What Naudé did not discuss in his writings was the uncomfortable truth of libraries throughout the ages: no society has ever been satisfied with the collections inherited from previous generations. What we will frequently see in this book is not so much the apparently wanton destruction of beautiful artefacts so lamented by previous studies of library history, but neglect and redundancy, as books and collections that represented the values and interests of one generation fail to speak to the one that follows.

Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile Hist…, loc. 18