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 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 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.
The major development of the year has been the refurbishment of the Guild’s set of Shaw handbells, once the property of George Williams, for the first time since the 1950s during Canon Felstead’s librarianship. The work was carried out by Messrs Taylor and Co., with the minimum of intervention for reasons of conservation. A new bell in F has been added to the set, to make a light ring of twelve in B-flat.
A plaque has been mounted inside the Library bookcase recording the history of its moves and its augmentation in 2010.
Following my attendance at the Central Council’s most instructive day-school for librarians at Thatcham in February 2010 I have added to the Library the histories of the church bells of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and completed that of Herefordshire, also the Central Council Library catalogue of 2002 and some early postwar Guild reports. Andrew Barnsdale continues to hold recent volumes of the Ringing World which he is binding for the Guild Library.
I am always pleased to assist Guild members and others with an interest in the Guild with their researches, as I have done for three enquirers in the last year, and I should like to thank my colleagues within the Guild and the Winchester Cathedral band for their continuing support.
| Income | Expenditure | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| £.p | £.p | ||
| Balance b/f | 58.20 | Sub. to Ringing World | 55.00 |
| From Central Fund | 1,019.50 | Sub. to Friends of the Central Council Library | 10.00 |
| Books and annual reports | 92.90 | ||
| Handbell refurbishment | 854.50 | ||
| Polish | 5.00 | ||
| Postage | 6.70 | ||
| Balance c/f | 53.60 | ||
| £1,077.70 | £1,077.70 | ||
Bruce Purvis