A very nice review. I’d like to learn how to get a book down to such a pith and still make the report interesting, as you do here.

I said, “The public library first emerged as a response to the exclusive access of royals to library collections.” I had another look at Battles’ Unquiet History. Here are two items that contribute to the interpretation of that statement.

Battles notes that the title of the first modern “public” library is often given to the library of San Marco in 1444. “The word ‘public’ refers not to the masses but to the the stage upon which the church, the nobility, and powerful mercantile families performed their roles and wielded their authority” (68). The meaning of the term public had more to do with publicity (although it also served to transmit the benefits of scholars to society).

In Chapter 4, “The Battle of the Books”, Battles observes that “at the end of the 17th century, the Royal Library was a mishmash of classical works acquired for the edification of monarchs, church literature, and politico-theological tracts” (93). This coincided with a growing abundance of books. When Bentley took charge of the Royal Library, he envisioned a research library for scholarly usage, consistent with the ideal of a universal library, a recurring concept in Battles book.

My original statement may have implied that the public insisted on access. Not really. Based on the above, the transition from royals to the public was about transmission of power, and a response to the growing availability of books and the need to manage it. It might be argued that some librarians ’slipped in’ the ideal of a public/universal library. More likely, the abundance of books made public usage not only affordable, but almost necessary as way to justify continued building of collections, and funding them too.

I had read Battles’ book just before Darnton’s, so it was still echoing in my head, but I think it is consistent with Darnton’s discussion of the spirit of the enlightenment in libraries, mentioned in a previous comment.

Hope that clarifies the statement. I enjoyed reviewing these passages!

And I did see your review, just as I’ve heard many people mention it over the past several years.

He starts Chapter 1 looking back to the “Republic of Letters”, the enlightenment of the eighteenth century and its belief in ideas and knowledge. “Anyone could join it by exercising the two main attributes of citizenship, writing and reading” (4). He acknowledges that “the Republic of Letters suffered from the same disease that ate through all societies in the eighteenth century: privilege”. Nevertheless, he invokes the enlightenment as an argument for openness in libraries. “For Jefferson, enlightenment took place by means of writers and readers, books and libraries — especially libraries”.

He is not precisely saying that libraries arose as a response to the exclusivity of royals, but that the spirit of public libraries is seen in the enlightenment and to today, despite the counter spirit of exclusivity that existed then and is still observed today in libraries.

I think I still had Battles’ history echoing in my head when I was reading this. When I get my hands back on his book, I will check if there is more on this theme.

Thanks, John.

(Thanks for the feedback on the design. Yeah, it is a bit pokey at times on load because of new functions. It’s not just the Twitter call that’s doing it – it usually loads pretty quickly. Still thinking on how to best address it.)