So far as completeness is concerned, a number of qualifications must be made, mostly resulting from the particular nature of the cathedral libraries and especially from their frequent lack of permanent specialised staff. An entry in this catalogue cannot guarantee the presence of the book in a particular library today. The book will have been seen in that library by Miss Hands or one of her successors at some time between 1944 and early 1984, but it could have been lost, mislaid or otherwise disposed of since. The local catalogues of individual cathedrals are of very variable quality and several have radically changed their shelving arrangements since their books were entered in the Cathedral Libraries Catalogue. It could well be that a particular book is still in its library but cannot for the moment be located, especially in the case of pamphlet material (which is abundantly represented in this volume). Only recently, Canterbury received a request for information about a binding which was specified by pre-war shelfmark but not by author or title. As the whole library had been rebuilt and reshelved as a result of wartime bombing, it will not prove easy to trace the item. For the most part, of course, these problems will not arise, but scholars wishing to consult books in cathedral libraries should not be unaware of the potential difficulties.
We have attempted to make enquiries about possible dispersals. Fortunately, it seems that there have been very few in the post-war period for the early printed books. The one serious case is the regrettable sale of much of the Ely Cathedral Library. Here, we have checked the lists of that portion of the Ely books which was, happily, acquired by Cambridge University Library but have listed the Ely books in full as Miss Hands recorded them in 1945, since this does help to give a record of the contents of a now defunct library. In the case of deposits of books elsewhere, we also continue to record them under the name of the cathedral in question. For example, Peterborough (deposited at Cambridge) is still recorded as Peterborough.
As to the comprehensiveness of our records, we cannot pretend to have every book which should have been included. Given the frequent inadequacy of local catalogues, work has always been done directly from the shelves and always with the goodwill and advice of the local Canon Librarian or his staff. However, books are not always on their shelves at the right time; they may have been borrowed by one of the canons or otherwise be away from the library. In any cathedral library there is always the possibility that some odd corner has been used by a previous librarian to store books, which is unknown to the present incumbent. Some printed material can often be found in the cathedral archives: it is our feeling that it has rarely been possible to find time to search such a source. Finally, there must remain the fear that occasional catalogue slips might have been lost during the catalogue's long peripatetic existence or during its time of rest at the British Library. The second edition of STC lists cathedral locations which we cannot find in Miss Hands's records. Where it has not been possible to verify these in the time available, we have omitted them from this catalogue.
While the main cathedral collections have always been recorded, the treatment of deposited smaller collections may not have been consistent during the long period of work on the Catalogue. Our impression is that deposits of parish libraries, for example, have been included where they are considered to have become a permanent part of the cathedral library but that other less closely associated collections will have been excluded.
One further question is that of accuracy. Our basic data come from a variety of sources (mainly Miss Hands's and Miss Eward's work and the entries supplied by Canterbury, Durham and York). Every entry has been checked against STC or Wing for the allocation of the appropriate identifying number and at this stage we have sometimes been able to raise queries with individual libraries. It has clearly not been practicable to query every single variant. In view of the frequency of variation in early printing, we generally assume that our cataloguing information is correct and record variation as we find it. Particularly with Wing, where the level of detail is less than with STC, we would recommend caution in assuming that a record of variation always means a genuine new or variant edition. We suspect that the variation may sometimes be due to inadequate transcription on one part or the other.
We remain confident that deficiencies due to these various causes are small and that this volume and its successor overwhelmingly represent the true holdings of the cathedral libraries.