The Dutch in the Americas 1600‐1800: A Narrative History with the Catalogue of an Exhibition of Rare Prints, Maps, and Illustrated Books from the John Carter Brown Library

Exhibitions, and especially exhibition catalogues, are an excellent medium for bringing the richness of a library’s research materials to the notice of the public. Such events, quite apart from their value as public relations exercises, also provide an opportunity for one or more of the institution’s staff to show their scholarship. It is, however, a sad concomitant of the continual “dumbing down” of education in this country that that traditionally essential feature of a research library, a scholarly staff, encouraged and supported by its senior management, is now often disregarded in favour of the short‐term attitudes discernible behind either the...