Calendar: 1957-1958 Page 402

xvi ANNUAL REPORT The visitors were pleased with much that they saw and heard and complimented the Delegacy and the College on the excellent work which was being done both in teaching and in research They congratulated both staff and students upon the excellent relations which existed between them On the other hand like their predecessors on similar visitations in the past the visitors were shocked by the physical con- ditions in which so much of the work of the College is carried on and they reported very unfavourably upon this to the Delegacy and later to the University They urged that in order to improve these conditions the College should make every effort to increase its accommodation by acquiring some other site probably south of the Thames on which it might erect new buildings especially for the Faculties of Engineering and Science THE LIBRARY The chief problems confronting the Library Committee and the Librarian are still as they have been for number of years those affecting finance and accommodation The cost of books and binding continues to rise and even with the strictest economy it is impossible for library grants to keep pace with it it has been possible to make ends meet only by drawing upon accumulated reserves which are now practically exhausted It will be imperative that the library shall receive much larger annual grants in future The consumption of reserves outlined above has one grave drawback it is impossible if funds such as the reserves were intended to provide are not immediately available to take full advantage of opportunities to buy desirable collections and rare volumes which appear unexpectedly on the market from time to time Once missed these opportunities rarely or never recur For this reason also it is hoped that grants will in future be considerably larger so that sums can be put to reserve for the express purpose of meeting these sudden contingencies The problem of accommodation is also very difficult and urgent one Accessions this year amounted in all to 064 of which just under 000 were books Nine-tenths of these were purchased and the remainder were presented to the library by number of generous donors including members of the academic staff and former students One such gift deserves special mention it is very fine copy of the Liber Chronicarum Koberger Nuremberg 1493 presented by an undergraduate in the Theological Department In addition to the central library housed in the main college building there are some twenty-nine departmental libraries and as pressure in the main library increased it has been possible to ease it to some extent by sending out more books to the departmental collections this was probably an advantage to teachers and students in individual de- partments but it undoubtedly diminished the usefulness to the College as whole of the main library Even this method of alleviation however is now becoming impossible for departmental libraries also are over-