Throughout its history, the western library has played a significant role in bringing the book into the hands of western scholars. This book analyses that history: examining constructs of librarianship, publishing, and scholarship within that history as gate keeping access to knowledge. Exploring significant events in the field from the time of the Lyceum to the present day in the development of repositories of books and their access by scholars, the book engages in an analysis of those events from a perspective that makes visible ways in which the production, storage and access of books, and scholarship itself, have been privileged, while others have been marginalised. The book examines current practice and what this may mean for knowledge production in relation to the library, the book and western scholarship in the 21st century. The book provides an invaluable resource for academics and students interested in understanding ways in which they themselves are connected with the history of their professions and the history of the book and its place in gatekeeping knowledge.
