Are more and more books being written every year ?
The question is inspired by the statement that whereas, when the Cambridge University Library—that striking piece of modern architecture across the river—was completed in 1934, it was estimated that the space provided would meet all requirements for about fifty years, it is now apparent that the life of the Library will be little more than half that period. This discovery is made when no more than seventeen years of the fifty have elapsed. and those seventeen included six war years when the production of new books was subMantially slowed down. Still, there the facts are. It only remains to ask how much of this vast accretion is of lasting, or even temporary, benefit to mankind. (The Cambridge Library, it should be recalled, receives a copy of every book published—learned or anything but learned.) * * *
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