ABSTRACT
The price of great acquisitions was as usual the need for enlargement of the building, especially since, as we have seen, Smirke drew his plans before the new ideas had arrived. In 1850 Panizzi reported that in view of the difficulty of storage he could only usefully spend £2,500, in place of the £10,000 voted in 1846, and this reduction held in the following year also. The Grenville books, and many others as well, were stacked on the floor, and by December 1852 a librarian’s nightmare was realized ; books were placed on the shelves three deep. Even the Catalogue titles could not be properly stored.
