American Libraries 1730-1950

Although new technologies appear poised to alter it, the library remains apowerful site for discovery, and its form is still determined by the geometryof the book and the architectural spaces devised to store and display it. AmericanLibraries provides a history and panorama of these much-loved structures,inside and out, encompassing the small personal collection, the vast universitylibrary, and everything in between. Through 500 photographs and plans selectedfrom the encyclopedic collections of the Library of Congress, Kenneth Breischtraces the development of libraries in the United States, from roots in such iconicexamples as the British Library and Paris’s Bibliothèque-Ste.-Geneviève to institutionsimbued with their own, American mythology. Starting with the privatecollections of wealthy merchants and landowners during the eighteenth century,the book looks at the Library of Congress, large and small public libraries,and the Carnegie libraries, and it ends with a glimpse of modern masterworks.