The special collection of the library is poetry. It includes such items as a first edition of the work of the Georgian poet,
Charlotte Mew – 'The Rambling Sailor' – published back in 1921 by what was then quaintly known as 'The Poetry Bookshop'. We’ve also got items such as
Paula Claire's Poem concertina from the Venice Biennale in 1967; much work by
Bob Cobbing, the UK's first concrete/sound poet; as well as more contemporary limited edition and distributed stuff such as
Vicki Feaver's 'Girl in Red'.
A niche selection of the collection is actually only otherwise available to scholars who can make it to such places as the Harvard Woodberry Collection (we've got several items they do) or The British Library Rare Books & Manuscripts room (they've got the same Charlotte Mew that we do) etc.
We aim to acquisition new items in each place we operate the library in. You may attend the library with an item you wish acquisitioned, and undergo our
Acquisition Policy Procedure to find out if the item is suitable for our collection. If your item passes the test we acquisition it there and then. If not, well, we’ll give it back to you there and then too.
We currently have the languages: English, Slovenian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Bengali, Spanish, French, Dutch, Flemish, German, Farsi and Romanian represented in Library items.
We have only had one book, in all our travelling library time, remain un-returned. Obviously, refusing to return items to our collection means that we are unable to provide them to others. This is selfish twaddle, the likes of which we have only recently just seen occur in the banking ‘profession’.
You know who you are Antwerp member (November 2006)!
And we know where you live.
In the meantime, if anyone has a spare copy of Glynn Pursglove’s
The Heart of the Ancient Balcony that they could donate to replenish our supply, that would be sweet-ass.
Cheers.