Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/76

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ACQUISITION OF BOOKS
59

still the censorship of the press that necessitates the supply of books, though they are not, as of old, submitted first in manuscript form.

In England, the earliest regulations for "copyright copies" emanated from the Stationers' Company, who, by virtue of being the directing body of the printing and publishing trade, issued a regulation in 1556, making it compulsory to register every new book by sending nine copies to the Company's Hall. The Licensing Act of 1662 contained the first provision for the supply of what we have called "students' copies," in giving the Bodleian Library the privilege of receiving a copy of everything published. The University of Cambridge received a similar privilege at the same time, and at a later date the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St. Andrews, King's College, Aberdeen, King's Inn, Dublin, Sion College, the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, Trinity College, Dublin, and the British Museum, were similarly favoured. The first six of these bodies were deprived of their privileges in 1836, and in compensation a yearly sum was allotted them from the Treasury.

The Copyright Act at present in force is that of 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 45), which provides:

"That a printed copy of the whole of every book which shall be published after the passing of this Act, together with all Maps, Prints, or other Engravings belonging thereto, finished and coloured in the same manner as the best copies of the same shall be published, and also of any second or subsequent edition which shall be so published with any additions or alterations, whether the