Alan Ramsay’s poetry is still read and appreciated in Scotland but is not well known elsewhere. But whatever his enduring fame as a poet, Ramsay made a social contribution that many of us still continue to enjoy today.
In 1718, Ramsay gave up his successful business as a wigmaker and opened a bookstore in Edinburgh. Books were expensive luxuries in those days, and few people could afford extensive libraries. To make books affordable to more people, Ramsay hit upon the idea of renting them. For a modest subscription fee, patrons of Ramsay’s store could borrow books, read them, then return them without having to buy them. His innovation was soon copied throughout Britain.
In 1731, Benjamin Franklin and other members of the Junto Club in Philadelphia adapted Ramsay’s model. They pooled their money and bought enough books to create a respectable library, with all the members being allowed use of the books. But they also allowed non-members to borrow the books, provided they left a deposit equal to the value of the book, which was returned to them when they returned the book. That was the first lending library in America.
Alan Ramsay, creator of the first lending library, died on January 7, 1758.
The portrait is by William Aikman (1722).
