Filling the Library

Solomon Schechter studies one of the 140,000 fragments of Hebrew and Arabic documents, most of them dating from the 9th-12th centuries, rescued from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. Along with Charles Taylor, Schechter gave what later came to be known as the Taylor-Schechter Genizah collection to the Library in 1898.

Two events transformed its status into that of national research institution: the right under the Copyright Act (1710) to claim a free copy of every book published in Great Britain and Ireland and the presentation in 1715 by King George I of the 30,000 volume library of John Moore, Bishop of Ely, afterwards known as the Royal Library.

Published works claimed under ‘legal deposit’ began to arrive in the Library in significant quantities from the mid 19th century. As a national repository, the Library now receives publications in all disciplines and formats, from academic treatises to children’s story books. Every year, the 85,000 items acquired in this way require, together with the large number of books and periodicals purchased from overseas, nearly two miles of extra shelving.

From 1867, Henry Bradshaw (1831-86), the most distinguished scholar-librarian of his time, began a renewed burst of collecting for the Library, particularly in the area of early printed books. His friendship with Samuel Sandars further enriched the Library, both in exquisite examples of rare books and manuscripts and in the readership and annual lectures to which Sandars gave his name.

Over the last century or so, the Library has expanded its range of collecting interests, especially in archives, and gathered in records from institutions as diverse as the Genizah of Old Cairo, Jardine, Matheson and Co., and the Royal Greenwich Observatory and representing individuals such as Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

600 years of
Cambridge
University
Library

8 October 2002 - 15 March 2003
Admission free

The restoration of the Library in 1574 is due to Andrew Perne, Master of Peterhouse 1554-89, who secured donations of printed works of the latest scholarship alongside medieval manuscripts, from powerful friends, notably Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Parker’s generosity spurred others, including Theodore Beza, donor in 1581of the Library’s most treasured possession, the fifth century Gospel text, known as the ‘Codex Bezae’. Although far less copiously stocked than the richer College libraries, by 1600 the number of volumes had climbed to 950; by 1700, it had reached 12,000, swelled by the libraries of Richard Holdsworth, Henry Lucas and John Hacket and including oriental material for the first time. By now it also had its own fund, endowed by Tobias Rustat, for the purchase of books.

All books, in whatever class, acquired by George I’s benefaction, can be recognised by their elaborate engraved bookplate, with the legend 'Munificentia Regia 1715'. The University Arms are at the centre, with Phoebus Apollo standing among a collection of library books on the left, Minerva sits to the right, and a medallion beneath them features the head of George I.