The Design of the English Domestic Library in the Seventeenth Century: Readers and Their Book Rooms

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/31863

Title: The Design of the English Domestic Library in the Seventeenth Century: Readers and Their Book Rooms
Author(s): Gwynn, Lucy
Issue Date: 2011
Keyword(s): Library design
Abstract: The seventeenth century saw the increase in size of book collections in private hands. Domestic library collections were becoming more visible as important adjuncts to the lives of their socially and culturally engaged owners. This article explores the ways in which the practical and intellectual problems of storing books were addressed in the English home, through inventories and buildings accounts as well as contemporary literature. The changes in library furniture design over the course of the century are traced, together with the emergence of formal organizing systems such as catalogues and subject classification. Finally, the adoption of a different stylistic approach is examined.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ISSN: 0024-2594
Type of Resource: text
Language: en
Permalink: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/31863
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2011.0029
Copyright and License Information: Copyright 2011 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Library Trends 60 (1) Summer 2011: Library Design: From Past to Present. Edited by Alistair Black and Nan Dahlkild