From one of the characters in Penelope Fitzgerald's marvellous The Gate of Angels:
It's not that there are no funds available, there is always money to spare in a great university. Extensions, medical schools, they're building in all directions. They all want libraries put up, even the parasitologists, yes, Fairly, even the economists. Yes! And gold seems to rain on them from the skies. Yet I'm not satisfied that my application has ever been read, much less considered.
Some things were different back in 1912 - and some the same.