GERMANY AS BOOK LENDER

Evening Star, Issue 23059, 10 September 1938, Page 23

GERMANY AS BOOK LENDER

There are not many signs in these days that international co-operation is increasing, and there is all the more reason to welcome the news that the machinery for lending books among the nations of Europe is being steadily improved (says ‘ The Times Literary Supplement ’). Through the National Central Library, this country has both lent and borrowed substantially more books during the past year than in previous years. Books were borrowed from libraries in 15 foreign countries and lent to libraries in 20 countries.

The most striking fact about the figures is that very considerably more than half of all the books borrowed by this country came from Germany, which was able to lend 151 books of which no copy could be traced in England. Holland was the second largest lender, but the books received from Holland numbered only 15. The National Central Library explains that the reason why it was possible to borrow so many out-of-the-way books from Germany is the splendid organisation at the Berlin State Library, whose staff has access to a union catalogue covering nearly all Germany’s big libraries. In some cases a book that could not be found in the country where it was published was obtained from Germany.

Sir Herbert Grierson has completed his life of ‘ Sir Walter Scott, Bart..’ anct Constables are planning to publish •it this month, uniform with the author’s 12-volume centenary edition of 1 The Letters of Sir Walter Scott.’ Though it makes no attempt to rival Lockhart’s life, which is never likely to be superseded, it supplements that work with a fresh portrait painted in the light of all the evidence now available. Lockhart’s portrait is described by Sir Herbert as a carefully composed study in which some/features have been skilfully softened, others omitted altogether. “ The many letters which are now available," he writes, “ show not only much inaccuracy in the details of Lockhart’s narrative, but a somewhat surprising element of what appears to be sheer invention of a picturesque and dramatic character, such as Lockhart had already practised in 1 Peter s letters to His Kinsfolk.’ 1 Noctes Ambfosianae,’ and occasional contributions to 1 Blackwood’s Magazine.’-