in the thinking and practice of public library government. Within the library community and at Queen’s Park there was a consensus favouring local special purpose bodies because it was generally felt that appointed boards best fulfilled community needs and provided a satisfactory basis for public acceptance of political authority.

The study of medieval book collections has many aspects and involves some fundamental questions that are not always easy to answer. What is a library? What does it mean to own a library? How is it used? By whom is it used? And what does the analysis of a library tell us about other aspects of its owner’s life? In this article, while remaining within the field of princely and noble libraries and more specifically the books of the Valois dukes of Burgundy, I will touch on some of these general questions, though I make no pretence to treat them thoroughly.
In the later Middle Ages the book collections of monasteries and university colleges such as the Sorbonne grew into real libraries in the sense that the books were kept in a special room, arranged in a logical order, each with its own marked place on a shelf to which it was often chained, and, last but not least, they were available to a public, even if that public was a restricted one. Can the same development be discerned in the book collections of nobles and princes in France and the Low Countries?

In dit artikel worden vragen met betrekking tot de functie en het gebruik van laatmiddeleeuwse boekencollecties behandeld aan de hand van het voorbeeld van de bibliotheek van de hertogen van Bourgondië. Met name de boeken van Filips de Goede (1396-1467) en Filips de Schone (1478-1506) worden nader bekeken. De eerste breidde de bibliotheek uit van 300 tot bijna 900 handschriften, waardoor de collectie een van de grootste van Europa werd. De tweede verwierf weinig nieuwe boeken, maar dankzij verschillende bronnen (met name inventarissen en rekeningen) kunnen we reconstrueren voor welke boeken uit de door hem geërfde bibliotheek hij zich vooral interesseerde, namelijk Franse vertalingen van klassieke teksten in handschriften uit de late veertiende eeuw. Beide vorsten lieten zich op die manier inspireren door de wortels van hun dynastie, het hof van koning Karel V van Frankrijk. In de loop van de vijftiende eeuw zien we de persoonlijke boekencollecties van vorsten en vorstinnen zich langzaam ontwikkelen tot een dynastieke bibliotheek die door leden van de dynastie en andere hovelingen werd gebruikt.

In: Das deutsche und italienische Bibliothekswesen im Nationalsozialismus und Faschismus: Versuch einer vergleichenden Bilanz, herausgegeben von Klaus Kempf und Sven Kuttner.  Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013 (Beiträge zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen; 57), p. 67-107.

Authored by Hanno Wijsman and published in : Renaud Adam & Alain Marchandisse (eds.), Le livre au fil de ses pages. Actes de la 14e journée d’études du Réseau des Médiévistes belges de Langue française, Université de Liège, 18 novembre 2005 (Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique – Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen in België. Numéro spécial – Extranummer, 87),Brussels 2009, p. 119-150

Article in French that presents a reconstruction of the library of Louis of Luxembourg (Louis de Luxemburg; Lodewijk van Luxemburg; 1418-1475), count of St. Pol. 24 manuscripts can be linked to him, as well as more than a dozen luxury manuscripts and several dozens of plain manuscripts thet we do not know precisely about.
In 1467 Jean Miélot who had been working as an author and scibe for Philip the Good for about two decades, entered the service of Louis of Luxemburg. We can assume that thus after the death of the author in the early 1470s several manuscripts (drafts and other books that the author kept with him) passed into the Luxemburg library.
Louis de Luxemburg tempted to be at the political, social, and cultural level of princes. He succeeded in this for a while, but was, in the end, crushed between Charles the Bold and Louis XI. He was beheaded in 1475 and his library was dispersed.

Library of the Jesuit college in Lviv and its fate after the dissolution of the Society of Jesus

The Library of the Jesuit college in Lviv is known as the biggest and best-equipped library in the city. It was founded at the beginning of the XVII century and after one hundred years, there were approximately 12 000 books. But there was a huge loss of books after a great fire in 1734. After that Jesuit restored their book collection. Historiography says that there were approximately 10 000 books in the library at the time of the dissolution of the Society of Jesus.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to verify information about 10 000 books because historians still cannot find an old catalogue of the library. In the article, the author analyzes manuscript III 12719 from the National Library in Warsaw. The author proves that this manuscript is the catalogue of the library of the Jesuit college in Lviv. This catalogue was created in 1774, after the dissolution of the Jesuits. Its author was a former Jesuit monk, Stanisław Chmielowski, who was assigned by Austrian authority to create catalogues of the libraries of the abolished Jesuits colleges. According to this catalogue, the Jesuit library consisted not of 10 000 books, but 5000. It corresponds to the information from Ludwik Grzebień, the author of the best research about the Jesuit libraries in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
After the 1713 Jesuit library in Lviv was still functioning. Due to the order of Vienna’s authority, the Jesuit library was turned into a public library. It was the first public library in the city. At the same time, the library arranged an educational process in schools in the city. As stated by inscriptions in the catalogue, teachers, clergy and civil servants were the readers of the library. In 1784 the former Jesuit library became a part of the Lviv University Library.

