http://www.johncassidy.org.uk/bulletin/
From the home page:
About the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Library in Manchester, England was conceived by Mrs
Enriqueta
Rylands as a memorial to her late husband John Rylands, a textile
merchant and manufacturer. After several years in construction, it
opened to
the public in 1900. Appointed as Librarian, after a period as Joint
Librarian, was Henry Guppy. Among his other
achievements, he founded a
journal which has continued until the present day: the
Bulletin,
which
he
edited
until
his
death,
while
still
in
post
as
Librarian,
in
1948.
His
introduction
to
the
first
issue,
Vol.1
No.1
dated
April - June 1903, included what in modern parlance might be
called a 'mission statement':
The primary purpose of this bulletin is to record the
titles of works acquired for the library during the quarter preceding
the date of each issue, in order that students, not only in Manchester,
but also in other and distant parts of the world, may be kept informed
of the growth of its collections. In short, it will be made a vehicle
for conveying information respecting the library, its progress, and
even its wants. But there are other and more ambitious designs that we
have in view, and it may be well in this our first number to state that
we shall hope from time to time to deal with much that concerns
bibliography. When we speak of bibliography, we use the term in its
broadest sense, as the science of books considered under all aspects.
This will include occasional lists of works on specific subjects, in
the nature of reading-lists, bibliographical and historical notes on
any specially noteworthy additions, and articles on the special
collections and famous books in which the library is so rich, with the
object of extending the usefulness of the library and of making its
resources better known.
The early issues had the title
Quarterly Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library but only six issues had appeared by 1908
when publication ceased, following the death of Mrs Rylands. These six
comprise Volume 1, for which a title page and frontispiece were issued
for binding purposes. Vol.2 No.1, which appeared in 1914, has an
explanation written by Guppy: '... by reason of the exigencies of other
work it was found necessary to suspend publication until some of the
more urgent claims of the Library had been relieved.' Among those
pressures was the need to build an extension to the building,
including somewhere for the staff to work. A list of staff in
Vol.2 has,
in addition to Guppy and Sub-Librarian Guthrie Vine: Chief
Assistant Librarian Julian Peacock, Assistant Librarians Arthur W.
Kiddle, Frank H. Nuttall, Bernard Tennant, Oliver J Sutton. Senior
assistants Cuthbert Peach, M.H. Hunter. Junior Assistants E. Allan
Maltby, Horace Crossley. Assistant Secretary James Jones. The name
Bernard Tennant is of interest: his father Stephen J. Tennant
(1843-1914), was Mrs Rylands' brother, a member of the Library's
board of Governors, and a director of the Rylands and Sons textile
firm.
The introduction to Volume 2 also states that 'the format has been
changed from the quarto of the original volume to the handier octavo
size of the present issue, while changes in the arrangement of the
contents have been decided upon, with the object of increasing its
usefulness.' Quarterly issues were still intended, although the title
was
simply
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library with 'Manchester'
below the title in smaller type. However, Volume 2 was the only one to
have four actual issues; later some pairs of issues were
combined as one, and by Volume 8 (1924) publication had settled into a
pattern of two issues per year, which was maintained for many years. At
first, issues were dated January and July; but following
a special volume 25 (1941) dedicated to Henry Guppy, volumes
spanned the year end, with issue 1 in the autumn and issue 2 the
following spring. The Bulletin had become a multi-disciplinary academic
journal, with contributions from Library staff, and academic staff of
the University of Manchester, as well as researchers from around the
world. Some authors, such as H.B. Charlton, of the English Department
at Manchester, and F.F. Bruce of the Theology Department, contributed
to almost every issue in their time.
After Guppy's death in 1948, his replacement as Librarian, Edward
Robertson, took over as
editor, although not named as such until Vol. 41
(1958-59). Robertson had served from 1934 as Professor of Semitic
Studies
at the University of Manchester until retirement in 1945. In
1949 he was offered and accepted the position of Librarian. He held the
post until 1960 when he was appointed as Director to relieve him of
administrative duties; those passed to Ronald Hall who was given the
title of Acting Librarian. Robertson retired, aged 86, in 1963 and
moved to
Canada where he
died not long afterwards.
Ronald Hall (1900-1975), who joined the Library in 1915 as an
assistant on
leaving Manchester Grammar School, was the next Librarian. In 1927 he
was promoted to Assistant Librarian, and became Keeper of Printed Books
in 1949. In
October 1963, he was confirmed as Librarian, and remained in post until
his retirement in 1970 after 55 years on the Library staff.
Ronald Hall was succeeded as Librarian on 1 November 1970 by the Keeper
of Manuscripts, Dr. Frank Taylor, who had joined the Library staff in
1935 as Keeper of Western Manuscripts, a position he held until 1949,
in which year he became
Keeper of Manuscripts, a post which he retained after becoming
Librarian.
