Introduction: the changing world of libraries – from cloister to hearth

Abstract

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book charts the story of how libraries developed between two revolutionary periods, by way of two centuries of profound change, from the Civil War to the time of the Chartist riots, by way of the religious controversies of the 1680s and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and, a century later, the French Revolution and its philosophies. By the early nineteenth century, two key themes are first the increasing establishment of libraries 'for the people' as well as libraries for the privileged, and secondly the consolidation of national reference collections for scholars, such as the Bodleian Library and the library of the British Museum, founded at about our mid-point. And British libraries spread abroad, to serve settlers in the colonies but also for the benefit of British merchants, soldiers and sailors. This period also saw a marked shift in the history of personal libraries.