We have been building a reference library at Art at the Alex since we started. Steve and Chris have lots of books and the shelving in the Garden Room was used to display these for handy reference. Then books were brought into the place as donations which we felt were worth keeping in the library. Its a great resource to dip into or browse when you visit. Can’t be taken off the premises but feel free to buy a coffee and cake and dip in.
In August the collection took a great leap forward as we added 150+ Crafts Council magazines. So pretty much a straight run from the 1970s through to 2010s. (No longer published this is pretty much a part-work guide to 50+ years of ground breaking crafts by some amazing artisans. Fabulous browsing (thank you to Jenny Ball who spotted this lot for sale on eBay and if anyone has copies from 2011 onwards please let us know as we would like to acquire the missing years.
In July we had a visit from Pete Thornley, who sadly died in August and at this stage knew he was terminally ill. He offered to us his art books. We acquired these (and they are being bookplated, identified as his bequest and added to the library by work experience student Ana Kotis this week. We have taken delivery of a lot of Pete’s books which are not art-related, and rather too many film and photography books. So we have a sale going on over the weekend of 23-25th October. If you fancy buying a book that belonged to Pete.
