John Rylands Library library became one of the first to collect historical family records. Librarians at John Rylands before its merger include Edward Gordon Duff in 1899 and 1900 and Henry Guppy between 1899 and 1948 (joint Librarian with Duff until 1900). Duff was responsible for the original library catalogue, compiled between 1893 and 1899: "Catalogue of the Printed Books and Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, Manchester"; ed. E. G. Duff. Manchester: J. E. Cornish, 1899. 3 vols. The cataloguing of the books was done by Alice Margaret Cooke, a graduate of the Victoria University. Dr Guppy began publication of the "Bulletin
John Rylands Library and the fact that the valuable manuscript collections were to be housed in "that dirty, uncomfortable city ... [with] not enough light to read by, and the books they already have are wretchedly kept" (written in 1901 about the Crawford MSS.) Mrs Rylands negotiated Deeds of Agreement with her neighbours to fix the heights of future adjacent buildings. The permissible height of the building was fixed at just over 34 feet, but it was suggested that it could be taller at the centre if there was an open area around the edges, at the height of buildings that had been