An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers' Registers
Also known as Advocates' Library. Located in Edinburgh. Founded in 1682. Type of library: Institutional. Collection: Still in situ.
Address: Advocates Library
Parliament Square
Edinburgh
EH1 1RF
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The Advocates Library was offcially inaugurated by the Faculty of Advocates in 1689 as a library to support legal education for its members. It remains a private library for members of the Faculty.
The library's collections developed rapidly. Its catalogue of 1692 lists over 3,000 items with just over half being legal texts. The non-legal collection - much of it donations from members of the Faculty - included works of philosophy, heraldry, poetry, geography, and theology. The Queen Anne Act of 1709 gave the library the right to claim free copies of all books and journals published in the UK and Ireland.
The library's extensive and comprehensive collection of books and manuscripts went beyond the needs of practicing lawyers and the library. It attracted scholars, philosophers, and historians throughout the Scottish Enlightenment and into the nineteenth century. Notable users include David Hume (who served as the Keeper of the Library from 1752 to 1757), James Boswell, and Sir Walter Scott.
The Advocates Library acted as a national library for Scotland until 1925 when the National Library of Scotland was founded. The Faculty then donated its non-legal collections to the Scottish nation.
Borrowers were members of the Faculty of Advocates and approved external users who gained access upon request.
The library was (and remains) a working legal library. It retains and continues to develop its legal materials for the use of practicing lawyers. It holds a world-class collection of historical legal books from the earliest days of printing as well as manuscripts. Its special collections include legal books and collections of Session Papers, the written pleadings of the Court of Session.
Berry, Sara, 'The Advocates Library, Edinburgh', 21 (3/4) Legal Information Management (2021), 160-66
Betteridge, Robert L., ‘“Some Curious Bookes for Their Library”: The Books of Robert Park, Advocate’, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, 16 (2021), 71-87
Brown, Iain Gordon, Building for Books: The Architectural Evolution of the Advocates' Library, 1689-1925 (Aberdeen, 1989)
Cadell, P. and A. Matheson (eds), For the Encouragement of Learning: Scotland's National Library 1689-1989 (Edinburgh, 1989)
Cairns, John W. and Hector L. MacQueen, Learning and the Law: A Short History of Edinburgh Law School (Edinburgh, 2013)
Finlay, John, 'Legal Education, 1650-1850', in The Edinburgh History of Education in Scotland, ed. Robert Anderson, Mark Freeman and Lindsay Paterson (Edinburgh, 2015)
Grant, Francis J. (ed.), The Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, 1532-1943 with Genealogical Notes, Scottish Record Society (Edinburgh, 1944)
Hillyard, Brian, 'The Formation of the Library, 1682-1728', in For the Encouragement of Learning: Scotland's National Library, 1689-1989, ed. Patrick Cadell and Ann Matheson (Edinburgh, 1989), 23-66
Kelly, W. A., The Library of Lord George Douglas (ca. 1667/8?-1693?): An Early Donation to the Advocates Library (Cambridge,1997)
Pittock, Murray, Enlightenment in a Smart City: Edinburgh’s Civic Development, 1660-1750 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019)
St Clair, John and Roger Craik, The Advocates' Library: 300 Years of a National Institution, 1689-1989 (Edinburgh, 1989)
Townley, Maureen, The Best and Fynest Lawers and Other Raire Bookes: A Facsimile of the Earliest List of Books in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh with an Introduction and Modern Catalogue (Edinburgh, 1990)
Wellburn, Peter, ‘The Living Library’, in For the Encouragement of Learning: Scotland’s National Library, 1689-1989, ed. Patrick Cadell and Ann Matheson (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1989),186-214
Location: Aberdeen
Foundation date: 1700
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 7
Number of books: 360
Number of borrowers: 278
Number of library records: 3333
Also known as Advocates' Library
Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1682
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 54
Number of books: 5928
Number of borrowers: 934
Number of library records: 11905
Also known as Robert Chambers' Circulating Library
Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1828
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 919
Number of borrowers: 311
Number of library records: 7319
Location: Craigston
Foundation date: 1604
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 396
Number of borrowers: 189
Number of library records: 684
Location: Dumfries
Foundation date: c.1706
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 636
Number of borrowers: 249
Number of library records: 3475
Also known as University of Edinburgh Library
Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1582
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 36
Number of books: 2339
Number of borrowers: 2069
Number of library records: 14638
Also known as University of Glasgow Library
Location: Glasgow
Foundation date: 1451
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 8
Number of books: 3476
Number of borrowers: 1013
Number of library records: 15372
Also known as John Gray Library
Location: Haddington
Foundation date: 1717
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 2
Number of books: 462
Number of borrowers: 743
Number of library records: 5187
Location: Glasgow
Foundation date: 1807
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 244
Number of borrowers: 42
Number of library records: 368
Also known as The Library of Innerpeffray
Location: Innerpeffray
Foundation date: 1680
Type of library: Other
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 793
Number of borrowers: 1182
Number of library records: 5393
Also known as Inverness Presbyterial Library
Location: Inverness
Foundation date: 1706
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 1
Number of books: 38
Number of borrowers: 20
Number of library records: 61
Also known as Bibliotheca Leightoniana
Leightonian Library
Library of Dunblane
Location: Dunblane
Foundation date: 1688
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 5
Number of books: 809
Number of borrowers: 306
Number of library records: 6737
Also known as Kirkwall Library, Orkney Subscription Library
Location: Kirkwall
Foundation date: 1683
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 5
Number of books: 603
Number of borrowers: 266
Number of library records: 14495
Also known as High School of Edinburgh
Location: Edinburgh
Foundation date: 1658
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 5
Number of books: 1966
Number of borrowers: 2410
Number of library records: 19968
Also known as Selkirk Subscription Library
Location: Selkirk
Foundation date: 1772
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 2
Number of books: 862
Number of borrowers: 237
Number of library records: 14923
Location: St Andrews
Foundation date: 1612
Type of library: Institutional
Number of library registers: 25
Number of books: 7560
Number of borrowers: 673
Number of library records: 21578
Location: Wigtown
Foundation date: 1795
Type of library: Subscription
Number of library registers: 4
Number of books: 345
Number of borrowers: 103
Number of library records: 6230