Tweet
I am presently about 100 feet away from one of the largest chess collections in the world - in the State Library of Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia. I will try to take some photos, and post them some time in the future. (unfortunately, the Melbourne CC was closed when I passed by about 5 pm yesterday - I might try again tonight).
-
-
Re: Melbourne, Australia
The M.V. Anderson Collection
Hugh’s posting from Melbourne today reminded me of two clippings I have in an old chess notebook on the M.V. Anderson Collection:
The M.V. Anderson Collection
From Chess World, July 1960 p.124
Until recently, there were only three public libraries in the world with large chess collections (i.e. with number of items running into four figures). These were the Cleveland Public Library, Ohio; The Hague Public Library, Holland; and the Philadelphia Public Library, Pennsylvania.
Now there is a fourth, the Melbourne Public Library, Australia.
Melbourne’s acquisition is a gift from Mr. M.V. Anderson of that city. It contains over 2,400 items fully catalogued and card-indexed and Mr. Anderson expects to add about 100 items annually.
While it cannot vie with the Cleveland Collection (gift of the late John G. White and since enlarged annually), or the Hague Collection (donated and kept up to date by Dr. Niemeijer, and containing well over 6000 items, it is a remarkable c collection to find in Australia, where the difficulty of amassing a good chess library is much greater than in Europe or the U.S.A.
The M.V.A. Collection has already been housed but not yet made available to students.
Neither Mr. Anderson nor we ourselves know much about the American collections and would be glad of information. At one time, the one in Philadelphia (gift of the late Professor Allen) was said to be “buried and becoming out of date for lack of an endowment to support it.” How does it stand now? Will one of our American readers tell us?
Semi-public collections are at Harvard University (2800 volumes) and Princeton (at least 3000 items, given by the late Eugene B. Cook of Hoboken).
A few private individuals have large collections, including B. H. Wood (over 2000 books, nearly all very modern).
* * *
Mr. Anderson started collecting in 1918.
Special features: - Over 600 tournament books, all the important match books, biographic collections and books of collected games.
There are about 750 volumes of magazines.
The collection is essentially utilitarian. The emphasis has been on games, of which there are 250,000 (including a number of duplicates). Any given game is easily found and students wanting scores may obtain them by sending a stamped addressed envelope to Mr. M.V. Anderson, 377 Little Collins St., Melbourne. He is prepared to give freely of his time – a noble service indeed.
+++++++++++
Australia Has World’s No. 5 Chess Library
From Chess World, June 1964 p. 89
People who go into Melbourne’s Public Library, i.e. the Victorian State Library, will find only a very modest gathering of chess books on the ordinary shelves.
On application, however they may utilize the magnificent M.V. Anderson Collection, which we mentioned in 1960. This is being constantly added to by Mr. Anderson and now has nearly 5000 items.
It now ranks fifth in the world. Easily top is the John G. White Collection, a public one, at Cleveland, Ohio with 15,000 items. Next comes the one at the Royal Library at The Hague, also public. Then the semi-public collection at Princeton University, U.S.A. The private collection of Lothar Schmid at Bamberg, East Germany, is of 6,000 items.
The Melbourne collection may be roughly divided into older material for the research worker and newer publications for the tournament player.
Of the latter there are all the recent editions of openings, mid-game and endings, all the recent books of games and tournament books.
The collection has been arranged on the pattern of The Hague catalogue, using the same numbers, so that books may be readily quoted by the Hague number, now almost generally used.
By special arrangement they are available to any student or research worker in Australia.
Mr. Anderson himself will copy any game required but a more extensive copy will be made by the Library, where, for example, pages of notes etc. are wanted. These will be copied in the Xerox machine at a shilling a page, which generally covers a double opening of the usual sized book.
If, however, a student may desire to read more extensively and take extracts from a book, it can be borrowed, by application to his local State Public Library, where the book will be sent for a month.
For those able to visit the collection, there is a card index of over 3,000 cards.
There are more than 1,100 tournament books (or bulletins and brochures), and more than 1,500 volumes of magazines including full sets of “The British Chess Magazine”, “Chess”, “The American Chess Bulletin” and “Chess Review”. The French “La Strategie” lacks three or four volumes, the German “Deutsche Schachzeitung” lacks only Vol. 1, 1846. The Russian “Shakmati” is continuous from 1945, and the “Shakmatnii Biulletin”, from its inception in 1955.
Australian Weeklies – “The Australasian”, “The Leader”, “The Weekly Times”, have been cut since 1918, pasted into books, and indexed.
Early books include Vida, dated 1541; Actius, 1583; Stamma 1745; Philidor, First edition 1749; the English writers at the early part of the 19th Century, Lewis, Walker, Cochrane and Alexandre, 1837.
There are reproductions of Alfonso X el Sabio 1293 Leipzig 1913 (elephant folio, the largest chess book in the world); Caxton 1474 (Figgins type facsimile 1855); The Bonus Socius Manuscript of the XIII century in Florence, photo facsimile, with plates in colour, Florence 1910.
+++++++++++
From:
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejou...4/t1-g-t4.html
The Chess Collection was the gift of a man with a deep enthusiasm for the game, but it was not his only passion. Magnus Victor Anderson (1884–1966), a successful and wealthy Melbourne accountant, was a lover of art as well as chess. In 1958–59, when he was in his mid-seventies, he gave his private library of books on art to the Ballarat Fine Arts Gallery, and during the same period the State Library received his even larger collection of books on chess. When he died in 1966 both the Gallery and the State Library were among the major beneficiaries of his will.
After nearly 40 years of continuous addition by the Library, Anderson's chess collection today, with about 15,000 volumes, is able to provide most of the important texts spanning the six centuries of the game from Caxton in the fifteenth century to the computer age of the twenty-first. -
Re: Melbourne, Australia
'The Age' features the Melbourne Chess Club and this year's Australian Chess Championship. You can follow the games live at ChessBomb. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that my favourite Australian chess player, David Smerdon, author of 'Smerdon's Scandinavian', is playing in this year's event. ):
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/ba...02-gly5ml.htmlComment
-
Re: Melbourne, Australia
'The Age' features an unlikely quartet of Australian female chess champions. (:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/jo...24-gluohy.htmlComment
-
Re: Melbourne, Australia
Simon Leo Brown summarizes this year's Australian Open, dominated by "the internet generation".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-1...onship/7083114Comment
Comment