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Wells cathedral library not only intact but in better shape and accessible to readers
From Canon Andrew Featherstone Sir, — Professor Clark’s statement (Comment, 18 April) that cathedrals “are selling the contents of their ancient libraries”, is certainly not true of Wells, as he reports. The library here is an integral and treasured part of the life and fabric of the cathedral. Within the last five years a splendid reading room has been established, enabling books acquired since 1800 to be placed on open shelves and be available to subscribing members. This operation involved the rescue and restoration of some 4000 books which had been stored away 30 years ago, not been catalogued or evaluated, and not used since then. The rescued collection contained unnecessary multiple copies of some works, and several on unrelated topics. These were sent to auction, possibly bought by second-hand book dealers, and may be among the items that Professor Clark has seen on the internet. In total, less than 100 titles have been disposed of, and none of them were “ancient” or precious. We do not sell or otherwise dispose of any antiquarian or rare books.ANDREW FEATHERSTONE Canon Chancellor of Wells Cathedral Office, Chain Gate, Cathedral Green, Wells BA5 2UE |
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