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With the close of the western empire, in A.D. 476, the ancient era of libraries may be said also to close without any lessons to us as to building.

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Thus far libraries were gathered and cared for by monarchs, princes, or prominent citizens. With the growth of Christianity literature fell to the care of the ecclesiastics. Their earliest collection, of which record remains, was shelved in the apse of a church. About A.D. 300, monastic communities began to cherish church literature. Existing records all indicate that cloisters were the first Christian libraries, perhaps because all the monks could assemble there. What few precious manuscript volumes the laborious brothers had fashioned, with others given or bought, were stored on shelves or in “presses” on the inner walls. The readers either took the books to their cells, or read them by the light of the windows in the outer wall. There were the reading room, the book room, and the lending room, all in one long, well-lighted cloister. Later, as more manuscripts accumulated, they were stored at first in niches in the wall, then in adjacent closets or small windowless rooms. Readers still studied by the best light. To follow Clark’s quotation:[3] “On the north syde of the Cloister (at Durham) in every window were ... Pews or Carrels where every Monk studyed upon his books. And in every Carrel was a deske to lye their bookes on.”