By 1970 The Library was
running seriously short of funds, despite a financial contribution from
the University. In 1969 negotiations had begun with the University of
Manchester regarding a possible takeover of the Library, to be managed
by the University Library. The University Librarian of the time, Fred
Ratcliffe, had an expansionist policy, and an ambition to create a
copyright library in Manchester for the north of England, and in 1972
the John Rylands University Library of Manchester was formed by the
merger of the two libraries. The John Rylands Library building became
officially known as the Deansgate Building, and its staff were
incorporated into the University Library's establishment and salary
scales, some of them being transferred to new roles based in the
Main Library building on the University campus on Oxford Road.
Frank Taylor became Deputy Director of the John Rylands University
Library of Manchester, whilst remaining at Deansgate as Principal
Keeper.
The change is explained in the 'Notes and News' section of Volume
55(1).
Taylor continued to edit the Bulletin, which changed title to
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester,
beginning with Volume 55 (1972-73), and he remained as Editor after
retirement from his full-time post in 1977, until he resigned as Editor
in September 1987. Vol.56 is the first to name him as Editor, although
in vol. 70 (1988) it is stated 'This is the
first issue of the Bulletin for nearly forty years not to have appeared
under the guiding hand of Dr Frank Taylor' which suggests that he had
been involved in the editing work since the death of Guppy in 1948.
An interesting feature of Volumes 56 to 63 is the the inclusion
in the
Bulletin of the 'Librarian's Annual Report', which is a useful
record of events across the whole John Rylands University Library.
After Fred Ratcliffe was replaced as Librarian by Dr Michael Pegg in
1981,
however, the practice ceased.
Dr Ratcliffe had an interest in typography, and planned to introduce
the
typeface 'Optima' into all signs and publications; this eventually
reached the Bulletin, which for many years had been printed in a
distinctive typeface, in Vol.63. After just two volumes, Pegg
authorised its replacement with a more standard serif style. An
unexplained oddity from this period is that the page numbers in Vol. 67
continue from those in Vol. 66, reverting to 1 at the start of Vol.68.
What happened after Taylor's resignation is explained in a Preface by
Michael Pegg, in Volume 70 (1988):
It is entirely symptomatic of Dr Taylor's personal energy
and catholicity of interest that no one individual will succeed him as
Editor of the Bulletin. Rather the Bulletin will become
the
responsibility of an Editorial Board drawn, in the first instance, from
the senior academic staff of the University of Manchester and chaired
by Dr C.D. Field, the Library's Head of Publications and Promotion.
The new régime introduced a new publication strategy, under
which there
were to be three issues per volume:
In future the Spring issues of the Bulletin will
contain a miscellany of academic articles from a variety of sources
including prestigious lectures delivered within the Library or more
generally within the University of Manchester. The Summer issues will
focus exclusively upon the resources of the Library ... The Autumn
issues will be given
over to articles on a discrete, usually interdisciplinary, theme and
will mostly have an expert guest editor.
Other innovations included a glossy blue-green cover, a return to
volumes coinciding with the calendar year, and pagination within each
issue
rather than across the volume. (Unfortunately some authors when citing
Bulletin
papers have not noticed this change, and omitted the issue number from
their references.) A casualty was the traditional 'Notes
and
News' item which had begin every issue since Vol.2; a newsletter was
published separately, later entitled
News from the Rylands, but
copies are not available in digital form at present.
Clive Field left Manchester for The University of Birmingham in 1990,
to be
succeeded by Dorothy Clayton as General Editor; publication
of the
Bulletin continued unchanged until Vol.86 (2004)
although some years issues 2 and 3 were combined. From Vol. 87 there
has been a return to just two issues per year, one general and one
dedicated
to a theme. Clive Field went on to a senior post at the British
Library. After early retirement in 2006, he made a return to the
Bulletin
in an advisory capacity as chair of the Editorial Board.
In the new century, plain covers have given way to
individually-designed pictorial ones, and more pictures
than
before, some in colour, are included in some issues. A digitisation
programme has been undertaken
by the Library, in which the
Bulletin has been included, from
Vol.1
up to Vol. 80 (1998). Later issues have not been made available online,
presumably to avoid loss of revenue from sales; I have included
contents lists of these volumes on this site for completeness. Note
that the actual date of
publication of issues may in some cases be somewhat later than the year
allocated to that volume number.
In 2013 it was announced that from 2014 the publication of the
Bulletin would transfer from the
Library to the Manchester University Press, and it would be available
as an e-journal. Vol. 89, No.2, was the final issue produced by the
Library-based team.
