CHAPTER IV
THE BODLEIAN IN MODERN TIMES
Bandinel and Coxe.
Dr. Bulkeley Bandinel[20] was the last of the old type of librarian, the gentlemanly old-fashioned scholar, to whom the Library was a pleasant preserve to which like-minded students were moderately welcome, if they knew what they wanted and did not give too much trouble to the officers. He assiduously bought the best books, used his personal influence to induce the University to make purchases of entire libraries, and cultivated the probable, and even the possible, benefactor with success. But administration in the modern sense, and the organization of a staff to provide for the wants of the general reader who needed to be allured to literature, were secondary aims.
The Reverend Henry Octavius Coxe,[21] who became Bodley’s Librarian in 1860, had had experience in the British Museum and had been sent by the Government in 1857 to report on, and if possible acquire, valuable MSS. (chiefly Greek) in the monasteries of the Levant. He was a trained librarian, with just the right addition, that is to say special excellence in some one line, in this case palæography. His work was to develop the Library in modern ways, not by a cataclysm but with delicate appreciation of what the past had done in its own way.
Changes in 1860.
Several events make the date 1860 a notable one, besides Mr. Coxe’s election. In that year the Radcliffe Trustees made the splendid offer of the loan of the Radcliffe Camera, the great domed building in the centre of Radcliffe Square, as a modern Reading Room and general augmentation of the Bodleian. It solved many difficulties in a most excellent way. It provided new storage room, it made it possible to have a properly fitted second Reading Room instead of inopportune alteration of “Duke Humphrey,” and it solved the problem of lengthening the hours during which students could use the library. Artificial lights were then impossible in the Old Reading Room. In 1860 also came the valuable collections which formed the literary part of the Ashmolean Museum, including the extensive collections of Anthony Wood, the Oxford antiquary, the historical and heraldic MSS. of Ashmole himself, with the Lister, Dugdale and Aubrey papers, all relating to English history and biography. And in 1860 also was definitely begun a new general Catalogue of Printed Books on a modern system, the Catalogue in fact which is still in use. This took nineteen years to form, at a cost of £14,500, occupying (when completed in 1878) about 720 large folio volumes, now expanded to 1200. These great changes engaged the chief attention of the staff, and the next considerable event is the transfer of all the older records of the Archdeaconry of Oxford in 1878. This acquisition has resulted eventually in the Bodleian becoming the great repository of material for the local history of the three “home counties” of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, which form the Oxford diocese. In this year also was issued a Calendar of the Charters, Deeds and Rolls in the Library, chiefly the work of a self-educated student named William Henry Turner, formerly a chemist in the city. On July 8, 1881, Coxe died, having had twenty-one years to carry out his works of reform, and to introduce new principles of librarianship. In 1878 he was President of the first annual meeting of the new Library Association, held at Oxford, the transactions of which were published in the ensuing year and contain an interesting account of the Library.
Modern Expansion.
To Mr. Coxe succeeded in 1882 a librarian of a very different type, brought up in the newest school and one of the founders of the Library Association. Into every department of the Bodleian Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson[22] threw great energy and a super-active mind. Of the large ground-floor rooms of the Quadrangle no fewer than four were handed over in 1882 and afforded a great opportunity for a comprehensive scheme of rearrangement. The staff, which in 1882 were twenty-four, were gradually raised to more than seventy, partly by the introduction of boys (or “junior assistants”) for the fetching, distribution and replacement of books and for the simpler processes in dealing with new accessions. A fresh code of Cataloguing Rules was drawn up, and improved from time to time. A large Select library (in addition to a Reference library) was instituted at the Camera. The number of closed week-days—which used to be twenty-six in the year—was much reduced. Accession lists were introduced. The Library was divided into ten sections, for each of which a Senior Assistant was made responsible. Photography, for the reproduction of MSS., was introduced in 1890. The Sheldonian Basement (1884), the Ashmolean Basement (1897) and the New Examination Schools Basement (1897) were obtained for the use of the Library. The number of readers increased, in response to all these arrangements for their convenience, and a large Upper Reading Room was obtained by annexing, in accordance with Sir Thomas Bodley’s original plan (see p. [21]), part of the Picture Gallery (1907). The expenses of preparing and fitting up the room, and of shelving a large collection of periodicals in it for reference, were borne by the present Earl Brassey, who also provided funds for a Catalogue Revision Staff. But the greatest work undertaken in Mr. Nicholson’s term of office was the Underground Bookstore, a subterraneous cavern between the Bodleian Quadrangle and the Camera, beneath the grass, capable of holding a million books (see p. [39]): the funds (£12000) were provided by the Oxford University Endowment Trustees. A notable feature of his time was the willingness of some Colleges and Institutions to deposit their MSS. on revocable loan in the Bodleian, to the great convenience of scholars. In this way the MSS. of University College, the Savile and Music School Libraries, the MSS. of Jesus College and those of the Clarendon Press came in 1882-86, followed by the Brasenose, Hertford, Lincoln and New College Collections. Among the greater accessions were the Shelley Collection (1893), and the 6330 Sanskrit MSS. presented by Sir Chandra Shum Shere, of Nepal (1909).
The War.