King James Library lectures
As part of the University of St Andrews' 600th anniversary celebrations, the University Library looks forward to offering a series of public lectures on 'The Meaning of the Library'. Delivered by internationally renowned figures from the academic and library worlds, the King James Library Lectures will articulate what the library as an institution has meant to civilization in different historical periods. The lectures will also set out visions of what the library might mean in our own time and beyond.
The King James Library Lectures will be delivered over the years 2009 - 2013 and will be associated with the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the King James Library at the University of St Andrews. Lectures will be held if possible in Parliament Hall, with receptions afterwards in the King James Library itself, allowing audiences to enjoy what Dr Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century described as this 'elegant and luminous' bookroom. Situated immediately below the King James Library, Parliament Hall is where members of the Scottish Parliament met in the late seventeenth century, when plague in Edinburgh led them to seek sanctuary in St Andrews.
It is hoped that the lectures will appear in due course as a book, to be published as part of the University's 600th anniversary celebrations.
| Date | Speaker | Title | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday June 9, 2009 | Dr James Billington, Librarian of Congress | 'The Modern Library and Global Democracy' | 2pm, School III |
| Tuesday October 27, 2009 | Professor Andrew Pettegree, University of St Andrews | 'The Renaissance Library and the Challenge of Print" | 5.15pm, Parliament Hall |
| Wednesday March 24, 2010 | Dr Stephen Enniss, Eric Weinmann Librarian, Folger Shakespeare Library | 'Casting and Gathering: Libraries, Archives, and the Modern Writer' |
5.15pm, School III |
| Wednesday, June 23, 2010 | Professor Robert Darnton, Harvard University Library | 'A Literary Tour de France, 1778: How Books Were Made for Enlightenment Libraries' | 2.30pm, King James Library |
| Wednesday April 20, 2011 | Professor Laura Marcus, University of Oxford | 'The Library in Film' | 5.15pm, School III |
| Tuesday October 18, 2011 | Professor Richard Gameson, University of Durham | 'The Image of the Medieval Library' | 5.15pm, School III |
| Monday March 19, 2012 | Professor Marina Warner, University of Essex | 'The Library in Fiction' | 5.15pm School II |
| Wednesday, October 24, 2012 | Professor Edith Hall, King's College London | 'Adventures in the Libraries of the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds' | 5.15pm, School III |