From Libraries & Culture to the Bibliotheque nationale.

In her work as the assistant editor of Libraries & Culture, the author has had the opportunity to learn about the value of library history as an area of scholarly research. This accumulated knowledge has contributed greatly to her continuing interest in and research on French cultural institutions during the revolutionary period, from 1789 to 1815, notably, the Bibliotheque nationale and the Louvre. In the process she has gained a deeper appreciation of the sometimes heroic efforts of French librarians and curators to preserve and enrich the collections that comprise their national heritage.

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When I began working as the assistant editor of Libraries & Culture in 1984, the concept of "library history" was not a familiar one to me. With a background in journalism and an interest in European history, I had thought about libraries and history separately. However, as my editorial work at L & C involved reading articles, essays, and book reviews that focused on the history of libraries and their collections, I began to learn exactly what library history entailed. I was aided in my discoveries by L & C's longtime editor, Donald G. Davis, Jr., often referred to as one of the most knowledgeable practitioners in the field.

One of the first issues that I worked on in 1984 contained an article entitled "Biography of a Library: The Western European Manuscript Collection of Peter P. Dubrovskii in Leningrad," by Patricia Z. Thompson (JLH 19, no. 4 [Fall 1984]: 477-503). Another one in 1985 featured "Politics and Scholarship in Seventeenth-Century France: The Library of Nicholas Fouquet and the College Royal," by E. Stewart Saunders (JLH 20, no. 1…