"The Library: a World History" - great book

The Library: A World History is a great book, with Will Pryce’s images and architectural librarian historian James Campbell’s text. It analysed global library architecture in 1 volume, from ancient Mesopotamia to modern China and from the beginnings of writing, to the present day. The photos noted that each age and culture reinvented the library, moulding it to reflect priorities and civilisations.

Melk Abbey Library, Austria

A Benedictine monastery

Libraries can be divided into academic, administrative or private types, some of which were rooted in the ancient world. The first writing system arose 5,500 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, secured on fragile papyrus or clay when academics realised they had to archive and protect them. Rulers created libraries to consolidate and expand their influence, and to display their political power to citizens. The majestic Library of Alexandria was created in c300 BCE by ?Alexander the Great and lasted until damaged by secular-Roman and religious-Christian enemies.

First chapters traced the destroyed libraries of Rome, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Eastern and Islamic worlds, so the authors the data had to infer from references and archaeology. But great photos of library remain at Pergamon & Ephesus. Over centuries, key concerns outdid place and time: structure, iconography, function. But each era took a particular style specific to the materials and technology, plus the era’s world view.

The two men surveyed many libraries, from the expansive new National Library of China to the Tripitaka Koreana 1251 in South Korea, one of the oldest intact libraries anywhere. The photographs were perfect, and they gave purpose to the text, taking a great look into the decorative and educational history of library buildings.

Library of Congress, Washington DC

A library consisted of books and the buildings that housed them, more than the dark wooden shelves in the stacks of academia. From the Library of Congress’ great dome, to the white façade of Seinäjoki Library Finland, to the ancient ruins of Turkey’s Library of Pergamum, Campbell and Pryce travelled the globe together, detailing 80+ libraries that demonstrated the many approaches to design. Library architecture showed its builders’ wealth, culture and learning. Note that libraries were open to the public back in the Renaissance!

In Korea, wooden character blocks were created in c1011 to print the Tripitaka Koreana, a central Buddhist text. The idea didn’t progress until Johannes Guttenberg created a very similar technology 450 years later, in the very different socio-economic setting of Early Modern Europe. In the next centuries, innovations in printing technology and the declining cost of books led to rapid proliferations of knowledge, and then to the emergence the modern scientific and industrial world. Thus the modern public library emerged in the mid-C19th.

The writing should have covered the wide set of professions: librarians, scholars and patrons; they played key roles in creating this institution. Some critics said the book largely neglected the different roles and instead focused on the architectural history of libraries. It DID chronicle a flexible architectural history, especially of the wealthy and powerful: from the ruins of multi-storeyed covered walkways of ancient Greece to the sutra stores of C11th Buddhist temples; from the Middle Ages’ Gothic cloisters to the functional modern age. But I liked that.

Theft remained an enduring threat, so books were regularly chained to monasterial walls in the Middle Ages and early modern period. The earl-iest monastic libraries housed the sets that showed the internal struggle between religiosity and human nature. So in those libraries, books were chained to desk-mounted rods, to prevent monks being tempted to sell books to outsiders, despite poverty vows. Read how other aspects of pre-serving books’ physical integrity have confounded librarians for centuries. In China mineral gypsum was placed beneath shelves to stop the damp.

The photos showed sumptuous swirls of marble, golden gilding and a rain-bow of Rococo frescoes that recalled the exquisite beauty. Campbell’s captions illuminated architectural tricks invisible to us normals eg the stone elephant, perched on a portal in the Biblioteca Malatestiana Library of Cesena Italy, was the Malatesta dynasty’s symbol.

The library tour went from the clay tablet storehouses of ancient Mesopotamia and beautiful Buddhist sutra blocks, to the paper prints in Korea and Japan, to the grandiose designs and multi-media C21st spectaculars. The book put such sites into long perspective, seeing book technology, readers' needs and architectural solutions.

