Trinity College Library. The First 150 Years
The Sandars Lectures 1978–9

Gaskell investigates the early history of Trinity College Library and traces its development into the greatest of college libraries.

Philip Gaskell (Author)

9781108015936, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 31 October 2010

300 pages, 37 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

Philip Gaskell (1926–2001) acknowledges in his Preface that 'one period in the history of one college library may not seem much of a subject for a book', but, as his 1980 study shows, Trinity College Library has a history well worth investigating. Gaskell, a former Librarian and Fellow of Trinity College, details how this library grew from small beginnings in the mid-sixteenth century into arguably the greatest of all Oxford and Cambridge college libraries. He links the growth of the library to the intellectual life of the college at that time, outlining the achievements of a number of eminent Trinity men in advancing England's spiritual, intellectual and scientific development: Cartwright, Whitgift, Coke, Bacon, Essex, George Herbert, Ray, Barrow and Newton. This is a fascinating insight into the early history and accumulation of a college library now outstandingly rich both in contents and in setting.

1. College libraries in the sixteenth century
2. The libraries of Michaelhouse and the King's Hall
3. The establishment of Trinity College Library
4. The need for books at Trinity in the sixteenth century
5. The college library in the mid-sixteenth century
6. The college library in 1600
7. The development of the collection up to 1600
8. Private libraries
9. The new library
10. Stanhope's librarianship
11. Collections of manuscripts
12. The growth of the working collections, 1601–1640
13. The arrangement of the books, 1601–1640
14. Administration and reorganisation, 1641–1674
15. The book stock, 1667–1695
16. The last years of the new library
Appendices
Index.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]