page_title: Lending library
section_title: Endowment libraries
hierarchical_section_title: Lending library / Endowment libraries
caption_attribution_description: English: Christ Church Library from Peckwater Quad.
context_page_description: A lending library is a library from which books and other media are lent out. The earliest reference to or use of the term "lending library" yet located in English correspondence dates from ca. 1586; C'Tess Pembroke Ps. CXII. v, "He is ... Most liberall and lending," referring to the books of an unknown type of library, and later in a context familiar to users of contemporary English, in 1708, by J. Chamberlayne; St. Gt. Brit.; III. xii. 475 "[The Libraries] of Cambridge are Lending-libraries; that is, he that is qualified may borrow out of it any book he wants". This definition is closely associated with libraries in England before the Public Libraries Act 1850 was passed which allowed cities to use taxes to create and maintain libraries but did not require cities build them. This definition is also applicable in the United States before 1850 and widespread School District Library Acts which were passed in many states at the same time. It may also refer to a library or other institution that sends materials on request to another library, usually via interlibrary loan.
context_section_description: Between the Reformation and the end of the eighteenth century, over two hundred endowed libraries are known to have been established in England alone, and existed due to the private library collections of individual benefactors or occasionally to multiple benefactors. Controlled by the local clergy, almost all endowed libraries were attached to parish churches in towns and cities, and were kept in the vestry, in the parvis over the south porch, in the parsonage, or in some nearby adjoining building. Frequently the books were chained, similar to those in the Francis Trigge Chained Library and at Christ Church Library. The two dozen or so libraries that did not match this template in England include a small but important group which were controlled from early on or the start by municipal corporations, founded in market towns before 1680.
caption: The Christ Church Library
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