Article in French that relates of our discovery of a prayer book of Agnes of Burgundy (c.1405-1476), sister of Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, and wife of Charles I of Bourbon (1401-1456), duke of Bourbon. After the death of her husband, Agnes sojourned for several years in the Southern Netherlands, between 1462 and 1465. It is exactly in these years that we can date this manuscript, illuminated with 12 Flemish miniatures executed in grisaille technique. Moreover, two prayers in the book correspond to specific prayers in the Book of hours of Philip the Good and the calendar was copied after the calendar of the "Hours of Philip the Bold", adapted for and used by Philip the Good. The script is attributed to David Aubert, who in the same years was writing numerous manuscripts for Philip the Good. Thus Agnes's manuscript was intimately linked to her brother. It might have been a gift by him to her.
The Prayer book of Agnes of Burgundy is part of a small but very interesting group of devotional manuscripts written in a bastarda that was usually reserved for larger manuscripts containing vernacular texts.

Enrico Pio Ardolino, Le biblioteche delle corti italiane tra Medioevo e Rinascimento: una prospettiva storiografica, in La Grande Galleria: spazio del sapere e rappresentazione del mondo nell'età di Carlo Emanuele I di Savoia, a cura di Franca Varallo e Maurizio Vivarelli, Roma, Carocci, 2019, pp. 101-128.

Article in French that starts off reconstructing a lost manuscript from the library of the Burgundian Dukes, mentioned in the inventory of 1469. This manuscript had not been identified before and is now split into three separate manuscripts (this probably happened in the late 18th century). The three parts contain a version of the "Danse macabre", a short rimed chronicle and some Latin and French poetry. The reconstruction allows to pin down the ensemble to Paris in the 1420s, which makes this version of the "Danse macabre" one of the oldest (maybe the oldest) witness of the text, very close to the coming about of the famous wall paintings in the “Cimetière des Saints Innocents” (1424-1425).

At the closing off of this paper I had only firmly identified two parts of the manuscript. The identification of the third part is published in my book "Luxury Bound" (2010; p. 220) and I will more fully develop the reconstruction and its consequences in a forthcoming article.

Libraries, from past to present, have played a vital role in the process of developing, preserving and passing down culture by providing the information that the society, in which they have a place, have needed. Libraries, at the same time, are the institutions which are a part of the society and reflect the features of the society. With these aspects, libraries have an important position in the lives of societies and states both historically and culturally. In this study, libraries established in the Ottoman Empire from its foundation to collapse have been handled within a historical scope in general terms. In addition, in this study, both the effects of Ottoman library tradition upon political, social and cultural lives and the effects of the changes in the political, social and cultural lives in the Ottoman Empire on the libraries have been analyzed. Within the scope of the study, a general evaluation has been held in the area of library types ranging from the Waqf Libraries to Turkish Hearths Libraries established in Ottoman Empire.

"A new and analytical codicological and paleographic description of the Pandette
confirms the 6th century and Constantinople as time and place of execution
of this famous manuscript. This codicological analysis of the Pandette is presented here for the first time illustrating, for example, the positions of the prickings, the various types of ruling, and the particular ornament present in the manuscript.
The history of the Pandette has been enriched with unpublished documents
from the Laurentian Library’s historical Archives, Florence state Archives and
other Florentine libraries. These new documents, edited here in the ‘Appendix’,
give many details on the manuscript, e.g. the year in which it entered the Laurentian Library (1786), and provide an objective reconstruction of the manuscript’s life. Moreover during the study of the codex its unused and little known bindings have been examined and are described completely."

The written text was a pervasive feature of cultural practices in the medieval Middle East. At the heart of book circulation stood libraries that experienced a rapid expansion from the twelfth century onwards. While the existence of these libraries is well known, our knowledge of their content and structure has been very limited as hardly any medieval Arabic catalogues have been preserved. This book discusses the largest and earliest medieval library of the Middle East for which we have documentation – the Ashrafiya library in the very centre of Damascus – and edits its catalogue. The catalogue shows that even book collections attached to Sunni religious institutions could hold very diverse titles, including Mutazilite theology, Shiite prayers, medical handbooks, manuals for traders, stories from the 1001 Nights, and texts extolling wine consumption. At the same time this library catalogue decisively expands our knowledge of how books were thematically and spatially organised on the shelves of such a large medieval library.
Listing over two thousand books the Ashrafiya catalogue is essential reading for anybody interested in the cultural and intellectual history of Arabic societies. Setting it into a comparative perspective with contemporaneous libraries on the British Isles opens new perspectives for the study of medieval libraries.