AntiquarianBookNews.com

Some recent articles have brought the issue of church library deaccessions back to the surface (after the discussions last fall of the Truro sale things went quiet for a bit). Writing in the Church Times, (”The C of E is losing its own history“) Jonathan Clark argues that recent sales of books and manuscripts from churches are a major and troubling symptom of the decline of the Church of England:

“Unremarked, Anglican institutions are selling the contents of their ancient libraries. A search on Abebooks.com shows a swath of volumes for sale from cathedral libraries: Bangor, Canterbury, Ely, Lincoln, Llandaff, Lichfield, Exeter, St Asaph, Wells. Even at Oxford, Pusey House, established as a think tank with a scholarly as well as a pastoral remit, in 2005 sold much of the ancient contents of its library for the years before the Tractarians. A friend, viewing this sale at Christie’s, and appalled at the rows of venerable volumes, described it as ‘like a scene from the dissolution of the monasteries’. Yet that, in present-day form, is too close to the truth.

One can imagine it. Accountants add up the retail value of the collections, calculate the number of borrowers or readers, and advise that there is no option but liquidation. Senior clergy, who no longer read the books, are all too happy to accept expert advice. The auction houses promise a professional service, and the best prices (which are not always realised). The Charity Commissioners make no complaint. There is little publicity.

Such sales are more than minor inevitabilities: together, they become a historical phenomenon. They signify the Church of England losing the argument, and turning away from an attempt to sustain a heavyweight historical rationale for itself. One wonders whether the libraries of most Anglican clerics now consist not of formidable works of scholarship, but of paperbacks from the 1970s, already disintegrating.”

David Shaw comments on Ex-Libris that “many of the cases reported are simply housekeeping operations. It is in no way true that the cathedral libraries listed have been sold (as opposed to disposal of some items).” Shaw adds that at Canterbury, for example, some modern duplicates and out-of-scope items have been sold in recent years, but not the whole library.

It’s important not to be alarmist about all this. All libraries must weed their collections. I don’t know enough about the non-Truro cases listed here to make much comment on them, but I do think it’s important to be cautious before leaping to unfounded conclusions (just because there’s a listing on ABE doesn’t mean that the entire library is being sold off piecemeal).

- I got a chance to browse through Stuart Bennett’s fiftieth catalogue: Unique? A Catalogue of Apparently Unrecorded or Unlocated English and American Books, Pamphlets and Broadsides printed between 1670 and 1851. Some really interest offerings, including the ‘lost’ first edition of Ann Fisher’s An Accurate New Spelling Dictionary (1772) and some neat little chapbooks.

- Helen R. Kahn’s Catalogue 73: Voyages and Travels is now available for browsing.

- Margolis & Moss offer a catalogue of 19th-century American imprints: “266 books, pamphlets and ephemeral items, published in the United States during the 19th century. An eclectic mix, the annotated catalog includes works on physical culture, letter-writing, school texts, theater, photography, literature, children’s books, history, politics, etiquette, economics, theology, book-keeping, travel, the conduct of life, and much more.” Free to interested librarians; drop them an email.

- The good folks at Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts announced a text-only Civil War list yesterday [PDF].

Here’s a video interview with Steven Schuyler, a bookseller who specializes in the building trades and German books. You can find him online at RareBookStore.net and at many home restoration shows. He is very familiar with that market and has many friends in the restoration trade. Over the years, he’s built a large clientele on the show circuit. Steve’s a good example of a bookseller who has found (or more accurately, created) a market for books outside of the traditional bookstore.

The Missing and Stolen Maps Database, supported by the International Antiquarian Mapsellers Association (IAMA) is now live. First announced back in February, the database was designed by a large group of librarians, map collectors, dealers, and others. It is “free of charge, fully searchable, international in scope, and accessible using individual usernames and passwords.” Registration is required to post information about a missing map, but not to search or browse the database.

I strongly urge librarians at institutions where maps have been reported missing to add information about them to this database. It can only function successfully if it is populated, and I think I join all those involved with its creation in hoping that it realize its potential.

I’ve added a link to the sidebar.

- Christie’s South Kensington had a Landmarks of Science and Medicine sale (5542) on 23 April. Rare Book Review notes that some of the lots were from the collection of Swedish collector Andras Gedeon. The high spot was a copy of Pierre Borel’s 1655-56 treatise on telescopes and microscopes, which made almost $44,000. Works by Newton and Huygens also sold well. A 1974 offprint from IEEE Transactions on Communications, “A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunications,” signed by the authors (Cerf and Kahn), fetched $21,000: this article is considered the foundational text of the Internet.

- Earlier in the day (23 April) Christie’s had a general Travel, Science & Natural History sale (5428). The top-selling printed item was a collection of 101 John Gould plates (mostly hummingbirds), which fetched just over $32,000. A set of James Cook’s voyage accounts made $23,000.

Christie’s has a new, Flash-based website, which is delightful when it works but a pain when it won’t load on older computers.

- Swann Galleries held a Literature, Art and Illustrated books sale on 24 April, but nothing seemed to generate much interest. Their next book sale (Printed & Manuscript Americana) will be held on 5 June.

- Sotheby’s London will hold a sale of Natural History, Travel, Atlases and Maps on 8 May.