Memoirs of Libraries
Including a Handbook of Library Economy

This history of libraries is particularly important as a pioneering work on all aspects of public library management and organisation.

Edward Edwards (Author)

9781108010559, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 May 2010

720 pages, 2 b/w illus.
22.9 x 3.7 x 15.2 cm, 0.95 kg

This monumental work, first published in 1859, covers the history of libraries from classical times to the mid-nineteenth century, in Britain, Europe and America. The author was influential in founding municipal libraries in nineteenth-century Britain and regarded access to good libraries as crucial to education and civilisation. Volume 1, divided by the author into five 'books', is reissued here in two parts. The first two books deal with classical and medieval libraries, examining English and European monastic libraries in depth. Book 3 describes the core collections of the British Museum and other major university, ecclesiastical and public libraries of Britain and Ireland. Book 4 discusses the principal libraries of America and Book 5 those of continental Europe, from France to Hungary and Russia. The final volume (in four 'books') sets out Edwards' views on all aspects of library management, from physical layout and classification to rules and regulations.

Part I. History of Libraries (continued): Book III (continued): 15. The older libraries of English towns, and their management by municipal corporations
16. The parochial and quasi-parochial libraries of England
17. The history of the Public Libraries Acts of 1850 and 1855
18. The working of the Public Libraries Acts of 1850 and 1855
Appendix. Book 3: 19. The libraries of the Faculty of Advocates, and of the Writers to the Signet, at Edinburgh
20. The university and town libraries of Scotland
21. The library of Trinity College, Dublin, and some of the other Irish libraries
22. The minor libraries of London
23. British private libraries which have been dispersed
24. Notices of some existing British private libraries
Book IV. The Libraries of the United States of America: 1. The collegiate libraries of the United States
2. The proprietary and subscription libraries of the United States
3. The Congressional and state libraries of the United States
4. The town libraries of the United States
5. The Smithsonian Institution at Washington
6. The public school and district libraries of the United States
Book V. The Modern Libraries of Continental Europe
1. The imperial library of France
2. The minor libraries of Paris
3. The provincial libraries of France
4. The libraries of Italy
5. The royal and metropolitan libraries of Germany
6. The town libraries of Germany
7. The university libraries of Germany, Moravia, and Gallicia
8. The libraries of Holland, Switzerland and Belgium
9. The libraries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway
10. The libraries of Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Russia
11. The libraries of Spain and Portugal
12. Past, present, and future.

Subject Areas: Publishing industry & book trade [KNTP]