‘Leeds’ Civic Heritage of Libraries and Readers’
Leeds Library
29th April 2009
Participants arriving early had the opportunity to examine documents pertaining to the Leeds Library’s history, such as early lists of subscribers and catalogues of the libraries holdings. Afterwards, delegates and speakers were welcomed to the Library by Geoffrey Forster. Graeme Gooday, who was chairing, then outlined the aims of the seminar and those of the Centre for Heritage Research. Delegates represented a wide range of institutions including: the University of Leeds, the Leeds Library, the Portico Library and Gallery, the John Rylands Library, the Thoresby Society, and LeedsMuseums and Galleries.
In the first paper, ‘Collecting in the Commercial Street’, Geoffrey Forster (the Leeds Library) presented a survey of the history of the Leeds Library, including its earlier incarnations in other buildings andrecords of previous members, which included women from the outset. Also of concern was the Library’s new status as a charity and the resulting change in philosophy which has led the Library to look increasingly outwards. He also outlined possible directions for future work, such as completing the online catalogue or conducting comparisons with the holdings of other libraries. Other suggestions included examining the importance of having a local printer or creating a biographical database of previous members.
Mark Steadman (Centre for HPS, University of Leeds) presented the second paper, ‘Fuelling the Fires of Industry?’, which considered the relationship between the libraries of Leeds’ teaching institutions and the rise of Leeds as an industrial centre. He compared the collections of the Leeds General Infirmary’s medical library and the library of Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Steadman’s research rather surprisingly revealed that the early collections of the medical library covered a wide range of scientific and engineering topics rather than primarily focusing upon medicine and that the library of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, in spite of its stated objectives, did not actually contain many books. For example, of the 152 titles acquired between 1824 and 1850, only 66 were books, the others being largely periodicals or proceedings from other societies. The medical library would, of course, go on to become part of the collections of the Leeds University Library.
The third paper, ‘Medics and Merchants’ was presented by Rebecca Bowd (School of History, University of Leeds). She examined the phenomenon of subscription libraries in the context of other new forms of sociable enterprise such as Assembly Rooms and debating clubs that also served to enrich the public sphere. She also assessed the membership of the various libraries in Leeds, the English Circulating Library, the Infirmary’s Medical Library, the Foreign Circulating Library, and the New Subscription Library, finding that there was a great deal of overlap in membership between the various libraries.
Helen Sutcliffe (School of English, University of Leeds) gave the final paper, entitled ‘Inappropriate Library Institutions and Inappropriate Reading’. Beginning with an amusing anecdote about wine cellars being preferred to libraries by a provincial cultural philistine, she examined the access to foreign reading material in Leeds in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focusing in particular upon the Leeds Foreign Circulating Library, which was eventually incorporated into the Leeds Library. Challenging the accepted critical view of early nineteenth-century Leeds, she argued that the city was far more engaged with a wider cultural context than is generally believed.
After a brief break, commentatorBob Duckett (retired librarian and committee member, Library & Information History Group and editor, Bronte Society) raised the subject of the current move away from books by libraries in order to provide a modern information service, leading to the dispersal and destruction of book collections and deprofessionalization of librarians. In the attempt to be inclusive, libraries must reconsider their role but also find ways to justify keeping their collections alive and in use. He was followed byJohn Chartres (School of History, University of Leeds), a last-minute addition to the programme, who suggested that Leeds was fortunate to have both some of the earliest provincial libraries but also a wealth of resources for research, allowing investigation into the social, cultural, and economic contexts. Although this is a little-explored area, this seminar demonstrated that the institution of the library can provide a useful lens for the study of the society of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Afterwards the discussion covered a variety of topics including the absence of gentry and country aristocracy in Library members and other social organisations, other contexts for reading in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as well as ‘inappropriate’ activities in libraries and speculation about possible reasons for the lack of books in the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society Library. Graeme Gooday concluded the seminar by thanking the delegates, speakers and Geoffrey Forster for organising the event. Afterwards, delegates, speakers, and commentators enjoyed refreshments in the reading room of the library.