The Seventeenth International Conference on Books, Publishing & Libraries

Abstract

This paper analyzes the process of ordering knowledge in the French library, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, within the discourse of cultural recycling. As Silvestra Mariniello explains, recycling consists in reestablishing the epistemological models of the order that are or have been threatened. “The discourse of recycling participates, among other functions, in reestablishing order.” Viewed from this standpoint, the manner in which the space of knowledge is delineated at a given time helps implement a specific ideology or mode of thought—be it new (French republican ideology after monarchism) or not (eruditio in face of eloquence françoise)—by making certain texts more readily available to readers than others. In this sense, the epistemological reordering of knowledge enables power structures in place in the library to shape, if only in part, the cultural heritage so that it can represent a specific system of values and beliefs.