Editorial Note - Maney Online

Library & Information History

ISSN: 1758-3489 (Print) 1758-3497 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ylbh20

Editorial Note

James Raven Editorial Board Member

To cite this article: James Raven Editorial Board Member (2013) Editorial Note, Library &
Information History, 29:3, 155-155, DOI: 10.1179/1758348913Z.00000000041
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1758348913Z.00000000041

Published online: 18 Nov 2013.
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Downloaded by [50.116.19.84] at 02:42 05 April 2016 library & information history, Vol. 29 No. 3, September 2013, 155

Editorial Note

James Raven, Editorial Board Member

University of Essex, UK

In recent years, the history of libraries has engaged with much broader historical
approaches than was usual a generation ago. Distinguished library histories provided
wide-ranging historical context, but new scholarship has offered fresh insight into the
foundation and development of libraries by considering aspects of the ‘new’ cultural
history. Most notably, library history has absorbed approaches from the history
of reading, sociability, and the history of the book (itself benefiting from broad
interdisciplinary engagement). This is especially true of studies of libraries and book
collection in Enlightenment Britain and Europe, the years associated with the estab-
lishment of the public sphere and the advance of politeness and a consumer culture.

This special edition of Library and Information History, guest edited by Rebecca
Bowd, originates from the conference ‘“Books of every variety of taste”: The Advance
of the Library in the Long Eighteenth Century’ that she helped to organize at the
Leeds Library in May 2012. The venue was marvellously appropriate: the oldest
surviving proprietary subscription library in the United Kingdom, founded in 1768,
the Leeds Library today is a thriving charity that rightly glories in its collection but
also promotes new research and scholarship. The Commercial Street library opened
in July 1808 and its rooms offered an evocative staging for a conference hosted by
the Librarian, Geoffrey Forster, and by Dr Jonathan Topham of the University of
Leeds. The essays published here are testimony to the success of a conference that
attracted a lively and critical audience. Participants revelled in the continued mission
of the Leeds Library to bridge the private and public, to ensure that book collection
and conservation encompasses active, innovative scholarship, and an enjoyable
sharing of knowledge.

© CILIP 2013 DOI 10.1179/1758348913Z.00000000041

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