The Community Library : A Chapter in English Social History. [ American Philosophical Society New Series, vol. 57, pt. 7 ]

American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, original journal issue, 1967. Cloth, 4to, bound in green library cloth, 4to, 30 cm,. 67 pp, ills. From the introduction: "This study has two main objectives : first, to present in concise form the most complete data available on the published works accessible to the English people in certain major types of community libraries; and, second, to discover as far as possible the use of and influence of such collections on the temper and evolution of social development, primarily during the rise of the libraries in the eighteenth century. That the efforts involved in such objectives are long overdue must be obvious to the thoughtful student of library history. The effort to assemble the evidence has never been attempted on a country-wide scale : we have not known in exact detail, how many so-called circulating and other types of libraries could be identified or exactly what were their holdings as far as relatively few known catalogues could reveal them. " Concentrates on thre origins and earlier development of circulating libraries in England to about 1800. An ex-library copy with a shelfnumber on front board, stamp on verso of the title-page otherwise Very Good.