An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers' Registers
Years are often not explicitly stated in either MS 11/29 or MS 11/30 and should therefore be treated with a degree of caution. From 1828, the library was theoretically open only on Tuesdays and Saturdays, but there are clear divergences from that rule that prevent it being a watertight indicator of years.
There are instances where pages have been reassigned to new borrowers, sometimes more than once. In lieu of further information, what looks like the latest entry has been used, though the borrowings might in some cases be by multiple individuals.
Ditto marks (represented in this ledger by dashes) have been interpreted in the conventional sense as referring to the above entry. There are signs, however, of inconsistent usage: sometimes a ditto in the returned date column may refer to the borrowed date, or simply indicate a return with no particular date specified.
Borrowings of multivolume editions that do not state a number of volumes are taken as indicating all volumes (e.g. the entirety of a three-volume novel) unless this seems unreasonable, as in the case of extensive editions such as periodicals.
Type: Town. This register contains 142 pages, 48 distinct borrowers and 254 distinct book holdings.
