"GIRLIE OF THE GAIETY."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 102, 2 May 1929, Page 23

"GIRLIE OF THE GAIETY."

NEARLY BANNED FROM BODLEIAN. TWENTIETH CENTURY MIRROR. Details of a scheme for the future of the Bodleian Library, to be submitted for the approval of Congregation, which rejected two such schemes last year, are contained in a recent "Oxford University Gazette." The most striking feature of the proposal is the request for power "to exclude certain ephemeral publications from the library altogether" The Bodleian, the library of the University of Oxford, is, under the Copyright Act, entitled to receive, and does receive, a copy of every book, pamphlet, or periodical published in Great Britain. This privilege brings in about 20,000 works every year, with the result that the library is continually harassed by overwhelming difficulties of space. A controversy came up 15 years ago in which was raised the issue of whether it was really necessary for the greatest learned institutions in the world to possess a copy of every cheap novelette. As an instance, a work entitled "Girlie of the Gaiety" was chosen. The challenge was promptly taken up by the Bodleian Librarian, who declared that in two or three centuries hence the Leckv of that day will sit down to write the History of Early Twentieth-Century Civilisation and will naturally want to know what the twentieth-century housewife read. He. _will then .send down to the cellars of the Bodleian and disinter works of the "Girlie of the Gaiety" type. With such stalwart defence as this Girlie triumphantly maintained her right to a place in the Bodleian. And now the curators are seeking authority to close its doors to others of her kind.