There follows a copy of a letter sent today to Chris Smith, Secretary of
State for Media, Culture and Sport.
I doubt whether Smith will read this communication carefully, if at
all, But one more letter will add to his department's sense that there is
public concern about the sale.
THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS
http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/bshm/
The Rt Hon Chris Smith MP
Secretary of State for Media, Culture and Sport
House of Commons
Parliament Square
London
6 January 1999
Dear Mr Smith.
Sale of Turner Collection (ex Keele University)
As President of The British Society for the History of Mathematics I am
writing on behalf of its Council to express our grave disquiet at Keele
University's sale of an important collection of old mathematical and
scientific books that was given to the University by Charles Turner in
1968.
The sale took place against the advice of Keele staff with a legitimate
interest in the collection, for instance those who made use of the
Collection in their teaching. A decision by the Senate that the sale
should not take place was overruled by the Council, and the books
disappeared with surprising promptness.
As far as we have been able to ascertain, there was no consultation with
institutions or bodies who might have been interested in the fate of the
books, such as the Royal Society, Trinity College (Cambridge), the Library
Association's Rare Books Group Committee, the London Mathematical Society,
or indeed the British Society for the History of Mathematics. Even the
British Library seems not to have been fully informed of what was going on.
We are profoundly dismayed at the lack of consultation on a matter which
may affect future donations to universities.
We believe that the books are now in the hands of a London dealer, Simon
Finch, who has applied for export licences on some of the items in the
collection, but we do not know the outcome of his application.
We should be grateful if you would take whatever steps are open to you to
ensure that books from this scandalously secret sale do not get export
licences.
Further, we hope you might consider changes in the law on exports that
would allow a collection to be considered as a whole.
Yours sincerely,
Dr J. V. Field
Member of the International Academy of the History of Science
Visiting Research Fellow, Birkbeck College
Visiting Research Fellow, Royal Institution of Great Britain
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