Library and Archives

THE ALCUIN LIBRARY

The first year of the new Alcuin Library has been a time of increased use and consolidation. 1,925 books have been added to the various sections, and an increased number of pupils have been using the facilities for study and leisure. Others, however, do not appear to realise the advantage of having a comfortable, quiet and attractive area to benefit their studies. It is hoped that during the summer holidays the shelves will have been corrected, and some sections re-positioned. It is also hoped that a full catalogue under the Dewey Decimal System will be completed.

We have been pleased by the help and interest shown, and are grateful to Ian Sharper, library monitor, for all his assistance, and to Dominic Todd who has cared for the magazine section. Mr. Hodgin has been most kind in supplying copies of magazines on electronics and computing, which have been very popular and useful. If other friends would like to pass on their magazines when they have finished with them, they will be gratefully received.

We are also extremely grateful to parents and pupils for the gift of books as leaving presents. Bookplates recording the names of the donors have been fixed into each volume. Other friends have been kind enough to offer us books which they had finished with. Our special thanks go to Mr. John Denison and to the following pupils and their parents:

Justin Brayshaw Roland Carnaby Richard Griggs The Jarmain family Gareth Kay Alexander McPhail Sarah Masterman Marc Mitchell Ben Millar Lawrence Patton Simon Powell Gavin and Stephen Proudley Tifanny Richards Christopher Rowland James and Robert Stephenson The Torlesse family Adam Waters Philip Watson Matthew Williams

We were also delighted to receive a most generous sum of money from the profits of the Swap Shop. With this we were able to add to the library a most handsome and useful fifteen volume set of the Oxford History of English Literature. Some money remained, and with this, as reported in the Archive Section, we almost completed the re-binding of back numbers of "The Peterite". Even then some money was left with which it is hoped to have specially designed bookplates to designate book donors. We are indeed grateful to Buff and Dick Reid, and all who help and support the Swap Shop.

THE ARCHIVE DEPARTMENT

Much work remains to be done in the sorting, collecting and cataloguing of the archive material we have, and help with these matters would be most welcome, especially with the indexing of "The Peterite".

Interest in the archives is certainly growing, and the many visitors that we have had have been impressed. The number of enquiries we receive by post is also increasing, and we are glad to be able to help enquirers whenever we can.

Work has continued with the preservation of items from the past. Disintegrating colours books have been rebound, and even a detention book has been strengthened and bound for posterity. Visitors enjoy checking on their past crimes. The old Visitor's Book, first begun in 1919, has also been restored and rebound, and brought back into use. Because of the kindness of friends in the Swap Shop who gave us a most generous donation for books we have almost completed the rebinding of past numbers of "The Peterite" magazine. Apart from inexplicably missing numbers from 1957 to 1963 we now have a handsome set, beautifully bound by Messrs. Aste & Smith, until 1980 when the size and shape of the magazine was altered.

We are, as ever, extremely grateful to those who have given items for our collection. In addition to the generous donation from the Swap Shop already mentioned, we thank the following:

Guy Bailey for Peterite magazines, and items of corps uniform. George Alderson for photographs, play programmes,

Science exhibitions, reminiscences and a wooden shield bearing the School crest. Richard Harland for his Old Peterite Club blazer, two

O.P. bow ties, silk square, photographs and rowing zephyr. Guy King-Reynolds for letters and items concerning his uncle, killed in the First World War.

We were particularly delighted by a telephone call from the aunts of Old Peterite Lieutenant Hugh Lister Taylor, R.N. whose plane was shot down over the Pacific in the closing stages of the Second World War. Thanks to the kindness of his surviving aunts we now have his framed set of war medals, photographs of him as a boy and as a naval officer, a cup won by the winning crew of 1940 when he was captain of boats, and his lucky mascot which accompanied him during his war service.

Even though our collection of archives is growing we are still anxious for more — anything and everything. Uniforms, games, books, trophies, medals, letters and diaries, photographs, magazines, old reports and bills — all the stuff of history — so please do not dispose of any items connected with the School without first giving us a thought.