Exchanging Books in Western Europe: A Brief History of International Interlibrary Loan

Interlibrary Loan is not a new concept. The practice of lending and borrowing materials occurred as far back as the 8th century in Western Europe.1 An 8th century copy of St. Augustine’s De Trinitate in the Bodleian Library contains a page originally left blank at the end of the manuscript whereupon “an Anglo-Saxon hand of about the year 800 entered a small list of books.”2 Elias A. Lowe’s translation and analysis of this list and adjacent annotations demonstrates that the list was likely a “catalog” of manuscripts in the ancient library of St. Kilian’s at Würzburg,3 and that several books were loaned to Holzkirchen and to the monastery at Fulda. The three institutions were geographically close, with Holz church being a dependency of Fulda monastery.4 Fulda’s library was the largest in Germany except, possibly, for St. Gall.