06/11/03 - Cumbria Libraries launch Mountaineering Collection

A unique collection of mountaineering literature will be opened to the public at Kendal library at 3pm on Thursday November 13. The Cumbria Libraries Mountaineering Collection, brought together from libraries all over the county, will be launched by the chair of Cumbria County Council, Councillor Joseph Nicholson. Guest speaker at the event will be Cumbrian mountaineer, writer and photographer Bill Birkett, author of many books on the Lake District and other mountain areas of the world.

Councillor Nicholson said: 

“There can be no more appropriate place for such a collection. Cumbria has played a major role in the history of mountaineering, being the birthplace of rock climbing in the 19thcentury and a training ground for major ventures like the 1953 Everest Expedition. It continues to do so, and the Lake District offers an introduction to climbing to many young people with a sense of adventure who will be the mountaineers of the future.”

County Councillor Tim Heslop, Cabinet member responsible for libraries, said:

“Mountaineering has been producing a literature of its own from the days of the Victorian pioneers through to the present day, including books by international figures like Sir Chris Bonington, who has made his home in the Lake District for many years. 

“The journals and periodicals are an essential research tool for those interested in the history of mountaineering and this collection brings them together with the literature all in one place.”

The collection will have a permanent home on the first floor of the Kendal library in Stricklandgate. It consists of more than 1,500 books and journals dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. It will continue to grow and is expected to become one of the best collections on mountaineering in a British public library. Most of the items will be available for borrowing, although the rarer and more precious items will be for reference only. Copies of the more popular books will be held at some libraries throughout the county and most items will be available through any library on request.

The collection includes comprehensive bibliographies of mountaineering literature, one of which was compiled in the 1970s by a former member of the county libraries staff, Brian Read. It also has early issues of the Alpine Journal, a complete set of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club Journal and a large number of personal memoirs and accounts of ascents in the Alps and the Himalayas, some dating back to the 19thcentury.