SIR,—Unfortunately, Sir Alan Herbert's eloquent re- hash of sections 57,
58 and 59 of the Report of the Copyright Committee, 1952, suffers from certain in- accuracies, particularly with regard to the National Library of Wales. Paragraph 2 of the Statutory Rules and Orders on Copyright, 1924, No. 400, and 1956, No. 1978, provide that :
The books, of which copies arc to be delivered to the National Library of Wales, shall not in- include any book of the following classes, viz.: Books of which : (i) The number of copies in the published edition does not exceed 300.
(ii) The number of copies in the published edition does not exceed 400 and the pub- lished price of each volume exceeds £10. (iii) The number of copies in the published edition does not exceed 600 and the pub- lished price of each volume exceeds £20. These sections make nonsense of Sir Alan Herbert's example of 'an expensive and almost certainly un- profitable volume of the folios of Shakespeare—fifty copies at fifteen guineas.' In any case, books in edi- tions of under a thousand arc generally sold by sub- scription, in which case they cannot be demanded from, though they are frequently donated by, the publishers.
Finally, is Sir Alan aware that the British Museum was hit by a bomb during the Second World War, and that the recurrence of such an event might have more drastic consequences? We should not put, all our eggs in one basket, particularly if that basket is in London.
—Yours faithfully, DAVID IDWAL JONES
48 Marine Terrace, Aberystwyth
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