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, who
had been 'Joint Librarian' during the construction and preparation
of the Library. 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,
incluuding 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 newer 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. This site covers only the Library-based
issues.
On a personal note: I joined the staff of the University Library in
1971 and worked there until retirement in 2007, and I am proud to
say that I have been known the people involved with the Bulletin,
from Frank Taylor onwards, as well as many of the authors, and I'd
like to pay tribute to all of them. - Charlie Hulme, May 2012