Provided also that every book in the library which is to be selected and distributed shall have a certain value set upon it by the Master and the two Deans, and that indentures shall be drawn up recording the same.
Once in every two years, in the Michaelmas Term, a fresh selection and distribution shall be held of every book which is not chained in the Library—the precise day to be fixed by the Master and the Senior Dean.
No book so selected and distributed shall pass the night out of College, except by permission of the Master and the President and the other Dean who is not President; provided always that the said book be not kept out of the College for six months in succession.
If it should happen that a given book be not brought in and produced on the aforesaid day of fresh selection and distribution, then the person who is responsible for it shall pay to the Master, or in his absence to the Senior Dean, the full value of the said absent book, under pain of being put out of commons until it be restored.
Every Fellow who is not present on the aforesaid day shall appoint a deputy, who shall be prepared to bring in any books which may have been lent to him, on the day when a fresh distribution is to take place, under pain of being put out of commons[267].
The statutes given in 1350 to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, by the Founder William Bateman (Bishop of Norwich 1344-56), contain rules which are more stringent than those already quoted, and were evidently written in contemplation of a more considerable collection of volumes. A list of the books which he himself presented to Trinity Hall is appended to his statutes, and a special chapter (De libris collegii) is allotted to the Library. This may be translated as follows:
On the days appointed for the general audit of accounts [in the Michaelmas and Easter Terms] all the books which have been received, or shall be received in future, either from our own liberality, or from the pious largess of others, are to be laid out separately before the Master and all the resident Fellows in such manner that each volume may be clearly seen; by which arrangement it will become evident twice in each year whether any book has been lost or taken away.
No book belonging to the aforesaid College may ever at any time be sold, given away, exchanged, or alienated, under any excuse or pretext; nor may it be lent to anybody except a member of the College; nor may it be entrusted in quires, for the purpose of making a copy, to any member of the College, or to any stranger, either within the precincts of the Hall or beyond them; nor may it be carried by the Master, or any one else, out of the Town of Cambridge, or out of the aforesaid Hall or Hostel, either whole or in quires, except to the Schools; provided always that no book pass the night out of College, unless it be necessary to bind it or to repair it; and when this happens, it is to be brought back to College as soon as possible after the completion of the binding or the repair.
Moreover, all the books of the College are to be kept in some safe room, to be assigned for the College Library, so that all the Scholars of the College may have common access to them. We give leave, however, that the poor scholars of the college may have the loan of books containing the texts of Canon and Civil Law for their private use for a certain time, to be fixed at the discretion of the Master and the three Senior Fellows, provided they be not taken out of College; but the books of the Doctors of Civil and Canon Law are to remain continuously in the said Library Chamber, fastened with iron chains for the common use of the Fellows[268].
It is evident that this statute was regarded as a full and satisfactory expression of what was required, for it is repeated, with additions or omissions to suit the taste of the respective founders, in the statutes of New College (1400), All Souls' (1443), Magdalen (1479), Corpus Christi (1517), Brasenose (1521), Cardinal College (1527) and S. John's College (1555), at Oxford; and in those of King's College, Cambridge.