Opened on 17 May 1842, the Albany Public Library was initially a proprietary library which any inhabitant could join by paying an annual fee of £1 and a deposit of 5s. The library’s public reading room could be accessed by any member of the public, provided they were introduced by a subscriber. The 1851 catalogue was printed at Grahamstown by W.M. Connely and contains around 4,000 volumes. The catalogue begins with a list of the library’s regulations and committee of management. There then follows an ‘analytical index’ dividing the collection into the following subject classes: divinity; history; biography; voyages and travels; political economy, law; physical science and natural history; poetry; languages; novels. There then follows an alphabetical list of authors stocked under each of the 8 classes exclusive of novels. After the ‘analytical index’ comes the catalogue, which is listed alphabetically by author and title. The number of volumes of each work listed is also given. There is a separate section for novels, which are listed by title only.
As will may subscription libraries, novels is the most populous class (843 volumes). The majority of the library’s non-fiction holdings are of the popular ‘useful knowledge’ variety represented by the various publishers’ series present in the collection. Listed are Dr. Lardner’s Cabinet cyclopaedia (122 volumes); Charles Knight’s Shilling volumes (114 volumes); Murray’s Family library (80 volumes); Constable’s Miscellany (78 volumes); Library of entertaining knowledge (42 volumes); Naturalist’s library (39 volumes); Edinburgh cabinet library (32 volumes); Encyclopaedia Britannica (25 volumes) and the Penny encyclopaedia (22 volumes). Outside of the family libraries, the library purchased a large number of ‘voyages and travels’ and ‘biographies’. The novel collection is also dominated by popular series. Amongst others, 20 volumes of Thomas Caddell’s author’s edition of Scott’s Waverly novels and Colburn and Bentley’s The new British novelist (38 volumes) and Standard novels (16 volumes) are listed.
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