[16] See note 15, p. 46.
This question as to the expediency of lending books out of such libraries as the British Museum or the Bodleian has been hotly debated both at home and abroad for the last eighty years or more, and I wish I had space to detail the arguments that have been used, not by men ignorant of books and eager only to consult their own convenience, or to obtain credit for a spurious liberality; but by those who really and truly knew all the ins and outs of the matter they were talking about, and who were quite as anxious to promote learning as we are ourselves. Take, for instance, the late Mr. Thomas Watts, keeper of printed books in the British Museum, one of the very rarest of men, a librarian who thoroughly knew his business, at all events so far as printed books were concerned, and quite unequalled as regards all questions of organisation and administration. He carries impartiality almost to excess, for he says, speaking of lending, 'It would, perhaps, be expedient to examine the subject more closely before a final determination was come to on either side; for while the Bodleian Library is strictly non-circulating, the books are freely lent out to the members of the University from the University Library of Cambridge, and yet any material difference in the condition of the two libraries to the disadvantage of that of Cambridge, is certainly not a matter of public notoriety.' This statement appeared in 1867, and Mr. Watts evidently did not know that lending had been practised by the Bodleian Curators ever since 1862 (see above, p. 14); nor was he seemingly aware of the facts detailed by Mr. Bradshaw, or of such gross abuses as that which Mr. Bradshaw told a friend of my own. He said that on a certain occasion a graduate had a dinner party, and that he borrowed from the University Library certain expensive illustrated works to be laid on the table to amuse his guests; Bradshaw was powerless, though indignant at an act so disgraceful. Carefully however as Mr. Watts holds the balance, it seems unquestionable that he himself condemned the practice of lending from such libraries as the British Museum or the Bodleian; for after writing a column or more, in which he shows every disposition to lend books where it is possible to do so without causing more harm than good, he considers Mr. Spedding's proposal to lend a book wanted by a reader in London to the British Museum library—the very thing in fact which we now are in the habit of doing, he then says; "By this ingenious arrangement some of the advantages proposed by the lending system would certainly be afforded, under safeguards not now obtainable; but there would still remain the strong objection that a reader wishing to examine a particular book known to be in a particular library might be subjected to a disappointment which he is now in no hazard of. This objection is tersely stated in a passage from a letter by Niebuhr, which was quoted by the Commissioners for examining into the University of Oxford. 'It is lamentable,' writes Niebuhr from the University of Bonn, 'that I am here much worse off for books than I was at Rome, where I was sure to find whatever was in the library, because no books were lent out; here I find that just the book which I most want is always lent out.' There are few libraries from which books are lent of which stories are not current respecting the abuse of the privilege, of volumes kept for years by persons too high or too venerable to be questioned. The rules of such institutions are often laxly observed by those from whom we should least expect such disregard. In Walter Scott's correspondence with Southey there is a passage in which he recommends him not to show publicly a book which he had sent him, because it belongs to the Advocate's Library, and it is forbidden for those books to be sent out of Scotland."
The opinion then of one of the most accomplished librarians that ever lived is, on the whole, adverse to the system of lending. I believe it to be quite impossible for a man of his enormous knowledge of the subject to come to any other conclusion than that at which he arrived: the less a man knows about books and libraries, the more inclined he is to the pernicious system of lending; the more he knows about them, the less inclined he is to countenance anything of the kind; such at least has been my experience.
The late Mr. Henry Bradshaw of Cambridge was a most learned librarian and an accomplished bibliographer. He has not, so far as I am aware, expressed in print his plain opinion of the lending system; but no one can read his paper on the Cambridge University Library, (The University Library, ... by Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of the University, Camb. 1881. 8vo.,) without seeing that he bitterly regretted the practice which prevails and has long prevailed in that place. The Bodleian has a history, a noble and honourable history: the Cambridge University Library has none, at all events none that is not disgraceful. 'One reason,' he says (p. 6), 'for the dearth of materials in the Library for its own history is to be found in the circumstance that the Library is really scattered over the whole country.' And again, 'We have often heard of the principal benefactors to the Bodleian Library having been induced to bequeath their own libraries to the University of Oxford from seeing the careful way in which the bequests of their predecessors have been housed and kept together. The coincidence at Cambridge is too striking to be accidental, where we find that only two such bequests are on record': this statement he subsequently corrects into 'three' instead of two: and again, 'It is probable that by drawing attention to the fact that none of the great collectors of the last two hundred years have thought fit to leave their books to our University Library, we may be pointing to a lesson which our successors may profit by, even though we are too indifferent to pay any attention to it ourselves.'
