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"To ensure their safe return, some monasteries put their volumes under anathemata, threatening unfaithful borrowers with excommunication." -- Andrew Pettigree and Arthur der Weduwen, The Library (London: Profile Books, 2021), p 40
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"The vicissitudes of old books furnish a romantic chapter in the history of literature. About the end of the eighteenth century, the library of an old Lincolnshire house was overhauled by someone who weeded out a lot of what he no doubt considered rubbish. These were destroyed, except for a few which were begged by the gardener, who probably wanted them to use as stands for plant-pots, or to give a false air of literary distinction to his cottage."
--- J. Arthur Hill, 'Old Books and their Printers', The Imprint, 17 June 1913, p 407.
This periodical celebrated the beauty of good craft for its own sake as well as for the benefit of the businesses of its readers, but it seems the appreciation of good printing could not be expected from all. (in this case 'The Book of St Albans', which came into the possession of Thomas Grenville a few steps after the gardener, and is now in the British Library.)
--- J. Arthur Hill, 'Old Books and their Printers', The Imprint, 17 June 1913, p 407.
This periodical celebrated the beauty of good craft for its own sake as well as for the benefit of the businesses of its readers, but it seems the appreciation of good printing could not be expected from all. (in this case 'The Book of St Albans', which came into the possession of Thomas Grenville a few steps after the gardener, and is now in the British Library.)
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Lunching in the kitchen (though oven or sink I see none, and the larders demand coin or plastic should one wish to gain entry) of the Abbey of Science Books, Parks Road, Oxford. I am a poor doctor of another order, but there is a cellar set aside for us where we may practice our devotions.
The Bodleian Libraries Twitter feed refers to books added to the new depository in Swindon as having been 'ingested'. Does this mean that the books are, in fact, being fed to a monster which has taken up residence on an industrial estate off the A419 and is demanding matured printed matter as its price for not unleashing a greater cataclysm? Perhaps this is why so many public libraries are closing, so that the beast has more to feed on when it has ingested the entire Bodleian bookstack.
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