Editing Gabriel Naudé (section)

== Career as a librarian ==
Naudé, in his career as a librarian, "opposed censorship, and encouraged library owners to allow others to use their books, a practice he considered a great honor for the owner – an honor equal to that of having the opportunity to build a fine library."<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Library: an Illustrated History|last = Murray|first = Stuart A.P.|publisher = Skyhorse Publishing|year = 2012|location = New York|pages = 122}}</ref> Naudé found it favorable to collect original format of books and to keep the volumes collected intact. He was a true believer of considering the needs of those that would access them and felt strong consideration to be sought from the experts in each particular field. He was adamant about collecting in all languages, about all religions, subject matters, and literature.
[[File:Salle de lecture Bibliothèque Mazarine Angle.jpg|thumb|left|Reading room of the Bibliothèque Mazarine (2010)]]
During his career in librarianship, Naudé helped instruct collectors and libraries in the selection and acquisition of their titles and how to create catalogs for their libraries. He was a major proponent of scouring secondhand bookshops and print shops for valuable and hard to find literary works. "When Naudé has been in town, the booksellers' shops seem devastated as by a whirlwind. Having bought up in every last one of them all the books, whether in manuscript or in print, dealing in any language whatever with any subject or division of learning no matter what, he has left the stores stripped and bare."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|url = http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1272&context=libassoc|title = Gabriel Naudé and the Ideal Library|last = Lemke|first = Antje Bultmann|date = 1991|journal = Surface Scholarly Journal|page = 37}}</ref>

Naudé also had interesting ideas on the locale where a library should be located. "While centrally located within the community it serves, a library should be at some distance from the noisiest streets. It should, if possible, be situated between some spacious court and a pleasant garden, from which it may enjoy good light, a wide and agreeable prospect, and pure air, unpolluted by marshes, sinks, or dunghills; the whole arrangement so well planned and ordered that it is compelled to share nothing unpleasant or obviously inconvenient."<ref name=":0" />

Probably the most famous library that Naudé helped shape, and in which he served as librarian, was the ''[[Bibliothèque Mazarine|Bibliothéque Mazarine]]'' in Paris, the library of [[Cardinal Mazarin|Cardinal Jules Mazarin]] in the rue de Richelieu.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Bibliothèque Mazarine: Buildings |url=https://www.bibliotheque-mazarine.fr/en/about/buildings |access-date=9 December 2023 |website=Bibliotheque Mazarine}}</ref> Naudé spent ten years of his life improving and shaping the ''Bibliothéque''. It became the first publicly accessible library in France because of Naudé's insistence and was open to the public as early as 1644.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Boitano |first=John F. |date=1996 |title=Naudé's ''Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque'': A Window into the Past |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/c17.1996.18.1.5 |journal=Seventeenth-Century French Studies |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=8 |doi=10.1179/c17.1996.18.1.5 |issn=0265-1068 |via=Taylor & Francis Online}}</ref>

As a librarian and scholar, Naudé proposed "to direct a wealthy collector into paths of bibliothecarian righteousness"<ref name="Advice on Establishing a Library">{{cite journal |last1=Brown |first1=Harcourt |date=1951 |title=Advice on Establishing a Library / Gabriel Naudé [book review] |journal=Library Quarterly |volume=21 |issue=1 |page=44 |doi=10.1086/617719}}</ref> as a result of his belief that the current century had advanced far beyond their predecessors with regard to the quantity and quality of the information or resources that they had access to. Naudé's seminal work on library science,&nbsp;''Advice on Establishing a Library'', served as an early instruction manual or guide for private collectors who were interested in the book acquisition and maintenance process.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Murray |first1=S.A.P. |title=The Library: An Illustrated History |date=2009 |publisher=Skyhorse Publishing}}</ref> Naudé encouraged collectors (and fellow librarians) to organize their books meticulously by "their number and the range of their subject matter, the criteria of selection, and the means of procurement",<ref name="Advice on Establishing a Library"/> in addition to the arrangement of the building(s) that book collections may be stored in and other potential methods of book cataloging. Naudé's knowledge and expertise left a lasting impact on both the library community and the world at large, with his influence guiding collectors, scholars, politicians, and religious leaders.