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This is one of the more relevant replies to an enquiry on SHARP-L about a decent history of bookselling. Regards Peter Hoare ________________________________________________________ Peter Hoare, 21 Oundle Drive, Wollaton Park, Nottingham NG8 1BN Tel/fax 0115 978 5297 E-mail [log in to unmask] ________________________________________________________ ----- Original Message ----- From: "john mcvey" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2003 6:38 AM Subject: Is There A History of Books / Bookselling > gosh, there's good stuff in here... > > Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing (CHARM) > http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/charm/Vol-9-Index1999.html > > Rassuli, Kathleen M., and Hollander, Stanley C. > > "The History of Circulating Libraries: Building Reading and Retail Traffic" > > ABSTRACT - Libraries have long, fascinated history dating back to > classical Greece, Egypt and Rome. Until the 18th Century, they were > primarily attached to important political, religious and > educational institutions, where depositories held no recreational > content and served male elite's. > Society libraries which continued to serve the male > gentry and circulating (rental, lending) libraries, which reached a > broader audience, developed in Britain and the United States in the > 1700's. > The former were, more or less, invitational social clubs that charged > annual subscriptions and often provided reading rooms. One of the > very first, the Library Company of Philadelphia founded by > Benjamin Franklin and his friends in 1731, survives today but almost > all others have vanished. > The circulating libraries grew in both Britain and the > U.S. They flourished best when book process were high relative to > consumer income; rental rates were very low. They appeared in > bookstores, as specialized outlets and as traffic building sideline > businesses in non-literary retail stores. The library world has > associated with a female and a little unfairly, an uncultivated > audience. > An enormous expansion occurred in the United States in > the late 1920s and 30s. Publisher's Weekly estimated there were 40 to > 50 thousand rental libraries in the U.S. in 1935 in contrast to > about 5,000 bookstores. Post-war prosperity, cheap paperbacks, > television and public library growth ended the rental library > business. > The history of this one small service industry > illuminates facets of many important marketing phenomena. These > concerns the long run democratization of elite offerings; variations > in lifecycles; > the role of "inferior goods"; the antiquity of relationship > marketing; the early appearance of segmentation; the vagueness of the > distinction between product and service exchanges; and the great > flexibility of the marketing institutional structure. > > > I'll be quiet now. > -- > John McVey > Assistant Professor, Graphic Design > Montserrat College of Art > Beverly Massachusetts 01915 > > 47 Vassal Lane no 2 > Cambridge Massachusetts 02138 > 617 661 4276 > [log in to unmask] > http://www.jmcvey.net >========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 15:08:39 +0100 Reply-To: "Girling, Henry" <[log in to unmask]> Sender: library and book history <[log in to unmask]> From: "Girling, Henry" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: News of the next Full Disclosure Workshop MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Colleagues Resource is funding a series of Full Disclosure workshops around the English regions. The EMMLAC workshop will be held at the EMMLAC, 56 King Street, Leicester on Monday 10th November from 10.30 to 4.30. A sandwich lunch will be provided. Admission is free but space is limited. Please note that priority will be given to attendees from the East Midlands area. The workshop will be co-chaired by Louise Smith (mda) and Stephanie Kenna (British Library). Speakers include Nick Poole (Resource) and Judy Aitken (Heritage Lottery Fund). If you would like to attend the workshop, please e-mail EMMLAC giving your organisation, address and daytime telephone number to Jeremy Wiltshire [log in to unmask] For more details see http://www.bl.uk/concord/fulldisc-workshop3.html Full Disclosure is a cross-domain initiative, the key objective of which is to further develop the national strategy for the retrospective conversion of catalogue and documentation data and the retrospective cataloguing or documentation of non-current acquisitions in libraries, archives and museums throughout the UK. _____________________________ Henry Girling Regional and Library Programmes The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB Tel: 020 7412 7333 Fax: 020 7412 7155 Email: [log in to unmask] Website: http://www.bl.uk/concord ______________________________ ************************************************************************** Opening 14 November 2003 at the British Library Galleries : "Chinese Printmaking Today", artworks by leading Chinese artists 1980-2000 ************************************************************************* The information contained in this e-mail is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this e-mail and notify the [log in to unmask] : The contents of this e-mail must not be disclosed or copied without the sender's consent. The statements and opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the British Library. The British Library does not take any responsibility for the views of the author. *************************************************************************