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This second volume, a companion to the first by J. C. T. Oates, takes the history of the Library from the time of the Copyright Act of Queen Anne and the gift by King George I of the celebrated book collection of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, to the end of the nineteenth century when the Library's place within the University and in the scholarly world as a whole was well established. David McKitterick examines how the Library responded to educational reforms, charts the way in which the collections grew in relation to the changing preoccupations of Librarians and dons and shows how the needs of undergraduates were answered in an international research library. The book sheds light on the background to the erection of three of Cambridge's most notable buildings: the Senate House, the East Front of the Old School, and C. R. Cockerell's uncompleted new library. Throughout, it is based not only on the author's intimate knowledge of the collections, but also on a thorough - and often pioneering - study of the surviving archives both in Cambridge and elsewhere.
J. C. T. Oates began work at Cambridge University Library in 1936. During his long, scholarly career, which included serving as president of the Bibliographical Societies of London and Cambridge, he did much to further research at the University Library. In 1954 he published this catalogue of the fifteenth-century printed books, which were not included in the main library catalogues. The catalogue lists over 4250 items, with detailed information for those not already described in other publications, and gives references to such information where it already existed. The fifteenth-century material is listed by place of publication, and is indexed by author, title if anonymous, printer, and former owners and autographs. Although modern catalogues of incunabula are now available online, Oates' catalogue is the only one allowing readers to locate items held by the Library from the earliest days of printing, and is still an important tool for researchers.
An erudite and popular librarian, Charles Edward Sayle (1864-1924) devoted his career to cataloguing and editing rare books in the University of Cambridge. His obituary praised him as 'a fine example of the type of man who likes to catalogue things in the right order'. This catalogue of incunabula and early printed books in the University Library was his most important project, taking over a decade to complete. Commissioned by the Library Syndicate in 1894, the catalogue was published in four volumes between 1900 and 1907. Even upon completion, Sayle's list was not final, as the rare book collections at the Library were undergoing a period of great expansion, having grown by a third during his cataloguing work, both through purchases and by donations or bequests. The first volume covers all books from 1475-1500, and books produced from 1501 to 1640 by the most important printers in London.