Chess libraries

Chess libraries are library collections of books and periodicals on the game of chess. Chess has a very extensive literature, probably exceeding that of all other games combined. In 1913, preeminent chess historian H. J. R. Murray estimated the total number of books, magazines, and newspaper columns pertaining to chess to be about 5,000 at that time.[1][2] B.H. Wood estimated that number, as of 1949, to be about 20,000.[2] David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld write that, "Since then there has been a steady increase year by year of the number of new chess publications. No one knows how many have been printed..."[2]

Libraries

Public

The three significant public chess libraries are:

The John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection at Cleveland Public Library has the largest chess and draughts library in the world, with over 32,000 chess books and over 6,000 bound volumes of chess periodicals."[3] It was started with the donation of a quarter of a million dollars and 11,000 books from John G. White's private library upon his death.

The Chess & Draughts collection at the Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana (part of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands). The second largest public chess collection in the world is built on the donations of the private chess libraries of Antonius van der Linde, Meindert Niemeijer and G.L. Gortmans. It contains about 30,000 books.[4]

The M.V. Anderson Chess Collection held at State Library Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) is the largest public chess collection in the Southern hemisphere.[5] This contains in excess of 12,000 books and many journal and newsletter titles. Additional titles are added each year. It is based around M.V. Anderson's personal collection of 6700 volumes donated between 1959 and 1966. [6]

Private

Grandmaster Lothar Schmid of Bamberg, Germany reportedly owned the world's largest private collection of chess books and memorabilia.[7][8] In 1992, Hooper and Whyld stated that Schmid's chess library "is the largest and finest in private hands, with more than 15,000 items".[9] In 2008, Susan Polgar stated that Schmid "has over 20,000 chess books".[3] Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam states that Schmid "boasts to have amassed 50,000 chess books.[10]

David DeLucia's chess library contains 7,000 to 8,000 chess books, a similar number of autographs (letters, score sheets, manuscripts), and about 1,000 items of "ephemera".[11] DeLucia's library contains such items as "a 15th-century Lucena manuscript, score-sheets ranging from Fischer's Game of the Century against Donald Byrne to all the games of the 1927 New York tournament, eight letters by Morphy, over a hundred Lasker manuscripts, Capablanca's gold pocket watch, [and] the contract of the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort world championship match".[12] Ten Geutzendam opines that DeLucia's collection "is arguably the finest chess collection in the world".[12]

Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov has a large chess stamp collection.[13] He (according to the Wikipedia article about him) has a private chess library of over 9000 books.

The Musée Suisse du Jeu in Switzerland has a room devoted to chess, according to number 152 of EG, which reports their purchase of Ken Whyld's library in 2004. As of January 2010, the British Chess Variants Society was planning to transfer five boxes of archival material related David Pritchard's research for the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants to that collection.[14]

See also

References
  1. Murray, H.J.R. (1913), A History of Chess, Oxford University Press, pp. 782–784, ISBN 0-19-827403-3
  2. Hooper, David; Whyld, Kenneth (1984). The Oxford Companion to Chess, Oxford University Press, p. 189. ISBN 0-19-217540-8.
  3. Susan Polgar, Special Chess Records (February 11, 2008). Retrieved on 2009-1-11.
  4. See official website, Chess & Draughts collection. Introduction and history
  5. See research guide, Chess Research Guide
  6. See SLV Collection page, Chess Collection page
  7. "A collector of chess books and paraphernalia, he has the largest private chess library in the world." David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed. 1992), p. 358. ISBN 0-19-866164-9.
  8. "Schmid owns the largest private collection of chess books and other chess material." Harry Golombek, Golombek's Chess Encyclopedia, Crown Publishers, 1977, p. 290. ISBN 0-517-53146-1.
  9. Hooper & Whyld, p. 226 ("libraries" entry).
  10. Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, "The Finest Chess Collection in the World", New in Chess, 2010, No. 5, p. 18. The title of the article refers to David DeLucia's collection, not Schmid's.
  11. ten Geuzendam, p. 19.
  12. ten Geutzendam, p. 10.
  13. „Former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov’s writes about his collection“ Archived 2009-11-13 at the Wayback Machine, Stamp Magazine
  14. British Chess Variants Society "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-02-07. Retrieved 2006-01-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) "David Pritchard's files have been prepared for transfer to the Musée Suisse du Jeu, where they will be kept in the Ken Whyld Library and made available to future researchers." "Site updated 17 January 2010", retrieved March 13, 2010
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