The Care of Books: An Essay on the Development of Libraries and their Fittings, from the Earliest Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century ... of Printing, Publishing and Libraries)

by John Willis Clark

John Willis Clark, a noted academic and antiquarian, published this book in 1901 after completing his work on the architectural history of Cambridge. His carefully researched study (Clark personally visited and measured every building he described, and drew many of the illustrations), provides a wide-ranging account of the history of libraries from antiquity to the early modern period. Clark describes the buildings used to store churches, cloisters, and purpose-built libraries; the way collections were endowed, audited and protected; the development of library furniture, including lecterns, stalls, chaining systems and wall-cases; and the characteristics of monastic, collegiate, and private collections. The book is generously illustrated, and its approachable style means it will appeal not only to academic historians of libraries, but to a wider audience of those interested in books and reading culture, historic buildings and artefacts, and medieval, renaissance and early modern studies.

Genres: Books About Books, History

488 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1901

About the author

John Willis Clark (1833 – 1910), sometimes J.W. Clark, was an English academic and antiquarian.

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 1 out of 5]

There appear to be limits even to my book porn problem. This volume was more devoted to storage than what was stored.

[Two Readers in Love]

Read about this in Alex Johnson's "Bookshelf" design book... p. 13, "In 1901, John Willis Clark wrote about the 'ever-present need for more space to hold the invading hordes of books that represent the literature of today' in his fascinating and ground-breaking study of library fixtures and fittings, 'The Care of Books'." Downloaded from Project Gutenberg.