A Glossary introduces this large-size volume of abundant illustration and informed description. The author provides a gesture toward "history" of libraries, thirty-three illustrated presentations, and a Map of Europe placing most of them.

Antiquity is referenced for the starting point of the Alexandrian Library reputed to own 40,000 volumes, and the Benedictine priory of Durham by 1163 reached 436, as perhaps the largest number at its time. [10, 57]

At 12: "In 1636 Petrarch proposed leaving his books to the Basilica of San Marco in Venice as the nucleus from which might grow 'a great and famous library, equal to the ancient ones'." Nothing seems to have come of this early suggestion for a state library.

At 13: "Humanist scholars were particularly concerned that early manuscripts of the classics should be collected and preserved somewhere safe but accessible...". Apparently peninsular princes were persuaded to adopt the scholars' passionate interests in books.