is not, however, so easy to maintain in institutions less liberally endowed. Many libraries in this country — it would be invidious, though easy, to mention names — secure a considerable accession of novelties to their shelves by persistent begging. The French National Library is driven by its slender budget into a similar course.[1]
A small number of the largest libraries in nearly all civilised countries are in the happy position of receiving all home publications for nothing, or next to nothing, under "copyright acts." This law was a development of regulations made, firstly, by censors of the press, who required to see that the printed copies corresponded with the MSS. that had received their imprimatur, and, secondly, by monarchs and other dignities, who granted privileges to printers and publishers. In each of these cases one or more copies had to be presented by printer or publisher.
Late developments of State control were the obligation to send "students' copies" to the universities, and the modern "copyright" acts, officially declaring the proprietarial rights in books, apart from any question of "privilege" to a printer.
The censors' copies seem to have been required in all countries soon after the invention of printing, and lasted in England down to 1694. The first English printer recorded to have published cum privilegio was Pynson (1518).
The first legal demand on publishers and printers
- ↑ H. Beraldi : Voyage d'un livre h travers la Bibliotheque Nationale. Paris, 1893. 8vo.
