Moving the Kipling Library: Bulletin 1
Some members will already know about the current problem with a home for the Kipling Society Library. To others, what follows will be something of an unpleasant surprise, so I think that it is important that I offer as much detail as possible.
At the end of March, the Customer Services Manager at City University Library telephoned me to say that there were plans to revamp the sixth floor in the Northampton Square Library, some time in June or July this year. This is the area where the eleven bookcases and three filing cabinets, which are the Kipling Society Library, have been looked after so well by University staff for many years. I contacted members of the Society’s Council with the general warning of a problem to come. Immediately suggestions were made about possible sites for the collection, and first negotiations included a site visit by the Special Collections Manager from the University of Sussex, on 1st April.
On 5th April, I received the attached letter from
Maire Lanigan, the University Librarian at City. In case you have problems with
the attachment, it makes clear that the deadline for removal of the entire
collection, including the bookcases, is 7th June.
I also attach my reply. I would emphasise that we continue to be very grateful for the help offered to us by City University, and perfectly understand the constraints of space caused by reorganisation. We still have an excellent relationship with the University Library, and value their continuing advice.
We have, so far, approached five possible sites directly:
· The University of Sussex.
· The Guildhall Library.
· The National Trust at Bateman’s and at Wimpole Hall.
· The Athenaeum.
· Haileybury School.
· King’s College, London.
Of these, staff at the Athenaeum have made clear that there is not sufficient space there for the entire collection, that access by researchers would be a problem, and that supervision would not be guaranteed (there is an alarm system for books at City University). The Property Manager at Bateman’s has very kindly offered me, personally, a fair amount of storage space in her own office, but it is clear that this would not be secure, and could not be operated for researchers as at present.
There would also be the problem that Bateman’s (as with Wimpole Hall, and Haileybury) is comparatively inaccessible for researchers. For this general reason, I have not approached the University of Kent at Canterbury.
Staff at the Guildhall Library were enormously sympathetic
and helpful, but made clear that only authors with a direct connection to the
City of London could be considered.
With the Easter break upon us, the librarians from Sussex, King’s and Haileybury are all on holiday, so it seems very unlikely that we will make any further progress there before 23rd April. Therefore, if there are other suggestions for possible recipients, I would welcome them! You can imagine how stressful the lack of progress will be, and many members will be aware that I work almost every day, so Roger Ayers, our President, is kindly helping with advice and a watching brief.
Council have discussed the possibilities, and are generally in favour of donating the library to Special Collections at Sussex, where the Kipling Papers, the Baldwin Papers and some of our own more precious items are already available to researchers. A new state-of-the-art Special Collections building there (‘The Keep’) would accept much of our collection, catalogue it separately and offer it for research, supervised by their staff.
However, it is clear that some of the Kipling Library would not be considered suitable for storage at Sussex, unless we paid for shelf space there. This would mean that boxed books and other material would then be available to us by arrangement, supervised by the Society’s own officers.(Personally, though hardly significantly in the long term, I would find Sussex considerably closer, at one and a half hours, door-to-door, as opposed to the considerably longer journey from Ashford to Islington).
Thus, the material of
direct interest to researchers could become the property of the University
(marked with a suitable bookplate to record the donation), while items relating
to the Society itself, and books such as general criticism, foreign
translations, biographies of contemporaries, etc., would continue to be our
responsibility. The cost would be likely to be similar to commercial storage,
subject to considerable pruning of surplus spare Journals, etc.
It might be that the Maughan Library (King’s College Special
Collections, in Chancery Lane), could take the entire collection, or Haileybury
School , but time is very short, and further contact delayed.
In the interim, I am working to make the final move as simple as possible. On Saturday 12th I collected a very full car-load of books (well over 300) from City University, along with twelve boxes of ‘ephemera’ such as Society correspondence. The majority of these books are duplicates, from our reserve stock, and will be offered for sale in a Library Surplus Sale later this year. I have hired 25m2 of secure commercial storage space near my home at a very reduced rate (a former student), and will go up to collect more, including the spare Journals, when I can.
So, the situation is somewhat tense, but I am sure that we can resolve the problem so that the great tradition of the Society’s own library is maintained. As always, I would welcome advice, or ideas.
John Walker
Honorary Librarian
The Kipling Society
15th April 2014