Graham Pollard and ‘Oxford Peciae’: False Starts and Discoveries
Abstract Graham Pollard, who had begun life as a book-seller, spent many years researching the Oxford book-trade, extensive materials that remain unpublished but available among the Bodleian Library’s Pollard MSS. To determine how students had been able to acquire standard text-books, he investigate...
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| Published in | Library Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 289 - 312 |
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| Main Author | |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
UK
Oxford University Press
20.12.2024
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| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Abstract
Graham Pollard, who had begun life as a book-seller, spent many years researching the Oxford book-trade, extensive materials that remain unpublished but available among the Bodleian Library’s Pollard MSS. To determine how students had been able to acquire standard text-books, he investigated the possibility of local book-production through pecia, four-leaf-quires to be rented out for copying. This study ultimately proved a dead-end, but in the process, Pollard discovered an interesting local practice: the preparation of books for indexing through the provision of arabic column- and line-numbering. The essay examines this practice and offers a preliminary list of more than eighty examples of the procedure. |
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| ISSN: | 0024-2160 1744-8581 |
| DOI: | 10.1093/library/fpae033 |