When Mr. Nicholson died, on March 17, 1912, the present writer[23] succeeded to his position. In 1913 a new Bodleian Statute (in English), based on the old Latin code but putting the Curators more clearly in their position of Governors of the Library, and otherwise designed to meet modern requirements, came into force. Two large and valuable donations were received in that year and in 1914, namely, 17,000 volumes of Chinese literature from Sir Edmund Backhouse, of Pekin, and Professor Ingram Bywater’s very choice library of about four thousand volumes on Aristotle and his commentators, and of Humanist scholars up to about 1650. Then the War came, and checked many of the activities of the Bodleian. Forty-one members of the Staff were called away on military service of one kind or another, including all of the Regular Staff who were of military age,[24] for the Library made no claim for exemption. The more valuable MSS. and printed books had to be put away in safes protected by sand-bags, and were thereby withdrawn from use. On three occasions an alarm of air-raids brought many of the staff to the quadrangle between midnight and 3 a.m. The readers diminished by about one-third. On the other hand, no department was closed down, nor any change made in the public service, the gaps were filled by the capable assistance of ladies of the Catalogue Revision Staff and men in some way disabled from military work, and in 1916 it was found possible to hold a Shakespeare Tercentenary Exhibition with success. The British Museum was unable to undertake this at the time, and the Bodleian with every right stepped into the gap. A full account of this and of the whole history of the Library during the war will be found in the Bodleian Quarterly Record, which was started in April, 1914.
In June, 1919, Dr. Cowley[25] succeeded to the chair of office, and may be expected to carry on the Library through a successful era of change and progress which the arrival of peace has made possible.
The Bodleian at the Present Time
The position of the Bodleian Library among the great libraries of the world has been stated on p. [13]. A general description may now be given of its buildings, organization and facilities accorded to students, at the present time.
A. Buildings and Reading Rooms
The Buildings may be conveniently divided into three parts: 1. The older part (“Bodley”); 2. The modern part (the “Camera” and Underground Bookstore); 3. Certain outlying store rooms in University buildings.
The Old Reading Room.
The older part consists, as will be clear from a glance at the [frontispiece], of an H-shaped building, and three sides of a Quadrangle fitted on to it. Readers who have followed the history outlined in preceding chapters will understand that the very cradle of the whole Library lies in the part marked on the plan “Old Reading Room.” That is Sir Thomas Bodley’s own first room, which had been superposed on the Divinity School in the latter part of the fifteenth century, finished in 1480, and taken over in a derelict condition by the Founder. No one can enter the room without a feeling of veneration for its antiquity and associations. The first extension (also in the Founder’s life-time) was the Arts End on the East, matched before the Civil War by the corresponding Selden End on the West. Since all three rooms were on the first-floor level, there is a space below, and a vaulted walk or ambulatory bears up the Arts End, while the Convocation House, built by the University, is under the Selden End. The contents of this triple room on the first floor are chiefly the printed books acquired before 1750, still divided according to the four Faculties—Theology, Medicine, Law and Arts. So firmly fixed are some of these that the present writer, having lost all trace in the General Catalogue of a book to be found under the word Parantinis in the 1605 Catalogue, in despair ordered it by its shelf mark in 1605 (8ᵒ L. 20 Th.), to see what would turn up, and it came. The fittings, ceiling and desks are hardly altered from what Sir Thomas Bodley ordained and saw. America as well as England may claim this heritage, for it presents the same appearance now as it presented years before the Pilgrim Fathers sailed in 1620.
The Bodleian Quadrangle.
The three sides of the School Quadrangle which adjoin the Arts End now contain the most valuable part of the Library. In the Gallery are the Upper Reading Room (with the General Catalogue and the selected periodicals) and the Picture Gallery (with a quarter of a mile of bibliography). On the first-floor on the South side are the chief manuscript collections; on the East side the Bywater, Douce and (north of the Tower) the Oriental MSS, and printed books; on the North side the Malone, Tanner, and Gough books, with all the Bibles. On the ground-floor are placed the Hope Collection of engraved portraits (about 300,000)—which is under separate trustees and is not really Bodleian property—the Music School (containing the printed and manuscript music and, at present, the Backhouse Chinese collection), the Meerman room (with a number of smaller sets of books), the Law Room, the Foreign Periodical Room and the Map Room.