British Library

“ Thus in such places as Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, the Free Libraries should be smaller British Museums, and in this spirit their founders have worked; but in smaller and less important towns a more modest object has to be kept in view, and the wants of readers, more than those of consulters of books, have to be considered. ”

“ It is pointed out that the reading of fiction in British municipal libraries is much less than commonly believed, being only 24 percent, even after due allowance is made for the reading of fiction in current magazines. Attention is called to the gradual disappearance of the unclassified municipal library, although in 1910 there were over 340 not closely classified, but only arranged in broad numerical or alphabetical divisions. The replacement of printed catalogs in book form by card catalogs and other forms, like the sheaf catalog, easily kept up to date, is noted as growing in favor. ”

“ This is an unsuitable variety for a public library, and should not be used for cataloguing purposes.
The British Museum public catalogue consists of large guard books, in which printed or manuscript slips of book entries are mounted on the tough cartridge paper leaves, so as to leave space for additions. When a page becomes congested, the slips can be lifted by means of a paper-knife, as they are secured only at the ends, another leaf can be inserted on the adjoining guard, and the old and additional slips can be redistributed over the whole of the newly created space. ”

“ We do not envisage an exclusively digital library. We are aware that some people feel that digital materials will predominate in libraries of the future. Others anticipate that the impact will be slight. In the context of the British Library, printed books, manuscripts, maps, music, sound recordings and all the other existing materials in the collection will always retain their central importance, and we are committed to continuing to provide, and to improve, access to these in our reading rooms. The importance of digital materials will, however, increase. ”

“ Still other digital libraries are formed of digitizing paintings, films and music. Work even exists in 3D reconstructive digitization that permits a digital deconstruction, storage, transmission, and reconstruction of solid object."
The British Library is a pioneer in Europe for research relating to digital libraries. Some treasures of the library are already on-line: Beowulf, the first great English masterpiece dated 11th century ”

“ Studies for the use of artists are also collected, mounted on cards, and made accessible, and some of these attempts to popularize art should be made in British libraries. Photographs are comparatively cheap, and almost every kind of picture and study can be obtained in this medium. What is particularly required is some kind of practical list or guide, drawn up by an expert, from which libraries could make their selections. ”

“ Having heard to-day, with great surprise, that a Reader of the Library of the British Museum had expressed dissatisfaction at the new regulations which you have introduced for obtaining Books, I take the liberty of offering you the opinion of a person who has constantly used the Library for sixteen years, and who, perhaps, is not very likely to be suspected of bestowing indiscriminate or venal praise. ”

“ The first point which occurs is the connexion between a library’s income and its book-purchasing power. As, by law established, most British library incomes are strictly limited, it follows that a similar limitation must govern the supply of books, and that only a selection of new books can be procured, old and out-of-print books taking their chance. The very largest rate-supported libraries are bound by this limitation to buy only a selection from the immense mass of books annually published, and, even if such purchases amount to several thousands of volumes, they represent only a selection. ”

“ These collections include Jeremy Bentham’s library, Morrison’s Chinese library, Barlow’s Dante library, collections of law, mathematical, Icelandic, theological, art, oriental and other books, some of them of great value.
King’s College Library, founded in 1828, has over 30,000 vols. chiefly of a scientific character. In close association with the university of London is the London School of Economics and Political Science in Clare Market, in which is housed the British Library of Political Science with 50,000 vols. and a large number of official reports and pamphlets. ”

“ There is scarcely, in the whole British Museum, a less satisfactory book than his catalogue of the Royal library. Thus, the student is hampered by the want of a guide, and must hew paths for himself through the luxuriant growth and accumulations of many centuries. In point of mere size, the Royal library ranks third among the four great collections acquired by the British Museum at the time of its foundation—the Harleian numbering 7639 MSS. ”

“ It is thought by some that an open access library is itself a book exhibition, but even with this system, and certainly with the indicator system, there are many things that can be exhibited with advantage. Such works as Williams’s History of the Art of Writing, the facsimiles published by the British Museum, and other large treasure houses ”

“ The older libraries were usually in the charge of scholars, whose main work was that of “keeper” of the books, a title which the librarian in charge of the British Museum still bears, although it does not now comprehend his work. The municipal library required a man who was not primarily a scholar, although scholarship was an invaluable basis for his work; he was rather required to be an administrator, a purveyor of books, and, because of the very limited moneys at his disposal, something of a business man. ”

“ Yet printed books must almost always make the greater part of a collection, and it may be well to give some rules as to the features that distinguish the productions of the early press. But no amount of “rules” is worth six months’ practical experience in bibliography. That experience the amateur, if he is wise, will obtain in a public library, like the British Museum or the Bodleian. Nowhere else is he likely to see much of the earliest of printed books, which very seldom come into the market. ”

“ Next to the Bibliothèque nationale of France, comes the Library of the British Museum, with 2,000,000 volumes, very rich both in manuscripts and in printed books in all languages. A liberal Parliamentary grant of $60,000 a year for purchase of books and manuscripts keeps this great collection well up to date as to all important new works, besides enabling it constantly to fill up deficiencies in the literature of the past. ”

