The emergence of historical bibliography as a discipline: The case of the British Library

Abstract

Extract

The creation of rare book collections as curatorially separate branches, distinct from an unstructured ‘taking charge of antiquarian work’, within British legal deposit libraries is a comparatively recent development. Such was not the case on the European continent: for example, the Réserve of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France or the Handschriften- und Inkunabelabteilung of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek were established early in the nineteenth century. The reason for this late development in the British Isles would seem to lie in a heightened awareness of the essentially archival function of the legal deposit research library: a function different in kind from the lending function of the typical university, public, or school library, ‘libraries for education’ (in the words of the British Museum's Anthony Panizzi). In the latter, special collections develop relatively soon, in response to the constant need to separate out, from the general loan collections, those items requiring segregation on account of their increasing rarity (or otherwise exceptional value); or on account of the need to attract and to receive local gifts and deposits; or simply the need for an area ‘where the individuality of the library best shows itself’.