Remarks on the practice and policy of lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts

HENRY W. CHANDLER, M.A.
FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD; WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY, AND A CURATOR OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY.
Oxford: B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 AND 51, BROAD STREET. 1887
The present 'Remarks' are a reprint, with many omissions and additions, of two privately printed papers which were communicated to the Curators last year. From November, 1884, for about twelve months, I did very little more than watch attentively the way in which Bodleian business is transacted, to me at once a novelty and a surprise. For some purposes writing is preferable to talking, and accordingly in November, 1885, I printed a memorandum containing many gentle hints—φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν—which I faintly hoped might eventually prove beneficial to the Library. Next came a Memorandum 'on the Classed Catalogue,' a thing which some Curators look on as a most valuable work, and others as an interminable and wasteful absurdity. This was followed by a paper 'on the Bodleian Coins and Medals', with some observations on the proposal to transfer the collection to the Ashmolean Museum. As far as could be seen, all this expenditure of ink and money did no harm, and no good. In May, 1886, a committee was appointed to draw up regulations for loans of books; and in June the Curators received a paper 'on the lending of Bodleian Books and Manuscripts,' as also Bishop Barlow's Argument against lending them, then for the first time printed as a whole; and in both the illegality of the borrowers' list was pointed out, and very broad hints given, not only that the present loan statute is defective, but why, and in what manner it is so. If these hints, facts, and arguments had been addressed to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, they could not have produced less visible effect; and it was wonderfully amusing to find, that more than half my brethren could not for the life of them see what to everybody else was plain as a pikestaff; so on we went in the well-beaten path, steady as old Time himself, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and, what is more remarkable, never for one moment looking ahead. Finally, at the beginning of October, came a paper on 'Book-lending as practised at the Bodleian'; and this proved to be the last straw; for on October 30th, partly by words and partly by that silence which gives consent, it was plainly intimated that these papers were unwelcome. One friend, and only one, had a good word to say for them; so far as they contained collection of facts he approved of them, but no further. As my little experiment failed so lamentably, I am hardly likely to repeat it, or to put so severe a strain on the good nature and patience of my colleagues as ever again to trouble them with a scrap of printed paper. This puts me into a sort of quandary. I abhor pen and ink, and should like to hold my tongue and spare my pocket; but that is impossible as things are. I cannot stand by and see men who know no better trying (with the best possible intentions) to get the Bodleian on to an inclined plane, down which it must rapidly slide to perdition, without loudly protesting against their acts. What then is to be done? Private feelings must be respected, yet not so as to impede the performance of a duty to the Library and to the University. The atmosphere of a meeting is not conducive to calm and rational discussion; I cannot make speeches; the board does not relish either facts or arguments in print. Only one course remains then; whenever there is anything to be said about the Bodleian or its management (and there is much that ought to be, and must be said sooner or later), it shall no longer be privately printed and given away to unwilling recipients, but published and sold. In this way all parties will be satisfied: those who are interested in the Library can buy; those who are not, can protect themselves against annoyance. So much by way of explanation.