Lending library

Most liberall and lending," referring to the books of an unknown type of library, and later in a context familiar to users of contemporary English, in 1708, by J. Chamberlayne; St. Gt.

[7] Without tax from the community a library may be created with a gift or endowment, by subscription, or by adding it on to an existing structure or institution which also serves other purposes.

Controlled by the local clergy, almost all endowed libraries were attached to parish churches in towns and cities, and were kept in the vestry, in the parvis over the south porch, in the parsonage, or in some nearby adjoining building.

The two dozen or so libraries that did not match this template in England include a small but important group which were controlled from early on or the start by municipal corporations, founded in market towns before 1680.

[8] Early parish church libraries were stated to be for the use of local layman and clergy, but the books were not in English, were largely in Latin, and exclusively theological in character.

Thomas Bray an Anglican cleric who originally had the idea of the parish library, who wrote in 1697, "An Essay Towards Promoting all Necessary and Useful Knowledge, Both Divine and human, In all the Parts of His Majesty's Dominions, Both at Home and Abroad", wanted the church to acquire books and lend them to the general public as well as the parishioners and clergy.

Building libraries in poor benefices and isolated ones was part of that initiative, and an extension of a major philanthropic movement during that time.

[13] Social libraries peaked in significance by the mid-nineteenth century, and all their many forms have been the object of intense research in North America and Europe.

This appellation over time came to describe tax-supported, publicly administered libraries open to all regardless of class, race or age for free on an equal basis, at least in theory.

Hidden libraries is a widespread description of libraries in any place from prisoner-of-war camps, military installations, motels, hotels, inns, the home, alternative communities, pubs, restaurants, laundrettes, holiday camps, coffee houses, community centres, in accommodations and facilities for workers and servants, lighthouse and seamen's establishments, prisons and asylums and is not complete.