The second problem is getting the balance between secure storage and access. There are tales of scholars making long journeys to consult a library, only to find that they could not find the librarian to let them in. Bodley had a new approach, setting up an endowment to fund the future, imposing a no-borrowing rule to stop books going astray, open six hours a day rather than the more usual four a week, and imposing silence, to allow proper study. There are many examples of a proud collector making arrangements to preserve their books by leaving them to a responsible relative, or a university, only for the arrangement to unravel. Relatives fell on hard times, or were just not interested in the bother of keeping the collection together. Universities sometimes didn’t have the space, or already had enough copies of key texts. In addition to loaning books, music and movies, some libraries have a library of things, which enable people to borrow items such as sewing machines or specialty tools, which they wouldn't ordinarily have access to.

Arthur der Weduwen is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and Deputy Director of the Universal Short Title Catalogue project at St Andrews. This is his fifth book.

When important books were in Latin, it is logical that trade in them could be international, and it is fascinating to read about how that trade worked. Frankfurt Fair already had a biannual meeting of publishers in the sixteenth century. Once printed books became established, auctions became widespread. Books held their value well, so selling off the collection raised useful cash to fund retirement, or provide a widow with funds. In the 1600s, some Dutch clerics raised the equivalent of about 20 years of income when their estate sold their books. While I’m reluctant to criticize such an accomplished book, I did wonder whether more might be said on Christianity’s complex relationship to books: like the medievals before him, for example, the Protestant reformer John Calvin was committed to the study and preservation of pre-Christian pagan literature. (In that Reformation-era mindset, non-Christian and heretical Christian literature were two very different things and faced distinct reactions.) In 2016, my late colleague Larry Hurtado’s Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World offered a compelling explanation of early Christianity’s rapid spread in an initially hostile Roman culture. Although Hurtado’s book is not in any sense a missiological textbook, its account of the early church’s growth nonetheless reminded readers of an important principle: churches that grow are simultaneously familiar and foreign to their host cultures.

I enjoyed that level of detail very much. From ancient to medieval times, the thirst for knowledge, and the need to record it was the springboard to what followed. From the creation of personal libraries sprang, many years later, the notion of public libraries. Nothing was considered too small or insignificant. And those details were covered all the way to modern times, including discussion on the current genres of the day and their significance. The New York Public Library hosts events online, in person, and/or outdoors. The following information applies to online events. Public Notice & Disclaimer Carnegie was a significant donor to public library services, cannily insisting that town authorities would commit themselves, in perpetuity, to matching ten per cent of the value of his donation for the maintenance of the building and staff wages. Nor did he provide the books. The authors begin with a discussion of the fabled Library of Alexandria, which is appropriate given its mythical place in the history of libraries... and ALSO that there's some attempt to do something similar in the Alexandria of today, which is, let's say, not the Alexandria of yesteryear. Unfortunately, that was not my final takeaway. This is the sort of book that does not benefit from a straight cover-to-cover read. It would be better taken in pieces over a longer period of time. There is simply so much information to take in. It is apparent that the aInitially, owning or perhaps even aspiring to having books was the world of rulers, of kings or princes, the very wealthy, perhaps traders. Others could not read and reading materials were beyond their knowledge. In fact, some of the wealthy wanted these early manuscripts or books as status markers for they couldn’t read either. Libraries were initially personal collections, often religious, in Western Europe written in Latin for centuries.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions. Threats to their existence include mould, bookworm, and fire. More interesting are the human frailties that this history exposes, ranging from neglect to downright aggression, usually with a political purpose. Famed across the known world,jealouslyguarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes,or filled with beanbags and children’s drawings—the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full ofincident.In TheLibrary, historians AndrewPettegreeand Arthur derWeduwenintroduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world’s great collections, trace theriseand fall ofliterarytastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors committed in pursuit of rare manuscripts.In doing so, they reveal that whilecollections themselves are fragile, often falling into ruinwithin a few decades, the idea of the library has been remarkably resilientas each generation makes—and remakes—theinstitution anew. Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings—the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident. In The Library, historians Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world’s great collections, trace the rise and fall of literary tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors committed in pursuit of rare manuscripts. In doing so, they reveal that while collections themselves are fragile, often falling into ruin within a few decades, the idea of the library has been remarkably resilient as each generation makes—and remakes—the institution anew. If anything, it shows with extreme clarity how much we’ve lost over time and how many works no longer exists that most likely should be celebrated. Time, decay, wars, religion, revolutions, and censorship from the Roman times until present day have robbed us of more books than we’ll ever know.A sweeping, absorbing history, deeply researched, of that extraordinary and enduring phenomenon: the library' – Richard Ovenden And this is exactly when libraries the way we think about them today were born. The libraries housed in monasteries or universities as well as the subscription libraries made way to the public libraries that allowed access to all citizens, who could either read there or take a book home. A principle which has remained the same ever since. I was so excited to read The Library: A Fragile History! A book dedicated simply and wholly to the subject of libraries? Yes, please! This is an exhaustive, detailed dive into a subject that is dear to most book lovers: namely the history of libraries and the roles they have played over the years. I fully expected this to become a new favorite.