Barbarly Korper McConnell, Reference & Instruction Librarian, tells us about libraries in the past--and what has changed and what is the same.
While library collections have existed for many centuries, many of the familiar services of and issues for modern libraries coalesced in eighteenth-century English libraries, libraries that developed to meet the demands of an increasingly literate public with available leisure time and an appetite for reading. While libraries now have capabilities unimaginable to eighteenth-century librarians and library patrons, many aspects of our libraries would be very familiar.
Prior to the eighteenth century, libraries were generally available only to the very wealthy, to the clergy, or to academics. Books were costly and rare and library collections were comparatively small, between a few hundred and a few thousand volumes, which were often chained to lecterns for library use only. Extensive personal libraries were luxuries for the well-to-do; however, technological and cultural change in England during the late seventeenth century and through the eighteenth century made libraries available to a wider audience. By the late seventeenth century, some locales developed libraries for the public, the collections generally established through bequests from the wealthy. In most cases, collections focused on theology, but also included history, travel, and natural science along with classics and general literature. A move away from the theological focus began in the late seventeenth century. In an early example, a Manchester library owned nearly 3,000 volumes by 1684, including significant holdings in history, travel, law, medicine, and science. Though its books did not circulate, this library is similar to the modern conception of the public library both in content and in practice. The library had funding to purchase additional volumes and book selection reflected the interests of the population.
By the middle of the seventeenth century the ability to read was common in England, except in the lowest classes; however, only a small number read regularly. This changed by the end of the seventeenth century. Newspapers and periodicals like the Tatler and the Spectator proliferated and coffee-houses circulating these publications became popular institutions. The emerging novel form became popular, especially among middle-class women.
The high cost of books restricted individuals' ability to collect for themselves; book clubs and private or commercial subscription libraries arose to fulfill the reading interests of the population. Subscription libraries or "circulating libraries," were both like and unlike the modern public library. These for-profit institutions charged usage fees and were usually sidelines of other businesses such as a bookseller's shop. A committee of proprietors handled book selection and management responsibilities, hiring, at a small salary, a librarian to circulate the books. Books were chosen by ballot among the committee members. The proprietors chose items they expected would return their value through usage fees.
As women became a larger part of their clientele, circulating libraries began selling stationery, perfume, and other trinkets that would appeal to their female patrons. While the better-quality libraries strove to offer both serious and lighter texts, smaller libraries were likely to prefer fiction, particularly the pulp fiction of the era, novels and romances, due to their popularity.
At virtually every stage in the development of the British library, the content of the library became accessible to a greater section of society, the use reflecting something more like the democratic mission of the modern library. The services of the circulating library began to look much like those of the modern library, as did the issues faced by librarians. Librarians, for example, regularly dealt with the issue of missing volumes. Resort towns like Bath were particularly likely to have one or more circulating libraries to serve the visitors on holiday. Newspaper notices implored these visitors to return their borrowings prior to leaving the city. Since competition had forced librarians to drop the practice of requiring a security deposit against the cost of replacing a lost or damaged book, and given the high cost of replacement, the business losses related to volumes that were stolen or not returned would have been considerable.
Like today's librarians, the eighteenth-century librarian would have faced the challenges and costs of maintaining a collection that held the patrons' interest. The literature that provided the circulating library's primary income, the fashionable novels and trendy light literature of the time, would be in high demand only when first published. Librarians would want sufficient copies of these works to satisfy customer demand, but would not want to maintain costly volumes that were no longer in vogue. Metropolitan libraries often purchased multiple copies of hot new publications and libraries in smaller cities developed resource-sharing systems, exchanging popular novels and other ephemeral materials to meet reader demand. Newspapers and pamphlets were provided in-house to attract subscribers to the libraries' reading rooms, but did not circulate outside of the library.
Librarians today continue to face the issues of collection costs and maintenance, distinguishing between circulating and library use materials, and the need to address user interests. The library as an institution has seen many changes in the last four centuries, from minimal public access to libraries in the seventeenth century, to fee-based public access in the eighteenth century, to modern day free public libraries, but across the last three centuries there are recognizable consistencies. These perhaps stem from the value our culture places on the written word and on access to the written word. Modern libraries use electronic delivery to increase access to resources, but in spite of the prevalence of electronic resources for shorter works, such as articles, readers still overwhelmingly prefer to read book-length works from the printed page. The prevalence of libraries in the Western world is a direct result of the value Western culture places on reading, on books, and on access to books. The services offered by and issues addressed by both eighteenth century librarians and twenty-first century librarians are those that address the public's desire for access to the written word.
REFERENCES
Erickson, Lee. "The Economy of Novel Reading: Jane Austen and the Circulating Library." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 30, no. 4 (1990): 573-590.
Jacobs, Edward. "The Eighteenth-Century British Circulating Libraries and Cultural Book History." Book History, 6 (2003): 1-22.
Kelly, Thomas. Early Public Libraries: A History of Public Libraries in Great Britain before 1850. London: The Library Association, 1966.
Varma, Devendra P. The Evergreen Tree of Diabolical Knowledge. Washington, D.C.: Consortium Press, 1972.
Walton, Edward W. "Faculty and Student Perceptions of Using E-Books in a Small Academic Institution." Paper presented at the Thirteenth National Conference of the Association of College and Research Libraries, Baltimore, MD, March 29-April 1, 2007. http://home.learningtimes.net/acrlnational (accessed May 2, 2007).