Librarian Samuel Halkett began an ambitious catalogue, based on the rules of John Winter Jones for the British Museum catalogue of 1839, but with extensive biographical information on authors.
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He acquired the Caledonian Mercury in 1729, and in 1730 was appointed keeper of the Advocates' Library, resigning in 1752.
Other abridgments, not by Bower, were made about the same time, one about 1450 (perhaps by Patrick Russell, a Carthusian monk of Perth), also preserved in the Advocates' library (MS. 35. 6. 7) and another in 1461 by an unknown writer, preserved in the same collection (MS. 35. 5. 2).