Note 228 — ANNALS OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. (continued 3)

The salaries being miserably insufficient, the recognised duties of the officers appear to have been simply the cataloguing the few books that were received in ordinary course, and attending upon the readers. Consequently for any other work, for arranging or cataloguing any new collections, &c., special payments were always made. A somewhat amusing instance of this occurs under the year 1722, when the Librarian craved payment for making with his own hand certain new hand-lists, &c., but was refused. However, he carried on his claim from year to year until it was admitted to the amount of £5 15s. 6d. in 1725. And as the funds were insufficient to defray in this way the extra cost of cataloguing such a collection as Rawlinson's, hence, doubtless, came the neglect which it experienced. Such work was so clearly understood to form no part of the Librarians' regular duties, that Rawlinson says, in a letter to Owen, Apr. 15, 1751 (MS. C. 989), 'I think large benefactors should pay the expense of entries into the Bodleian, as their books are useless till so entered.'