The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) by John Dury
page 10 of 37 (27%)
page 10 of 37 (27%)
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millennium. He was active in England until sent abroad in 1654 as
Cromwell's unofficial agent. Again he traveled all over Protestant Europe negotiating to reunite the churches. After the Restoration he was unable to return to England and lived out his life on the Continent trying to bring about Christian reunion. One of his last works, which has not been located, was a shady _Touchant l'intelligence de l'Apocalypse par l'Apocalypse même_ of 1674. His daughter married Henry Oldenburg, who became a secretary of the Royal Society of England and who helped bring about some of the scientific reforms Dury had advocated. _Richard H. Popkin Washington University_ * * * * * John Dury's place in the intellectual and religious life of seventeenth-century England and Europe is amply demonstrated in the preceding part of the introduction. This section focuses on _The Reformed Librarie-Keeper_ itself, which was printed in 1650 with the subheading _Two copies of Letters concerning the Place and Office of a Librarie-Keeper_ (p. 15). The first letter concentrates on practical questions of the organization and administration of the library, the second relates the librarian's function to educational goals and, above all else, to the mission of the Christian religion. The work's two-part structure is a clue to a proper understanding of the genesis of _The Reformed Librarie-Keeper_ and to its meaning and puts in ironic perspective its usefulness for later academic librarianship. Because _The Reformed Librarie-Keeper_ appeared in the same year that |
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