ABSTRACT
This chapter exposes the administrative and social processes involved in reforming a major European library between 1605 when the first printed catalogue was published and the catalogue of 1620. Thomas Bodley (1545–1613) closely controlled matters from catalogue descriptions to records of donations. Adams and Ferlier exploit relational databases to construct a biblio-geography revealing where shelf marks remained unaltered since the seventeenth century or shifted as books were reclassified. They investigate the provenance of copies to understand the life of ‘private’ books before and after their incorporation in this famous ‘public’ library.
