Libraries and their value Part 2 (Categories and Personal Libraries)

NLW Aberystwyth

Categories

One can think of various types of library – public, private, mobile, national, school, church, specialist, personal, etc. 

I have had experience of most of these - from the mobile library that used to come to our housing estate in the sixties (Where I learned to devour the William books of Richmal Crompton (1890-1969) and first discovered detective novels) through being a school librarian in a comprehensive school (Here I discovered Punch magazine and the Tin Tin comics of Georges Remi (1907-1983). I used to like to close the library with the phrase “time gentlemen please”) to the Hugh Owen Library, Aberystwyth University, as an undergraduate, which I confess was not visited enough.

Then there are the national libraries in Wales and London. The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (another copyright library) is an excellent resource. (It was in that Library that one day I discovered that there are not only bibliographies but bibliographies of bibliographies. One inevitably wonders if there are bibliographies of bibliographies of bibliographies (there are! Aksel G S Josephson (1860-1944) was the pioneer here.) 

As for the British Library two reminiscences (a fourth copyright library – the other two are in Edinburgh and Dublin.) I once went to consult The intercession of Christ by 19th century Reformed Presbyterian Thomas Houston (1804-1882) of Knockbracken. The copy was largely uncut. I had to send it back to the librarians to deal with. It struck me as rather sad to think of a book sat in the Library since 1882 or whenever (over a hundred years) and never read. It was a little exciting too to be reading it for the first time, as old as it was. (When a book is bound, trimming is the final thing done (or not done) so its leaves can be turned. A sheet folded in quarto has folds at the spine and across the top, so the top folds must be trimmed. A signature (a section that contains text) folded in octavo or greater may also require that the other two sides be trimmed. Deckle Edge or Uncut books are sometimes of special interest to booksellers.)

Another time, who should I sit next to but well known polymath and atheist Jonathan Miller. As I researched the life of a 19th Century Baptist called James Harvey (1826-1893) in From Suffolk Lad to London Merchant - his conversion, how he served the Lord in part by arguing with rationalists, etc, next to me sat a notorious atheist. I wanted to point out the irony but resisted. (It also took some self-control when he wandered off not to take a pencil and write in his notebook “There is a God”, “God is great” or “Eternity” - those were the alternatives I considered.)

I should also say something about church libraries, a mixed blessing in my experience. We had one in my home church in Wales. I remember borrowing a two volume Gospel Standard set Sermons of J K Popham (1847-1937). (James Kidwell Popham was the 19th century High Calvinist pastor of Galeed Strict Baptist, Brighton who wrote against Moody and Sankey. The church I attended was not at all Hyper-Calvinist.) I recall helping to catalogue the Library. My pastor used to say certain books we were given were for “the poison cupboard”. I recall The Jesus of history by T R Glover (1869-1943) being one put in there. (Glover's book was first published in 1917. Terrot Reavely Glover, a classics lecturer, was a Baptist and an Anti-supernaturalist.)

We have a church library in Childs Hill, that is used only from time to time. Just recently a former member came back to London from Nigeria eager to read. She fished out by herself the peerless Holiness by J C Ryle (1816-1900) which she soon finished and More than conquerors on Revelation by William Hendriksen (1900-1982). Last Sunday she asked for a good book on eschatology. I was able to locate a rather grubby copy of a little book from 1970 The Momentous event by W J Grier (1902-1983) – not approved by everyone perhaps but one that explains the Amillennial position very well. (Holiness was first published in 1877, More than conquerors in 1939 and The Momentous event in 1970.)

Anyway, today I want us to think chiefly of the value of personal and specialist libraries.

Personal libraries 

A recent report by Aviva insurers suggested that around 6.5m people in Britain (1-in-10) do not own any printed books. In the 18-24 age range, the number increases to 1-in-5. Although the report sounds alarm bells, Sunday Times literary editor, Andrew Holgate, said he was not surprised at the figure and being positive declared that "at least that means 90% of homes do have books". (See article here http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/1-10-people-do-not-own-single-book-uk-households-have-8-web-connected-devices-1602428 Accessed March 2017.) It may also be the case that some are taking in their information by other means. 

I grew up in the sixties in a household with few books. The few books we did have made quite an impact. There was the 1958 Waverley Encyclopedia edited by Gordon Stowell, later supplemented by a Collins Modern Encyclopedia in Colour (1969) and an almost complete set of the multi-volume Children's Encyclopedia (one of the post-1943 sets) published under the name Arthur Mee (1875-1943). Religious books were few and far between so I remember well the Watchtower publication From paradise lost to paradise regained especially the pictures and W L Emmerson's Adventist work The Bible Speaks. (Not recommended these volumes from 1958 and 1949 respectively were accessed March 2017 in these locations:
http://www.strictlygenteel.co.uk/paradise/1958_From_Paradise_Lost_To_Paradise_Regained.pdf http://www.temcat.com/L-4-Topical-Library/Answers/The%20Bibl%20Speaks-Emmerson.pdf
I also seem to recall Uncle Arthur's Bedtime stories another Adventist title but aimed at children).

