ABSTRACT
Betraying a keen awareness of the Scottish Enlightenment in justifying the Derby enterprise, that ‘the establishment of the Medical, Speculative, and other well known, and well organised Societies in Edinburgh, has largely contributed to advance the cause of Learning and Philosophy, and to give celebrity to that University.’ Indeed, it was probably with the latter eventuality in mind that the term ‘library,’ which to most ears hinted at an enduring and fully institutionalised body of reading materials, was, despite readers’ boundless appetite for terminological inexactitude, generally avoided. Such sentiments, clearly situating the borrowing and reading of books at the heart of a programme of wider cultural improvement associated in particular respects with the Scottish Enlightenment, were not in fact confined to Derby. The Church of England’s various rivals, protected by rising levels of practical toleration and spurred on by their own success in attracting adherents, were not slow to pursue a similar strategy in relation to reading.
