Excerpt from Book-Collectors as Benefactors of Public Libraries, Vol. 9 Until about the middle of the fifteenth century the production of books was both costly and laborious, and was chiefly confined to the monasteries of Europe and Asia, where alone learning was cultivated. Such being the case, we find this industry almost exclusively confined to those religious communities where the few who were proficient in the art of writing or copying were patiently and peacefully employed in this calling, while their personal needs were provided for by other members of the community less fitted either by ability, training, or inclination than they for the patient and exacting work of the scrivener. Hence it was, in the nature of things, that the first libraries were mainly confined to religious houses and were composed of such volumes as had been written in them or secured by exchange. These libraries, as may be supposed, were naturally restricted to a limited number of subjects. First and most prominent of all were works of a religious nature, such as the Bible, liturgies, psalters, commentaries, and the lives of saints and martyrs. These, as time progressed, were naturally supplemented by the history of the religious world as found in the writings of the church Fathers, accounts of the various Councils, and the annals of the monasteries themselves. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Excerpt from The Library World and Book Selector, Vol. 9: July, 1906, to June, 1907 B. Thomson appointed sub-librarian. University Catalogues. Donation Abergavenny Public Library opened 1 33 National Library. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Public Libraries, 1916, Vol. 21: A Monthly Review of Library Matters and Methods Up to this time all the pecuniary reward I have had for indexing during these many years can be represented by an American copper coin which will cover one's thumb nail, and yet I have been well paid. I have no doubt that my contempo raries in library work remember mak ing these contributions to his Index, to which Dr Poole refers; and, recalling my own slight participation, have no doubt they remember what they did as a pleasant change from less stimulating labor. Rather than as a task. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.