But why the focus on institutions created specifically for the privileged with no place for local, ordinary libraries. Clearly this was a study of libraries designed to be admired. See Osaka’s soaring book wall at Shiba Ryotaro Museum, its triple-height, Japanese oak shelves. Yale's Beinecke Library was walled with Vermont marble, and the interior honey glow. At Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, the library has one-person desks, each with private sunny windows. This library was built in the 1970s by Louis Khan. Campbell's commentary noted that Khan had a theory i.e to plan a brand-new library in New Hampshire. Holland’s Delft Library grew with a concrete cone to use as a reading room. Its solid sides allowed no view out and the enclosed space was inadequate.

Old Bodlien Library, Oxford

The British Library was referred to, but there were no photos. Instead examine the British facilities eg Wells Cathedral Library, Cambridge Public Library, Thomas Bodley's Bodleian Oxford  and John Radcliffe's Camera Oxford. The superb buildings were erected, not to celebrate books, but rather for architects to stretch their vision; for universities to spend money; and to honour  benefactors. 

The book has heaps of pictures of old and modern libraries, but also a balanced resumé of the history of library-architecture. The focus was on the buildings, but information about the evolution of books and of collections themselves emerged. Readers can look at the position of bookcases and tables, distribution of space, illuminance, all have their own background, value and history!

George Peabody Library (1878) is linked to Johns Hopkins University, focused on research into C19th. Formerly the Library of the Peabody Music Institute, it was in Mt Vernon-Belvedere historic cultural neighbourhood of Baltimore. The collections are free for use by the general public, in keeping with the Baltimorean merchant/philanthropist George Peabody's creation of a community library.

George Peabody Library

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

The book focused on how people collected, protected and catalogued knowledge in writing. But the underlying themes were presented in such a subtle way as to go unnoticed amongst all the data that is presented. Be certain that Campbell's work was not simply recounting the many buildings that made up history’s libraries. It was a map of the ever-changing ideas of privilege, interface between civilisation and nature, egalitarianism, interplay between trust in man’s good and the fear of man's greed.

Then the book described medieval libraries and explained how libraries evolved, beginning with the Renaissance. The photos of libraries in monasteries, universities, palaces and cities are gorgeous. They showed the gradual evolution of storage and reading spaces from books fixed to a one-person lectern space, to stalls, walls, stacks and the modern mix of media and hard copy. The authors discussed the rise of librarians in design, lauding their practical insights as a necessary corrective to earlier architectural neglect of operating and preservation issues.

The stunning photos and texts came mostly from the U.S and Europe, with some modern examples from China and Japan. Qere the 300-odd local libraries that have closed since 2010 ever examined? or the 400 more that might close? Campbell's history knew libraries were always at risk. Fires have gutted them since Rome, plus struggles with damp, beetles, bombs. A plane crashed into a Slovenian reading room!

In considering the future library, Campbell stated that the future will be as a museum for books that are curated, displayed and preserved for posterity, and a workspace for the general public. But consider Google’s project of digitising world libraries. In his limited mentioning of the giant internet, people might neglect the immaterial aspects of the history. But history wasn’t just architectural.

In Britain now THE significant element to the story were those libraries closed or thinking of closing. Campbell noted that public libraries are being closed in Europe etc, and criticised the university that changed its library to an Information, Communications and Media Centre in 2004.

Summary
Campbell is an architectural historian, so his writing on the building of libraries was fine. The two men combined their talents and gave the reader a look at the history of libraries from 20+ different countries. Some were very old and others newer, but all were unique and original.    

Now something quite separate. The 1000 Library Awards named the most beautiful ones in 2025, based on 200,000+ votes from global booklovers on line. The results of the 2025 Top 10 Most Beautiful Libraries globally included international libraries, showcasing both modern & historic architectural styles: 

South Australia State Library

State Library Victoria, Australia 

 1.Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

 2.South Australia State, Australia

 3.St Gallen Abbey, Switzerland

 4.Duke Humfrey's, Oxford Uni, Britain
 5.Admont Abbey, Austria
 6.Cuypers Library, Amsterdam, Netherlands

 7.State Library Victoria, Australia 
 8.Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio, Brazil
 9.Wiblingen Abbey Ulm, Germany
10.Sainte-Geneviève, France