I have been looking after the Meeting’s library since we started meeting at the Rainbow Centre in 2007. The library has expanded considerably since then, adding a lot of new publications. More recently we have disposed of about one third of our stock – keeping only a few of the old Quaker classics – thus allowing us to fit our books into boxes that we can store at St Paul’s Church hall. The books are catalogued, and all shown in the list below. Anyone is welcome to borrow a book from the library on a Sunday, so long as they write the details in the borrowers’ book and return the book as soon as possible after they have finished reading it. It is difficult to display the library books where we meet but if anyone needs help to find a particular book or would like some help in choosing a book to borrow, please ask me. If anyone would like to write a short review or recommendation about a book they’ve borrowed it could be added to the website.
From time to time new books are bought (we have money allocated for this purpose in the Meeting’s budget), the most recent purchase being an updated edition of George Gorman’s 1973 Swarthmore Lecture ‘The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship’ which is an excellent and in-depth study of Quakerism and our way of worship.
Janet Peirce, February 2017