Have you been yet to Loome Theological Booksellers? Today’s the day.
I learnt of this place from Brandon Vogt’s piece, Why Catholic Books Still Matter: An Interview with Christopher Hagen.
See especially this article by the bookstore’s founder: “Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang.” Read it—sorry for this—and weep.
What the English Jesuits disposed of so casually shocks me even now. Included in the 30,000 or so volumes were, for example, well over 500 titles representing publications on Jesuit missionary activity in the Far East. These included incredibly rare 16th century imprints as well as later monographs into the late 19th century. It was one of the most extraordinary and valuable collections I have myself ever handled. This collection was immediately sold to the National Library of Australia in Canberra, at a price I know now to have been far too modest.
What a terrific selection they have!
I guess that it is up to me to point this out: your third link doesn’t work. On a related note I enjoy many of the articles in the Crisis Magazine link that you gave out a while back. So, I guess that I am not completely beyond hope.
Scotian,
Thanks. Fixed. Sometimes when copying URLs from Firefox it doesn’t carry the “http://” over, which is needed for the link. I have no idea why it does this.
Briggs,
Finished reading the repaired link. It is a sad tale indeed. If such a thing was possible I would weep.
Some of our secular universities are divesting themselves of the awful burden of books; in at least one case a wholesale clearing out made space for an area where students can buy & drink coffee, and enjoy various electronic entertainments(masquerading as “study”). It is a shame to think that this campus wasn’t populated with enough coffee stalls and electrical outlets that a library had to be uprooted.