William Hunter's library at the University of Glasgow: use and borrowing in the early nineteenth century

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This article considers the borrowing patterns found within the Hunterian Museum Library after its donation to the University of Glasgow by its creator, Dr William Hunter, in 1807. It considers its move from a private collection to an institutional one and starts to unpack the role it was playing within the university and wider community at Glasgow. It considers who was able to borrow from the Hunterian Library at Glasgow and suggests that ‘borrowing’ was perhaps only part of a larger picture of ‘use’ of the library. It also examines trends in what was borrowed from the library to gain a picture of how it was being used, showing that it was largely for borrowing of books not found in the main university library (particularly rare imprints, manuscripts, and illustrated books). It concludes that the borrowers’ register, and the contextual evidence around it, suggests that the library struggled to find a solid footing in the university in its first decades and as it transitioned from a private to an institutional collection.