No dirty faces or lies in the library
A rather interesting newspaper clipping showed up in the @bodleianlibs‘ Twitter feed today. As identified by @HorribleUnsanity, this snippet would seem to have come from a 1930 edition of the Nottingham Post, despite referring specifically to Hertfordshire and the Hyde Institute Library in Barnet Vale, which are a full two hours drive from Nottingham.
No Dirty Faces in Library. And You May Not Tell Lies To The Librarian.
Strict rules, which have been approved by the Hertforshire County Council, are to be imposed by the Hyde Institute Library, Barnet Vale. Library users in future must not:
Enter the library if their faces are offensively dirty.
Fall asleep on the tables.
Eat their lunches whilst reading papers, books, &c.
Leave their business cards behind.
Make themselves a nuisance.
Kick or damage the furniture.
Bring dogs within the portals.
Tell lies to the librarian.
Enter when they are in an inebriated condition.
Enter if they have smallpox.
Some of these rules provide a solid basis for everyday behaviour let alone standards for visiting the library.
For comparison, below is the full version of Thomas Bodley’s Oath, pledged by all who are given a Reader’s Card for the Bodleian Libraries. We have been using a somewhat shorter version since 1970, but what follows was in use from Bodley’s day until just 47 years ago, and would have been the Bodleian contemporary to the Hyde Institute’s clean-faced standards of the ‘30s.
Take a deep breath, because the oath is both 173 words long and a single magnificent sentence.
You shall promise and swear in the presence of almightie God, that whensoever you shall repaire to the publique Librarie of this Universitie, you will conforme to your self to studie with modestie and silence, and use both the bookes and everything els appertaining to their furniture, with a careful respect to their longest conservation; and that neither yourself in person, nor any other whosoever, by your procurement or privitie, shall either openly or underhand, by way of embezeling, changing, razing, defacing, tearing, cutting, noting, interlining, or by voluntarie corrupting, blotting, slurring or any other manner of mangling, or misusing, any one or more of the saied bookes, either wholly or in part, make any alteration: but shall hinder and impeache, so much as lieth in yow, all and every offendour or offendours, by detecting their demeanour unto the Vice-chancellour, or to his Deputie then in place, within the next three daies after it shall com to your knowledge, so help you God by Christian merites, according to the doctrine of his holy Evangelistes.
The leaving behind of business cards seems to have been much less concern to Bodley and his librarians than to Hertfordshire County Council.
The above text of Bodley’s Oath comes from Claire Cock-Starkey and Violet Moller’s brilliantly diverting Bodleianalia.
For more information on Bodley’s Oath as it is written, upheld and printed on tea-towels today, please refer to our previous Tumblr update.