It was only when I was converted at the age of 12 that I discovered that both my parents both owned Bibles. 

Once I became a Christian, I began to gather my own personal library. The first Christian book I read was F B Meyer (1847-1929) on Paul A servant of Jesus Christ in a Lakeland Publications paperback. When I began to gather a personal library of good Christian books there was much talk about the importance of having hardbacks. These are more expensive, of course, but more durable. If you are not careful, some paperbacks can fall apart on a first read. 

I remember shelling out the extra cash to buy The Welsh Revival of 1904 by Dr Eifion Evans in hardback. I am glad I did that. It is a very enlightening book that I still have. (This appeared in 1969. The year before Brynmor Pierce Jones (1925-1999) who I later came to know had published The King's Champions. He always referred to Dr Evans' book, a little aggrieved, as “the official version” ie with the focus on Evan Roberts). But then pursuing my policy I went next for Yale scholar Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006)'s Spirit Versus Structure: Luther and the Institutions of the Church. I struggled through it but this academic work is not really for teenagers. 

I did better with paperbacks such as J C Ryle Five English Reformers (Published by the Banner of Truth Trust from 1961) and Brian Edwards' mid-seventies EP biographies of William Tyndale (1494-1536) and John Newton (1725-1807) God's Outlaw and Through many dangers. I also really appreciated a little book by Dr G Coleman Luck (1913-1976) The Bible book by book. (Dr Luck was a Moody Bible Institute professor and his book first appeared in 1955.) It is an introduction to Bible synthesis, which involves reading whole books of the Bible through at a time. It was when I started doing this as a University student that I recalled that I had just the book to help me. 

Throughout my student years I took advantage of Banner offers and such like and once I became a minister the church was happy to help me in securing the tools of my trade. Prior to the birth of my fifth son I was persuaded to move my library from the manse to the church. This has not been a happy arrangement. I most often work at home so I am not seeing my library on a daily basis and so lack the familiarity with it that would make it more useful. Further, as expected, it is not unusual for me to lose track of a book's whereabouts. Is it in the chapel or at home? Perhaps if I had begun with this arrangement it would be less difficult. 

In more recent years there has been a revolution in the online availability of good books and I am in a sort of halfway house where many of the books I consult I have only in electronic form – on esword, online or on my kindle. I have found it useful to maintain a virtual library at Librarything. I have only catalogued about 800 volumes so far but it means that I have an easily accessible record of books, religious and secular, that I own or once owned. (For e-sword see http://www.e-sword.net/ and for Librarything, https://www.librarything.com/ Kindle is an Amazon product https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0186FESVC. 

Christians who want to maintain a personal library today probably fall into three broad categories. Many, especially younger men, use Logos software or something similar so that most of their books are in electronic form. The advantage here is that such libraries are highly portable and easily searched. (See https://www.logos.com/) 

Everything printed from 1475-1700 can be accessed through Early English Books Online if you have the access (anyone in Wales can do this through the National Library). Most items from 1700-1800 are also available (ECCO). (See https://eebo.chadwyck.com/home and http://gale.cengage.co.uk/) There will always be a need for conventional books but for younger men this will increasingly be the way to go, making private (as well as public) libraries much less crucial than they were, though, I want to argue, still necessary. 

At the other end of things are those who deal almost exclusively in conventional books. My father-in-law, Geoff Thomas, has recently retired and moved out of the manse he occupied for over 50 years where he amassed a huge library of thousands of volumes. His story perhaps includes some cautionary advice for those who take the conventional route. The story often told by students of the library that is sinking due to the weight of its books is apparently an urban myth but books can cause structural damage, especially if stored in private homes. Most of my father-in-law's volumes were kept on the first floor and there does appear to be some structural damage. He also has the problem of where to house the collection next. Many have had to go into storage for now. S M Houghton (1899-1987) who was such a help to the Banner of Truth in its early days, had a library of 30,000 volumes. He had to resort to using chicken sheds in his garden to store them all! 

In George Orwell's novel Keep the aspidistra flying he refers to bookseller Mr Cheeseman whose favourite way of acquiring stock “was to buy up the libraries of people who had just died, especially clergymen. Whenever a clergyman died Mr Cheeseman was on the spot with the promptness of a vulture. Clergymen, he explained to Gordon, so often have good libraries and ignorant widows." (See Chapter 10 of the 1936 novel). Whether my old minister, Derek Garwood, was aware of that quotation or simply the fact, he made valiant efforts to overcome that problem before he died but to no avail. Thankfully, most of the books went to the Library now owned by Union in Bridgend. If we are looking at things with a financial eye, the truth is that personal libraries need to be dispersed before we die not after!

This is the transcript of the second part of a lecture given at the EFCC Conference 2017