The George Williams Memorial Library is located in the ringing chamber of Winchester Cathedral and is available for readers and borrowers by appointment. The system for loans provides a standard loan period of eight weeks with a liberal renewal policy for serious research and special problems. The only exceptions are the archive material and the bound volumes of the Guild’s annual and triennial reports for which, because of their unique importance, loans are solely at the discretion of the librarian.
A catalogue of the printed books and of the complete archive is maintained on the Guild website. Part of our collection of archive material, held at the Hampshire Record Office in Sussex Street, Winchester is available for consultation only. The collection there has the call-number 20M94DI.
The Guild’s online archive has the minutes of the Guild Annual General Meetings and Executive Committee meetings from 1980 to 2000 (More recent minutes are already available from the Guild’s Document Repository) and a collection of historical articles from The Ringing World about Guild people, places and events.
My first duty, and a very happy one, was to add by purchase to the Library’s collection the Guild’s recent publication The Church Bells of the Channel Islands by David Cawley and Frederick Sharpe. More recently the Library has benefited from the donation of a most useful and interesting collection of practical manuals and some background material from the library of Margaret and Philip Carter.
Andrew Barnsdale is making progress with binding volumes of The Ringing World and has kindly agreed to bind the volume for 2007.
I am always pleased to assist Guild members and others with an interest in the Guild with their researches. Finally I would like to thank my predecessors in office, Jack Walters and Tony Smith, both for their sterling work in recent years and for their help and advice to me in taking the reins, and also the Winchester Cathedral ringers for their continuing support.
| Income | Expenditure | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| £.p | £.p | ||
| Balance b/f | 89.18 | Sub. to The Ringing World | 52.00 |
| From Central Fund | 75.00 | Sub. to Friends of the Central Council Library | 10.00 |
| Cawley and Sharpe: Church bells of the C.I. | 15.00 | ||
| Balance c/f | 87.18 | ||
| £164.18 | £164.18 | ||
Bruce Purvis