SALVAGING BOOKS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 386, 15 November 1946, Page 17

SALVAGING BOOKS

side of Russia, about 50,000,000 books, in addition to manuscripts -- many of which were priceless and irreplaceablewere destroyed in Europe as a result of war. Britain suffered particularly under the blitz. The official estimate is that 20,000,000 volumes were lost, 6,000,000 in one fire raid on London alone. Liverpool, Southampton, Plymouth and Coventry were among 51 towns and cities whose libraries were seriously damaged by enemy action. In the Far East, the Japanese invaders followed a similar policy of cultural destruction. Millions of books were destroyed ,at the National Library in Peiping-taken over as a barracks. From this world-wide depletion an idea was born which is helping to restock the blitzed and ransacked libtraries of Europe and the Far East. Already 2,000,000 books, periodicals and manuscripts in 40 different languages, including many rare volumes, are being distributed to libraries where they are most needed for the cultural resurrection of Europe. There is a particular scarcity of modern technical, scientific, commercial and legal works-the "working tools" of many professional men. Thirty-eight Miles of Shelves It was in 1941, during Britain’s nationwide salvage campaign, that librarians throughout the country complained that many valuable volumes were being collected for pulping. A committee representing the Ministry of Supply, the Library Association, the Association of Special Libraries and the publishing trade, decided to launch a book recovery drive within the national salvage campaign. More than a thousand Local Authorities co-operated in the scheme, with help from voluntary + organisations. Throughout the country collections were organised and receiving stations set up where books could be sorted by librarians and voluntary workers. From the millions of books left at Post Offices for the Forces, 91,000 volumes were extracted as being of more value to libraries. At the end of 1943, under the auspices of the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education, the Inter-Allied Book Centre was established in an old newspaper building requisitioned by the Government in London’s Salisbury Square. It is here that the 2,000,000 books and periodicals so far reclaimed from the salvage campaign are systematically classified by a team of eight librarians, clerical staff, and porters, working under the direction of B, M. Headicar, for many years librarian at the London School of Economics and now, at 72, a bibliographer of 60 years’ experience, The Centre’s 38 miles of shelving are rapidly filling, increased weekly by about 30,000 volumes from all parts of the country. The response to the appeal for books to re-stock the libraries of Europe has been. surprisingly generous. More than 150,000 books and periodicals came from the shelves of private book-lovers alone. Many gave valuable collections-the acquisitions of a lifetime of scholarship. A great number also came from industrial firms and organisations, who have given Ki has been estimated that, out-

important works on technical subjects and long sets of valuable scientific and technical periodicals. Rare Finds Cathedral, college and university libraties have made notable contributions. From one northern university came 1314 tons of books, the accumulation of 25 years-too valuable to destroy but too numerous to accommodate. From a basement cellar of another university came an important collection of astronomical works which had been stored for half-a-century without being catalogued. (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Thousands of volumes, mostly on scientific subjects, were given by Queen’s University, Belfast. The first choice of volumes arriving at the Centre is given to the British Museum, which lost a quarter-of-a-mil-lion of its books during the blitz. Already 25,000 volumes and rare manu-scripts-many of them never previously obtained-have been eagerly accepted by the Museum authorities. Many rare "finds" are included. For example, from the Forces Book Drive; four volumes of the Gospels were reclaimed. Handwritten and beautifully illuminated, they were inscribed in five languages, Greek, German, French and English: a ‘work of calligraphic genius and scholarship. Two volumes of an Arabic manuscript were found, well-preserved and leather bound. British Museum experts discovered that it was part of the Koran, dated about 1185 A.D. A very fine edition of Horace, printed in 1482-one of the earliest printed books after the introduction of movable type in Germany, in 1454-has also been rescued from the pulping machine. Only recently three volumes of the first edition of Jane Austen’s Emma, published in 1816, the year before she died, were discovered, with other first editions.’ The value of the books awaiting dis- persal on the Centre’s shelves is estimated at. about £500,000, at least half of the books being out of print nowadays. Librarians from Britain’s blitzed and war-depleted libraries are patiently sorting these volumes, "staking their claims" to the 100,000 books and periodicals allocated to Britain’s public book-shelves. They will be joined by librarians from liberated Europe, who will choose the volumes they most urgently need for their countries’ educational reconstruction.