Editing Chess libraries

{{Short description|Library with collection related to chess}}
'''Chess libraries''' are [[library]] collections of books and periodicals on the game of [[chess]].  In 1913, preeminent chess [[history|historian]] [[H. J. R. Murray]] estimated the total number of books, magazines, and [[Chess columns in newspapers|newspaper columns]] pertaining to chess to be about 5,000 at that time.<ref>{{citation
 | last=Murray | first=H.J.R. | author-link=H. J. R. Murray
 | year=1913 | title=[[A History of Chess]] 
 | publisher=Oxford University Press | pages=782–784 |isbn=0-19-827403-3}}</ref><ref name="Hooper&Whyld">[[David Hooper (chess player)|Hooper, David]]; [[Ken Whyld|Whyld, Kenneth]] (1984). ''The Oxford Companion to Chess'', Oxford University Press, p. 189. {{ISBN|0-19-217540-8}}.</ref> [[Baruch Harold Wood|B. H. Wood]] estimated that number, as of 1949, to be about 20,000.<ref name="Hooper&Whyld"/> [[David Hooper (chess player)|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..."<ref name="Hooper&Whyld"/>

==Libraries==
===Public===
Significant public chess libraries include: 

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."<ref name="PolgarRecords">[[Susan Polgar]], [http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2008/02/chess-records.html Special Chess Records] (February 11, 2008). Retrieved on 2009-1-11.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://en.chessbase.com/post/john-g-white-collection-of-chess-and-checkers |title=John G. White Collection of Chess and Checkers |last=Root |first=Alexey |date=August 17, 2021 |website=Chess News |access-date=October 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124205620/https://en.chessbase.com/post/john-g-white-collection-of-chess-and-checkers |archive-date=January 24, 2022}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kb.nl/en/resources-research-guides/kb-collections/collections-by-theme/chess-and-draughts-collection |title=Chess & Draughts collection |website=National Library of the Netherlands |access-date=October 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150602095256/http://www.kb.nl/en/resources-research-guides/kb-collections/collections-by-theme/chess-and-draughts-collection |archive-date=June 2, 2015}}</ref>

The '''M.V. Anderson Chess Collection''' held at State Library Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) is the largest public chess collection in the Southern hemisphere.<ref>See research guide, [http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/chess Chess Research Guide] </ref> 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. <ref>See SLV Collection page, [https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/explore-collections-theme/sport-games/chess Chess Collection page] </ref>

The English '''National Chess Library''' held at De Montfort University in Leicester holds around 7,000 books building on that of chess writer [[Harry Golombek]]<ref>https://www.englishchess.org.uk/national-chess-library-at-de-montfort-university/Nation Chess Library</ref>

[[File:Angeles_City_Library_and_Information_Center_(Pampanga)_30.jpg |thumb|Chess library ([[Angeles City]] Library and Information Center)]]
===Private===
[[Grandmaster (chess)|Grandmaster]] [[Lothar Schmid]] of [[Bamberg]], Germany reportedly owned the world's largest private collection of chess books and memorabilia.<ref>"A collector of chess books and paraphernalia, he has the largest private chess library in the world." [[David Hooper (chess player)|David Hooper]] and [[Kenneth Whyld]], ''[[The Oxford Companion to Chess]]'' (2nd ed. 1992), p. 358. {{ISBN|0-19-866164-9}}.</ref><ref>"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}}.</ref> In 1992, [[David Hooper (chess player)|Hooper]] and [[Kenneth Whyld|Whyld]] stated that Schmid's chess library "is the largest and finest in private hands, with more than 15,000 items".<ref>Hooper & Whyld, p. 226 ("libraries" entry).</ref> In 2008, [[Susan Polgar]] stated that Schmid "has over 20,000 chess books".<ref name="PolgarRecords"/> Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam states that Schmid "boasts to have amassed 50,000 chess books.<ref>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.</ref>

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".<ref>ten Geuzendam, p. 19.</ref> 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 [[Paul Morphy|Morphy]], over a hundred [[Emanuel Lasker|Lasker]] manuscripts, [[José Raúl Capablanca|Capablanca's]] gold pocket watch, [and] the contract of the 1886 Steinitz-Zukertort world championship match".<ref name="ten Geutzendam, p. 10">ten Geutzendam, p. 10.</ref> Ten Geutzendam opines that DeLucia's collection "is arguably the finest chess collection in the world".<ref name="ten Geutzendam, p. 10"/>

Former [[World Chess Championship|World Champion]] [[Anatoly Karpov]] has a large chess stamp collection.<ref>[http://www.stampmagazine.co.uk/content/famous/anatoly_karpov.html „Former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov’s writes about his collection“] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091113013434/http://www.stampmagazine.co.uk/content/famous/anatoly_karpov.html |date=2009-11-13 }}, Stamp Magazine</ref>

The [[Musée Suisse du Jeu]] in Switzerland has a room devoted to chess, according to [https://web.archive.org/web/20171203040610/http://www.gadycosteff.com/eg/eg.html number 152] of ''[[EG (magazine)|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 to [[David Pritchard (chess player)|David Pritchard]]'s research for the Encyclopedia of Chess Variants to that collection.<ref>British Chess Variants Society {{cite web |url=http://www.bcvs.ukf.net/ |title=Variant Chess |access-date=2006-01-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060207025335/http://www.bcvs.ukf.net/ |archive-date=2006-02-07 }} "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</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of chess books]]
* [[List of chess periodicals]]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.chessarch.com/excavations/0006_savage/lecture.shtml Chess Archeology]
*[http://www.kb.nl/en/resources-research-guides/kb-collections/collections-by-theme/chess-and-draughts-collection Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150602095256/http://www.kb.nl/en/resources-research-guides/kb-collections/collections-by-theme/chess-and-draughts-collection |date=2015-06-02 }}
*[https://cpl.org/thelibrary/subjectscollections/special-collections/ Special Collections Department of the Cleveland Public Library, including the JGW Chess and Checkers collection]

{{Chess|state=collapsed}}

[[Category:Chess publications|*]]
[[Category:Libraries by subject]]