Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/18

 CHAPTER I

THE LIBRARY AND ITS STAFF

genesis of the library, public or private, can be traced through the histories of all complex civilisations. It is, however, with the public library of modern times, its aims and methods, that the present work is chiefly concerned. For the appreciation of these we may neglect Assyria and Rome, and the monastic libraries, wherein alone the lamp of science was kept alight in the Dark and Middle Ages, and pass to the Renaissance. The phrase bibliotheca publica is first found, as far as at present known, in the fifteenth century, and in 1437 the earliest institution deserving of this title was founded when Niccolo Niccoli left his collection of manuscripts to the city of Florence, and they were thrown open to public use in a library which is now merged in the Laurenziana.

The functions of the librarian evolved themselves in natural sequence. He was primarily custodian