Amazon.com description: Product Description: Reprint of the 1901 edition. Hardbound. Oversized Octavo. Xviii, 330pp. Frontispiece illustration, 156 illustrations of plates portraits, plans, tables, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1901. Clark attempts to trace the methods used through out the ages to preserve, to use and to make accessible printed books or manuscript. He is mostly concerned with the position, the size and the arrangement of the rooms that housed these treasures and with the progressive development of fittings, catalogues and other appliances that facilitated the access and use of the books. There is not much written on this subject, and Clark's work remains a standard text in the field. There are chapters on Assyrian Record Rooms, libraries in western antiquity, Christian libraries, monastic collections, Italian libraries, the wall system, suppression of the monasteries, Vatican libraries, and private libraries. Includes 156 illustrations.