Books and their Borrowers at the Library of Innerpeffray c. 1680-1855

Abstract

Founded c. 1680, the Library of Innerpeffray loaned books to local people in rural Perthshire without charge. By 1747, a record was established detailing who borrowed which books from the library, alongside additional information to identify the borrower (addresses, occupations, relationships). This thesis establishes a data set created from the borrowers’ register to 1855 and addresses the lack of a detailed institutional history against which to assess it, including the intentions of its founder, the impact of its rejuvenation in the eighteenth century, and the contents of the library collection over time. It identifies in detail not only who was using the library, but how they were using it, in contrast with who was permitted to use the library and how it was intended to be used. In this context, characteristics of the books popularly selected by users are identified, and patterns assessed overall are traced within the borrowing lives of four individual users. The thesis demonstrates how borrowing records are better understood not as evidence of reading, as they have been used by scholars previously, but of library use in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The attention paid by this thesis to the influence of both institutional and personal contexts on book borrowing has strong implications on how similar records elsewhere might be approached. Its original contribution to knowledge is to demonstrate a new and effective methodology for studying borrowers’ records within the discipline of Library History. Further, the deeper understanding of the Library of Innerpeffray as expounded in this thesis, alongside the detailed data set of borrowing created as part of it, will facilitate better use of the records of Innerpeffray by other scholars across multiple disciplines. This thesis is the result of an Applied Research Collaboration between the University of Stirling, the University of Dundee and the Library of Innerpeffray.