There is, in fact, no way of knowing with certainty if Dury’s motives were “impure,” especially since the exact date of the tract cannot be determined, no entry existing for it in the Stationers’ Register.  According to one of Dury’s biographers, but with no reference to source, the pamphlet was printed by William Dugard “shortly after” the latter’s release from prison in the early spring of 1650.[9] The Calendar of State Papers and the records of Bulstrode Whitelocke indicate that Dury was not officially considered for the library post before late summer and not appointed until 28 October.[10]

The contents of the letters themselves reveal Dury far ahead of his time in his conception of the Complete Librarian, but later commentators have generally not understood that the administrative reforms he advocated were inseparable from his idea of the sacramental nature of the librarian’s office—­and so have tended to dismiss the second letter because it “merely repeats the ideas of the first with less practical suggestion and in a more declamatory style."[11] Such a comment illustrates how far we are from Dury’s (and the age’s) purposes and hopes, and it shows a great misunderstanding of the religious and moral context within which, for Dury, all human activity took place.  As Professor Popkin has shown, Dury considered libraries fundamental to the preparation for the millennium:  they housed the texts indispensable to the spread of learning, which in turn was prerequisite to religious unity and peace on earth and ultimately to the millennium itself; for with enough of the right books, the Christian world could convert the Jews, that final step which was to herald the reign of Christ on earth.  When, in the second letter, Dury refers to the “stewardship” of the librarian he is speaking literally, not metaphorically.

But if libraries were to serve their purpose in the grand scheme—­that is, to make texts easily available—­extensive reforms were necessary, and that is the burden of the first letter.  Dury’s cardinal principle is that libraries should be useful to people:  “It is true that a fair Librarie, is ... an ornament and credit to the place where it is [the ‘jewel box’ concept]; ... yet in effect it is no more then a dead Bodie as now it is constituted, in comparison of what it might bee, if it were animated with a publick Spirit to keep and use it, and ordered as it might bee for publick service” (p. 17, my emphasis).  The public that Dury refers to is an academic faculty and not the general public.  To insure fullest use he goes on to advocate the necessity of a printed catalogue with yearly manuscript supplements to be issued as a cumulative printed supplement every three years.  He does not reach the point of proposing a call-number system but stresses the importance of shelf-location guides in the catalogue.  He believes in aggressive acquisition policies and the necessity of good faculty-librarian relations, with the former