WORLD LIBRARY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 894, 11 February 1930, Page 11

WORLD LIBRARY

THREE MILLION BOOKS IN BRITISH MUSEUM 46 MILES OF SHELVES When Mr. Robert Farquharson Sharp, Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum, who has more than three million volumes under his care, retires on December 3L the day ot his 65th birthday, he will hand over to his successor the most amazing library in the world, which is worth many millions of pounds, says the London ''Evening News.” Before he goes Mr. Sharp will edit the first section of the new catalogue of museum books. This catalogue will comprise 160 volumes of 500 pages each, and may take 12 years to complete. "For 12 years now I have been at the museum,” Mr. Sharp told a reporter. “About 50 years ago there were just over one million books in . the museum. Now there are well over three million—and -16 miles of shelves. “We have a special dusting gang of about forty ex-Service men, who day by day go round dusting, dusting, dusting. Each volume is dusted about twice a year. “Publications pour in at an appall ing pace, and last year we -eceived: 33,821 books and pamphlets. 98.693 serials and parts of volumes. 1,191 maps. 10,637 pieces of music; and

268.510 newspapers. “Within a month of publication every book has to be sent, to us. Yes, we have every 'penny dreadful,’ and an enormous collection of juvenile literature dealing with the exploits of dashing detectives and other adventurers. Little boys with a liking for lurid literature would revel in it! “Then there are the banned books. These have to be sent to us. too, but there is a special department in which they are locked, and we do not make them available to the public. “Perhaps the most striking figure I remember in the museum was Samuel Butler, who came constantly. He was a gentle, kindly-looking, elderly man, and his favourite book was the one which was just the right size to rest his writing pad on! He wrote a most amusing essay on it when the book was taken away.

“Other famous figures were Karl Marx, Prince Kropotkin, Trotsky. Bergson, Lenin (when a Russian refugee engaged on research), and many more.

“Famous writers of today are someTimes found in the reading room, but the tendency now is to send a secretary instead to look things up. About 800 people daily use the. reading room.”