He purchased an even larger house, 221 North Washington Street, that dated from 1866, in 1922, and it was there that a Gutenberg Bible, a set of the Shakespeare First Folios, and other high points of
bibliophily found a home until the building was donated in 1959 by his son William Hurd Scheide (1914-2014) to the local school district to have as its headquarters.
As director of the National Library and Museum from May 16, 1925 to his death on April 18, 1928, De los Santos immersed himself in his work and, according to the bibliographer Gabriel Bernardo, gave up 'all his other avocations except music and
bibliophily.' While we often see government service coming at a great sacrifice in terms of family and social life and remuneration.
Shayne Husbands has an account of the early years of the Roxburghe Club, often condemned as a bastion of anti-intellectual
bibliophily, which Husbands argues could have been considered a radical group in the early nineteenth century for bringing aristocrats and self-made men into close connection.