The needs of the Bodleian Library are urged in a
powerful appeal issued last Saturday and signed on behalf of the Trustees of the Oxford University Endowment Fund by Mr. Asquith, Lords Salisbury and Milner, Sir W. R. Anson, and Lord Balfour of Burleigh. It is pointed out that the'more urgent needs of the Bodleian have been met out of the Fund, which was instituted in 1907, something like £25,000 having been expended on accommodation for readers and the revision of the catalogue. But, as matters now stand, there is no surplus for expenditure on the purchase of MSS., foreign books and periodicals, or English publications which do not come under the Copyright Act. Money is also needed for completing the revision of the catalogue and other purposes. The signatories lay special stress on the need of a larger annual income, and accordingly ask for a capital sum of £50,000 to provide the extra £2,000 a year which the Library wants, failing which the Curators will be obliged to enter upon a course of drastic retrenchment under which the efficiency of the Bodleian will be diminished and its reputation impaired. Donations should be sent to the Secre- tary of the Oxford Endowment Fund, 49 Sloane Square S.W., or to the Librarian, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
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