“ The Nation has done almost nothing for the Library....
‘Considering the British Museum to be a National Library for research, its utility increases in proportion with the very rare and costly books, in preference to modern books.... I think that scholars have a right to look, for these expensive works, to the Government of the Country....
‘I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity,—of following his rational pursuits,—of consulting the same authorities,—of fathoming the most intricate inquiry,—as the richest man in the kingdom, as far as books go. ”

“ This is an age of books of reference, and as knowledge increases, and the books which impart it to readers become unwieldy from their multitude, there are sure to be forthcoming those who will reduce the facts into a handy form. I have gathered in the following pages the titles of some of the best books of reference which are to be obtained. Many, if not all of these, are to be found in that magnificent library of reference—the Reading Room of the British Museum. In some cases where the books are constantly being reprinted, dates have been omitted. ”

“ The very old libraries occasionally use a slip catalogue; the Bodleian and British Museum, for example, paste slips into volumes or guard books resembling large scrap-books in approximate alphabetical order, and other libraries use similar methods. The system is a good one in many respects; the public understands and likes it; but the catalogue runs to so many large volumes that its accommodation would be a serious matter for the ordinary library; and the congestion of entries, with loss of all but approximate alphabetical order at most letters of the alphabet, will be obvious. ”

“ Of Public Libraries first in order come the great libraries of a nation, such as the British Museum. These are supplied by means of the Copyright Law, but the librarians are not from this cause exonerated from the troubles attendant on the formation of a library. There are old books and privately printed and foreign books to be bought, and it is necessary that the most catholic spirit should be displayed by the librarians. ”

“ The love of books will often form a tie of connection between very divergent characters, and in dealing with men who have formed libraries we can bring together the names of those who had but little sympathy with each other during life.
George III. was a true book collector, and the magnificent library now preserved in the British Museum owes its origin to his own judgment and enthusiastic love for the pursuit. Louis XVI. cared but little for books until his troubles came thick upon him, and then he sought solace from their pages. ”

“ The librarian should not seclude himself so as to be practically inaccessible to readers, nor trust wholly to assistants to answer their inquiries. This may be necessary in some large libraries, where great and diversified interests connected with the building up of the collection, the catalogue system, and the library management and administration are all concerned. In the British Museum Library, no one ever sees the Principal Librarian; even the next officer, who is called the keeper of the printed books, is not usually visible in the reading-room at all. ”

“ The library of George the Fourth, inherited by that graceless ignoramus from a book-collecting father, and presented to the British nation with ostentatious liberality only after he had failed to sell it to Russia, was said in the publications of those times to contain about 120,000 volumes. But an actual enumeration when the books were lodged in the King's library at the British Museum, where they have ever since remained, showed that there were only 65,250 volumes, being but little more than half the reported number. Many libra [213] ries, public and private, are equally over-estimated. ”

“ If we go back another sixty years from 1700 we reach another typographic zone, as we may call it, within which some slight interest attaches to all examples of English printing, for the end of the year 1640 is the limit of the special catalogues of early books published by the British Museum, the Cambridge University Library, and the John Rylands Library, Manchester. ”

“ It will thus be seen that the British municipal libraries must be selectors rather than collectors of books, because the income of no one of them is equal to buying more than a proportion of the 8300 new books published annually in Britain alone. ”

“ The object of this paper is to give a short account of the sliding-press or hanging book-press now in use at the British Museum, and to suggest the importance of its introduction elsewhere where possible, and of regard being had to it in forming the plans of libraries hereafter to be built. Every successful library is destined to be confronted sooner or later with the problem how to enlarge its insufficient space. ”

“ The best and only satisfactory criterion is furnished by the rate of progress in the British Museum, the National Library of Paris, and other large libraries containing books of all kinds. A trial of many years has shown that men possessed of the best qualifications, long practised in the work, with every advantage of a systematic division of labor, of access to all necessary books of reference, and to persons who could help them in emergencies, provided with every mechanical facility and assistance to be desired, can prepare about forty or fifty titles a day. ”

“ Byrom's quaint library is still preserved at Manchester in its entirety. Bishop Moore's fine collection finds a resting place in the University Library at Cambridge, and the relics of the Library of Harley, Earl of Oxford, a mine of manuscript treasure, still remain one of the chief glories of the British Museum. How much cause for regret is there that the library itself, which Osborne bought and Johnson described, did not also [Pg 38] find a settled home, instead of being dispersed over the land. ”

“ I revere that library. It is the author's friend. I don't care how mean a book is, it always takes one copy. [A copy of every book printed in Great Britain must by law be sent to the British Museum, a law much complained of by publishers.] And then every day that author goes there to gaze at that book, and is encouraged to go on in the good work. And what a touching sight it is of a Saturday afternoon to see the poor, careworn clergymen gathered together in that vast reading-room cabbaging sermons for Sunday! ”

“ This Association was founded on 5th October, 1877, at the conclusion of the International Conference of Librarians held at the London Institution, under the presidency of the late Mr. J. Winter Jones, then principal librarian of the British Museum.
Its objects are: (a) to encourage and aid by every means in its power the establishment of new libraries; (b) to endeavour to secure better legislation for rate-supported libraries; (c) to unite all persons engaged or interested in library work, for the purpose of promoting the best possible administration of libraries ”