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The rise, fall and rise again of the Royal Commonwealth Society Library

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2022

Terry A. Barringer
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Extract

This article is an attempt to chart the chronology of a Library crisis and rescue, a crisis which attracted much attention from the national and professional press. It is very much a personal account. Others would tell it differently. It is an unashamedly partial account. Partial in both senses. There are some aspects of the story I do not know. I did not share in all the deliberations of the great and good and of the mercenary, muddled and misguided, which brought the Library to the brink of disaster and back and then to Cambridge. It is partial, because I find it difficult to be objective about this Library, which has always had the capacity to rouse strong emotions in its custodians and users - which is one of the reasons for its survival.

Type
Articles
Information
African Research and Documentation , Volume 64 , 1994 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © African Research & Documentation 1994

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this article was published in the South Asia Library Group's SALG newsletter, 41, 1994, 15-22.

References

Simpson, Donald H. From the Librarian's desk: a personal view of forty years of Commonwealth Studies. London, Royal Commonwealth Society, 1987.Google Scholar
Reese, Trevor R. The history of the Royal Commonwealth Society, 1868-1968. London, Oxford University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
For the logistics of the move, see the forthcoming article in the Library Association Rare Books Group Newsletter by W., Noblett who masterminded the move from the Cambridge end.Google Scholar