Essays in Librarianship and Bibliography

6

Within a few years the difficulty was solved by the introduction of the sliding-press, the subject of another paper in this volume.

7

It is almost needless to remark that soon after these lines were printed the electric light was in successful operation at the Reading Room.

8

Read before the Library Association, Cambridge, Sept. 1882.

9

This forecast of the service which photography might render to library catalogues would seem to have been inspired by the very spirit of prophecy. See, in the American Library Journal for March 1899, an account by A. J. Rudolph of the success of the Newberry Library, Chicago, "in printing a catalogue of the accessions accumulated in the British Museum since 1880 to date, in one general alphabet by the so-called blue-print process, a method of photo-printing." If the Newberry Library can do this, the British Museum ought to be able to incorporate its accession-titles with the general catalogue, and reissue the latter from time to time, as frequently recommended in this volume, and in a remarkable article in the Quarterly Review for October 1898.

10

Universal Review, October 1888.

11

Soon after this was printed, three columns instead of one were left blank, as the writer had recommended from the first.

12

Communicated to the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Library Association, Paris, September 1892.

13

Read before the London Meeting of the Library Association, 1896.

14

Historia y Bibliografia de la Imprenta en la America Española. (Parte Segunda, Paraguay y el Vireinato del Rio de la Plata.) Por Jose Toribio Medina (La Plata, 1892).

15

It has always been supposed that Paraguay was the first country of South America to possess a printing-press after Peru, but this honour may possibly be due to Brazil. In the memorial of the inhabitants of the province of Pernambuco to John IV., King of Portugal, beseeching his assistance in the expulsion of the Dutch invaders (1645), printed in "O Valoroso Lucideno" by Manoel Calado, Lisbon, 1648, the Dutch are accused of having propagated heresy by means of tracts, "which have been found in the hands of many persons of tender age." These cartilhas must evidently have been in Portuguese, they are more likely to have been printed than in MS., and it is perhaps more probable that they were printed on the spot than exported from Holland. If this is the case, Pernambuco is entitled to the honour of being the first city in South America in which printing was exercised after Lima.

16

Several Spanish books printed at Manila in the eighteenth century have frontispieces admirably engraved by native artists. We have seen an English pamphlet printed in the Orange Free State, prefaced by an apology for mistakes of the press on the ground that the compositors were Hottentots.

17

It seems to have been afterwards sought to imply that Spira's monopoly was intended only to protect his copyright in books actually published by him, but the language of the original document is clear. It may be remarked that, did not other arguments abundantly suffice, this transaction would prove the date 1461, in Nicolas Jenson's Decor Puellarum, to be a misprint, as if he had printed before 1469 he would have acquired a locus standi which could not have been ignored in Spira's favour.

18

Read before the Monthly Meeting of the Library Association, London, April 1898.

19

Read at the Monthly Meeting of the Library Association, March 1884.

20

See Wilken, "Geschichte der Bildung, Beraubung, und Vernichtung der alten Heidelbergischen Büchersammlungen" (Heidelberg, 1817).

21

Read at the Annual Meeting of the Library Association, London, October 1889.

22

Read before the London Conference of Librarians, October 1877.

23

It deserves to be recorded that at this period, and for some time afterwards, books were not labelled externally, but merely press-marked inside the covers. When labels were introduced, at the suggestion of Mr. Winter Jones, the printing of the first set cost £800.

24

Read at the March Monthly Meeting of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, and published in Nature, October 9, 1897.

25

Bullettino di bibliografia e di storia delle scienze matematiche e fisiche. Pubbl. da B. Boncompagni (Rome, 1868), &c.

26

Read before the Library Association, Dublin, September 30, 1884.

27

Read at the Annual Meeting of the Library Association, held at Nottingham, September 1891.

28

Since this was written, the engineers of the Board of Works have reported that the sliding-press system can be safely extended to the galleries, which more than doubles the estimate of increased space given on the preceding page.

29

Read at the Annual Meeting of the Library Association, Belfast, September 1894.

30

A paper by Mr. H. M. Mayhew, of the British Museum, on "A Revolving Extension Press."

31

Edition of 1896.

32

Athenæum, April 19, 1879.

33

Contributed to the Transactions of the Library Association, 1882.

34

Mr. Bythewood bequeathed to Mr. Jones his gold repeater watch, valued at one hundred guineas; and Mr. Jones received in after years a precisely similar legacy from Sir Anthony Panizzi.

35

Mr. Edward Edwards.

36

Library Chronicle, vol. iii., 1885.

37

Contributed to The Library, May 1898.