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Also known as University of Glasgow Library. Located in Glasgow. Founded in 1451. Type of library: Institutional. Collection: Still in situ.
Address: 172 High Street, Glasgow
Alternative address: Hillhead Street, Glasgow, G12 8QE, Scotland, UK
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Library description

The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451. Its library began to take shape in the late fifteenth-century with donations and matriculation fees used to develop the collection of manuscripts and then books. Official records for the library begin in 1577 when Andrew Melville energised the University along humanist principles. The first catalogue appeared in 1578. The library benefitted from the passing of the Copyright Act in 1709 which gave it the right to claim a copy of each work entered at Stationers' Hall. The Library kept this privilege until 1836.

Important donations continued to arrive Professor Robert Simson  (1711-1760) bequeathed his library of 900 volumes of mostly mathematical books. Lt.-Colonet Archibald Patoun donated more than 300 volumes of mathematical and engineering works in 1777. Professor Thomas Reid presented more than 600 volumes of belles lettres books in 1797. Dr William Hunter's library came to the Unversity in 1808.

Purchases in the first half of the eighteenth century focused on books of medicine, physical sciences, and mathematics.

In 1791, librarian Archibald Arthur published the first printed catalogue for the University Library on the model of that of Thomas Ruddiman's catalogue for the Advocates Library. A second printed catalogue appeared in 1825.

The Library was administered by the Quaestor, one of the Regents or Professors, who held the office for two years. The Quaestor collected matriculation, examiniation, and laureation fees and bought books for the Library along with the other Regents and the Principal. The Quaestor was assisted by curators. The office of Librarian was established in 1641.

Borrower description

The first rules for readers appeared in 1643: books were to be read in the library with borrrowing as exceptional. In 1644, however, it is clear that books were being borrowed and an ordinance instructed that books were to be leant only to professors and students of the University and that any lent books were not be taken out of the city of Glasgow. External users deemed worthy of the privilege could borrow books on payment of a deposit.

The rules were revised in 1712. Reading was limited to the cives Bibliothecae who promised to observe the laws of the Library in the presence of two Regents and graduates who paid a fee of three pounds Scots. Books would only be loaned to those who presented written authority from the Principal or two Professors. Certain valuable books required the consent of three Professors. In April 1718, the adminsitration of lending books was deemed a 'great inconvenience' (quoted in Dickson, p. 62) and was limited to members of the Faculty and authorised teachers. This was overturned in December 1718 and students regained the right to borrow books on presentation of a note from their professors or the Principal.

Holding description

Simson Library: see A. Arthur, Catalogus impressorum librorum in Bibliotheca Universitatis Glasguensis secundum pluteorum ordinem dispositus (Glasguae: 1791), where the shelfmark sequences BG to BM are identified as ‘Catalogus librorum, quos Universitati Glasguensi legavit Robertus Simson ...'.

Sources

• Other: Eighteenth-century Borrowing from the University of Glasgow: https://18c-borrowing.glasgow.ac.uk/
• Other: Thomas Annan, 'View of the Library, Old College, Glasgow' (c. 1880): https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1220517

Secondary sources

Dickson, William P., The Glasgow University Library: Notes on its history, arrangements, and aims (Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons, 1888)

Sangster, Matthew, Karen Baston, and Brian Aitken, ‘Reconstructing Student Reading Habits in Eighteenth-Century Glasgow: Enlightenment Systems and Digital Reconfigurations’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 54, no. 4 (2021): 935-955. doi:10.1353/ecs.2021.0098

Smollett, Tobias, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771): '...the college, a respectable pile of a building, with all manner of accommodation for the professors and students, including an elegant library, and an observatory well provided with astronomical instruments.' (OUP World's Classics, 1925, repr, 1949), p. 301.