Page:Biblical Libraries (Richardson).djvu/52

 book business or book shop. At the time of the Reformation both English and German used both library and bibliotheke for the book collection, or the place in which it was kept, but in the course of time bibliotheke has become obsolete for library in English and Liberey practically obsolete for library in German.

Historically speaking thus the word library was applied to any collection of records whether of objects, acts or ideas and archive only to those documents issued by government authority and still kept by the government itself. Even these collections of public documents were technically called "book treasury" (bibliotheke) or "book-phylactery" in Greek times, more often than archive. As a matter of fact there were few of the well-known public "libraries" in the ancient world, under whatever name, which did not contain a strong admixture of public records, even if they were not exclusive public records.