Library contents to be opened up to the world (From Maldon and Burnham Standard)

Library contents to be opened up to the world

11:09am Thursday 2nd July 2009

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AN online catalogue featuring the contents of all the volumes in Thomas Plume’s library from 1704 will soon be available for the first time.

The library, Market Hill, Maldon, will be unveiling the new computerised catalogue - which will be available on their website at www.thomasplumeslibrary.co.uk - on Thursday July 9.

The catalogue project began in 2004, 300 years after the unique institution was founded, and has taken five years and several grant contributions to complete.

Dr James Bettley, chairman of the trustees for Thomas Plume’s Library, said: ‘It is very exciting that we have successfully completed this important project.

“The new catalogue and the website will help to make the library better known which it deserves to be because it is a very rare example of the library of a 17th century scholar that has survived virtually intact in the building that was specially designed to house it.

“We are immensely grateful to all those who have helped to make the catalogue possible.”

The library is named after the town’s benefactor Dr Thomas Plume who was born in 1630.

He accumulated one of the largest private libraries in his lifetime with about 8,000 volumes on a wide range of subjects which were bequeathed to the town.

The process of compiling the catalogue has also meant a number of previously unknown works havbe been discovered.

The project has been supported through grants from the Foyle Foundation, the Essex Heritage Trust, the Mercers’ Company, the Marc Fitch Fund, the Aurelius Charitable Trust, the Hervey Benham Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Thomas Plume’s Library.

Staff at Plume School and TDR Computers of Maldon also helped support the project.

Work will continue to catalogue books added to the library since 1704 and the collection of manuscripts.

The library is open to the public from 2pm until 4pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and 10am until noon on Saturdays.

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