Page:Library Administration, 1898.djvu/230

 LENDING OUT

The practice of lending out books from libraries is found in the earliest times, and was then the more necessary, as imperfect communications made it less easy than now for the scholar to consult them in situ. The earliest loans we hear of are made by monasteries. As a type may be taken the library of the monastery of Einsiedeln in the fourteenth century, which has recently formed the subject of a learned monograph. The surviving books of this library often contain inscriptions, showing on what terms the loans were granted. Thus in one we find : " Iste liber monasterii Heremitarum est concessus domino lodoco de Mos, militi commoranti in Lucerio." "This book, belonging to the monastery of Einsiedeln, is granted to Jodocus of Mos, a soldier dwelling in Lucerium." The loan is apparently absolute, without guarantee, and to a soldier too. Loans were granted more circumspectly to other monasteries, at least in this particular institution. Another book has the MS. note : "Iste liber est monasterii loci Heremitarum et dictum monasterium habet pro memoriali Gregorium super Ezechielem." "This book belongs to the monastery of Einsiedeln, and the said monastery has as a pledge Gregory on Ezechiel." In another book we find : "Iste liber est monasterii Sancte Marie de Heremitis et debet restitui fratri Heinrico de