The inference plainly to be drawn from these and other passages is that the writer strongly disapproved of the practice which he was obliged officially to countenance. From 1600 down to the last ten or fifteen years the history of the Bodleian Library has been on the whole a history of which every true scholar, and every genuine lover of books may be proud; the history of the Cambridge Library for the corresponding period has been an almost unbroken record of disgraceful carelessness, and the root of all the evil has been the practice of lending, as will be clear to any one who will take the trouble to read Mr. Bradshaw's paper. There has been, as there always must be, where such a practice is allowed, wholesale robbery. In 1772 the library was inspected and 'a large number of rare books were reported to be missing.' (p. 28.) The latest previous inspection had been in 1748, when 902 volumes were reported as missing from the old library alone ... the loss was the result of that wholesale pillage spoken of before. It is very singular that the very same year that the inspection shewed such serious losses to have happened from unrestricted access, the University should have made fresh orders (the basis of those now in use), permitting more fully this same freedom of access. The Cicero de Officiis printed in 1465 on vellum, a Salisbury Breviary printed in 1483 on vellum (the only known copy of the first edition), the Salisbury Directorium Sacerdotum printed by Caxton (the only known copy), are three instances out of many scores of such books which might be mentioned as purloined during the latter half of the eighteenth century, simply from this total disregard of all care for the preservation of the books. Even manuscripts were lent out on ordinary tickets; and it was seemingly only owing to the strong remonstrances of Mr. Kerrich, the principal Librarian of the day, that a grace was passed in 1809, requiring that no manuscript whatever should be borrowed, except with the permission of the Senate, and on a bond given for the same to the Librarian. "We have the ticket, but we cannot get the book back," Mr. Kerrich says: "and to this day the book in question has never been returned." (p. 28.) Such are the disgraceful acts of men bred at an English University, compared with whom the common pickpocket appears positively respectable.
Mr. Panizzi, principal Librarian of the British Museum, a man whose knowledge of libraries and of books has rarely been equalled, was asked, 'Are you of opinion that there should be in all countries libraries of two sorts, namely, libraries of deposit, and libraries devoted to general reading and the circulation of books?' answered, 'That is another question. I think the question of lending books is a very difficult question to answer. I have enquired in all countries, and, as far as experience goes, I find that, in spite of all the precautions taken, of the regulations, and of everything which is done, books disappear; they are stolen or spoiled.' (2. R. 62.) And again: 'I do not think that lending can well be adopted without great risk of losing books; the question is whether there might not be remedies; I think from all experience I never found that librarians had succeeded in preventing stealing.' He also tells a very instructive story of some rare books stolen from the library at Wolfenbüttel, and be it noted that Panizzi and Watts knew more of their profession than a whole army of ordinary librarians. Let no one fancy for one moment that a congress of librarians is necessarily a congress of men really acquainted with either bibliography or with books; it may, perhaps, on some occasions include one or more who answer to that description, but in general it does not do so. 'La bibliographie,' says Richou, 'est une science exacte qui demande une préparation assez longue et que la pratique développe. Les bibliothécaires improvisés en ignorent jusqu'à l'existence et se préoccupent peu de l'acquérir. Il ne faut pas chercher ailleurs la cause de la mauvaise administration d'un grand nombre de bibliothèques publiques, car le mal est commun.' (Traité de l'Administration des Bibliothèques publiques, p. 82.)
The opinion expressed by Mr. Watts and Mr. Panizzi, and implied by Mr. Bradshaw, is, I am convinced, the opinion of all men who are acquainted with this question in its length, breadth, and depth.
