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标题：MEDICAL LIBRARIES OF THE WORLD THE LIBRARY OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND
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作者：W. R. Le Fanu
期刊名称：Bulletin of the Medical Library Association
印刷版ISSN：0025-7338
出版年度：1937
卷号：25
期号：4
页码：233-235
出版社：Medical Library Association
摘要：THE Royal College of Surgeons was incorporated in London by royal charter in i 8oo to take the place of the Company of Surgeons, itself the successor of guilds and companies of London surgeons dating back to the fourteenth century. The Company had recently taken a freehold of land in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and in I799 Parliament, having bought John Hunter's collec-, tions for the nation, had entrusted the Hunterian Museum to the care of the Company. The new College began at once to build itself a house and a museum, and also undertook to form a library. In its first twenty-six years the library grew slowly, increasing chiefly by large donations of books from certain members of the College. Between I827 and I829 large sums were voted by the College to buy books, in I829 Robert Willis, M.D., was appointed the first librarian, and a catalogue of the library was published in I83I. By I834 the library possessed i8,ooo volumes and was outgrowing its space; and in the following years the College house was pulled down and rebuilt by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament. The Reading Room on the first floor, 67 feet long, is a striking example of Barry's Grecian style; it was opened in I837 and is still in regular use, improved by an extension made in i888. Other rooms have been taken over for book-stacks from time to time, and it is planned to equip a large new store-room next year.