1887.
Price Sixpence.
Further Remarks on the Policy of Lending Bodleian printed Books and Manuscripts.
There are several reasons why it is in the highest degree improbable that I should take any part in the debate on the Bodleian Statute, but I reserve the right to handle in my own fashion any arguments that may be used, and to supplement, if need be, any facts or supposed facts that may be brought forward during the discussion.
Those who are in favour of changing the whole character of the Bodleian, and who wish to convert it from a library of reference into a library of circulation, do not seem to feel much confidence in the strength of their case; at all events, they have made no serious attempt to meet the facts and arguments with which they are confronted, but show a disposition to wander off into side issues of little or no importance. Before examining the letters of Mr. Sanday, Mr. Ellis, and Dr. Rost (as far as I know the only advocates of lending that have yet ventured into print), it may be well to add some further evidence on the lending system, which was omitted from the ‘Remarks’ by inadvertence. The Advocates’ Library is, as we all know, a lending library, and in 1852, or thereabouts, the librarian informed Dr. Bandinel that they had already lost nearly seven thousand works. In 1849 Mr. Maitland told a Committee of the House of Commons that ‘all the ordinary readable books, for which there is a great demand, are now reduced into a state and condition so bad that it is perfectly disgraceful’; and he was of opinion that ‘the only satisfactory and practical reform in the Advocates’ Library would be to put an end to the circulation of the books.’ Mr. Panizzi—a splendid librarian and a man with a head on his shoulders—addressed a string of queries to thirty-six large continental libraries, and asked, inter alia, whether they lent their books, whether those books were in consequence lost or damaged, whether the practice was complained of, and whether readers were inconvenienced by it. Six libraries out of the thirty-six never lent under any circumstances whatever; thirteen returned either no answer or no clear answer as to the consequences of the practice; three (the Public Library at Basle, the University Library at Turin, and St. Mark’s, Venice) reported ‘no inconvenience as resulting’; but the remaining fourteen told a very different tale—from the Royal Library, Berlin, ‘few books were lost,’ but books were damaged; at the City Library, Berne, ‘books do certainly suffer,’ and readers are inconvenienced; at the Royal Library, Copenhagen, ‘many inconveniences are the consequences of such a practice’; ‘books are lost, &c.’—a very eloquent ‘&c.’ especially if it be compared with the evidence of Molbech the librarian there, see ‘Remarks,’ p. 59; at the City Library, Frankfurt, ‘books are not entirely lost, but are often damaged’; at the Public Library, Geneva, ‘books are lost and damaged’; at the Brera, Milan, ‘generally speaking books are not injured,’ but readers are inconvenienced; at the National Library, Paris, it is hoped that rules have been adopted which would ‘prevent the great losses and just complaints of the public.’ (I may parenthetically observe that forty years ago or more the losses of this one library were estimated at fifty thousand volumes); at St. Geneviève, ‘the principle is acknowledged to be liable to many abuses’; at the Mazarene Library, ‘the system is found very dangerous’; at the Library of the Institute, the practice was condemned as ‘highly pernicious and practically liable to the abuses implied in the question’; at the Ducal Library, Parma, books are not lost and ‘few slightly damaged,’ but readers complain of inconvenience; at the Imperial Library, Prague, ‘readers were inconvenienced’; and at Wolfenbüttel, ‘all the inconveniences mentioned in the question are the consequence of the system’; that is to say, books were lost and damaged, and readers were inconvenienced.
I have said that the answer returned from St. Mark’s, Venice (where lending on a very small scale prevailed), was that no inconvenience was felt, but it is well deserving of notice that the respondent continues thus, ‘if librarians were asked all over the world, and they would candidly answer the question, one and all would deprecate the system of lending, being liable to every one of the abuses mentioned in the question.’ Unfortunately librarians, like other people, will not always answer questions candidly. There is plenty more evidence of this sort, but what has been already adduced here and in the ‘Remarks’ is surely enough to prove the mischief inseparable from this silly practice even to the most obtuse of mankind.