How comes it then, some one may ask, that foreign librarians do not speak out against the practice? Because it is not in general the habit of foreign officials to have opinions of their own, and still less to express them, if they have them, when such opinions are not fashionable, or not likely to advance those who utter them: and this goes a long way towards explaining the answers given to questions put by the English Government nearly forty years ago to the custodians of libraries where (though under many restrictions) lending was, and is practised. The general tenor of the answers is that books do not suffer more than might be expected, that losses are comparatively rare, that when loss is suffered the books can generally be replaced, and that when they cannot their value can almost always be recovered from the borrower. Such, I say, is the general tenor of the answers, but few who know anything about circulating libraries will accept such answers as satisfactory. Before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War the Germans printed splendid books, and not unfrequently bound them grandly; but for the last two hundred years few German librarians, unless trained in France or England, have known what a really fine book is, or whether it is in what a Frenchman would call good condition. In other words, when they say that books lent are not much damaged, it must be always remembered that notions of damage are relative, and most German librarians are in all probability like an old friend of my own, who holds that no book is in really ill condition, provided the readable part of it is still legible: the title may be torn or gone; 'I don't want to read the title,' says he: the covers may be broken or destroyed; 'Cannot you read an unbound book?' he asks; and so on. There is this difference, however; my friend does know when a book really is in good condition. Moreover, there are, or at least there were, some foreign librarians who have dared to tell the truth. Thus (see 2. R. 161-171), from the returns made by eighteen libraries in Belgium, we learn that the library of Antwerp (19,148 vols.) never lent; that no manuscripts were ever lent from that of Bruges; that manuscripts and rare books were never lent from the library of Malines; that valuable books were never lent from the library of Louvain; that no manuscripts or valuable books were ever lent from the library of Mons; and that such books and manuscripts were never lent from any of the University libraries. Nevertheless, some lending there was from some libraries; and it was asserted that little damage was done the books. Very different is the answer of the Librarian of Tournay (2. R. 163): 'Cette coutume a des inconvénients assez graves: impossibilité pour certains lecteurs de consulter les ouvrages dont ils ont besoin: rentré tardive des livres prêtés; perte ou détérioration des volumes.' The Librarian of Nassau (2. R. 299), very unlike most of his brethren, says, 'das Verleihen der Bücher asserhalb der Anstalt hat allerdings die nachtheilige Folge dass dieselben in kurzer Zeit, im Aussern wie im Innern stark mitgenommen werden. Die Einbände werden verstossen und schäbig und der Druck durch Schnupfer und Raucher oft aufs Unangenehmste beschmutzt,' with more to the same effect. Even at the Royal Library of Berlin it is admitted that 'die Bücher und Einbände werden dadurch mehr beschädight und verdorben' (2. R. 304); and at the University Library, 'die Abnutzung durch die Studirenden ist sehr stark' (2. R. 305). The answer from the University Library at Bonn is, 'Nachtheilige Folge beim Verleihen der Bücher waren troz der sorgfältigsten Ueberwachung nicht immer zu vermeiden. Manche Bände kamen beschmutzt auch verstümmelt zurück.' There are very similar answers from a few other libraries both of Germany and Italy. Common sense and a little experience will tell any one to which class of testimony credence should be given.
As to replacing a lost or damaged book, the thing is by no means so easy as it looks. What is common to-day may be rare a year hence, and quite unprocurable on any terms in two years time. 'Then,' says Ignoramus, 'it will be reprinted, and you may buy that'; but the man who talks so wildly cannot be argued with, because he does not know the elements of the subject of which he is speaking. Suppose you lose the 19th edition of the Christian Year, you do not replace the book by purchasing the 100th edition, as all experts know. 'Buy another copy of the 19th then', says Ignoramus; but it may be that you have to pay a very high price for it, and it sometimes happens that you cannot get it at all. 'If you do not get the book, you can recover its value.' Even supposing that you can—and here in Oxford we have no machinery by which we can recover a farthing—how is a man who wants to see a particular book benefited by being told that he cannot see the book because it has been lent and lost, but that the Library has received compensation? Well might Panizzi say that the question of lending is a very difficult question; it is so difficult that a volume would hardly contain an enumeration of all its complexities.
Consider the case of books, printed and manuscript, lent out to those on the borrowers' list, a list, be it observed, which, according to the lawyers, has not the least statutable warrant. In the first place, you have not the least assurance or guarantee that any one of them knows how to use a book without damaging it, and, as I have already said, it is an almost uniform and invariable experience, that borrowers of books do damage them. All book-lovers know this so well, that they make very sure of their man before they intrust a valuable or well-bound book to him, but we at the Bodleian do not. Pixerécourt, a great collector, was so convinced of this fact that he inscribed over his library door these sadly true lines—