Some Account of the Oxford University Press, 1468-1921Oxford University Press
History
Some Account of the Oxford University Press, 1468-1921
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press; Printing -- England -- Oxford -- History
The demands made upon the Press for the organization and publication
of research are now at least as great as ever. It has again and again
been pointed out by the friends of research, that organization and
encouragement are idle unless the publication of valuable results is
guaranteed; and in the past scholars in this country, and not in this
country only, have looked to the Presses of Oxford and Cambridge to do
the work which in Germany was carried out by Academies subsidized by
Government for this purpose. But the fulfilment of such expectations is
far more onerous than formerly. The tenth and last volume of the great
English Dictionary, now more than half printed, will when it is complete
have cost at least £50,000. The revised edition of Liddell and Scott’s
Greek Lexicon, upon which the Delegates embarked some years before the
war, is now estimated to cost £20,000. These are enterprises in the
successful conclusion of which the honour of the University is concerned;
and they will be concluded; but the date of completion, and therefore the
initiation of other projects of learning, have inevitably been retarded
by the events of the last seven years.
The endowment of research is a difficult subject, and nobody is more
conscious than are the Delegates of the Press, that results of lasting
value are not achieved by the mere expenditure of money. Yet they cannot
but be aware that by the possession of the machinery and traditions of
such works as the English Dictionary, and by their intimate association
with experts in many fields, they are in a position to promote research
and co-operative enterprise in the most effective and economical way.
The support given to the Press in the past, whether by individuals
or by other institutions devoted to learning, has been trifling in
consideration of the work which it has produced. The need of such support
is now far more urgent; and the record of the Press is proof that
financial support would be turned to good account.
§ 7. _Oxford Imprints_
The imprints used by the Press as printers and as publishers are
various, and their import is not always understood. _Oxford at the
Clarendon Press_ is historically and strictly a printer’s imprint, and
it is confined to books printed at Oxford; but it has come to mean
more than this, and to be appropriated to such books as are not only
printed at Oxford, but are also published _auctoritate Universitatis_,
their contents as well as their form being certified by the University,
acting through the Delegates of the Press. A book with this imprint may
in general be assumed to be published at the expense of the Delegates;
but the ‘Clarendon Press imprint’ has come to be so prized as carrying
the Oxford ‘hall-mark’ that its use has occasionally been solicited and
accorded for works of learning produced under the patronage of government
or of learned societies within the Empire and the United States of
America.
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