Chess libraries

Due to mergers and acqusitions in recent years there are only two chess libraries of major signicance and only a few other specialist collections. They are,

• The John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection at Cleveland Public Library.
  • Largest chess and draughts library in the world.
  • Built on the donation of quarter of a million dollars and 11,000 books from John G. White's private library upon his death.

• The Chess & Draughts collection at the Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana (part of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands).
  • Second largest chess and draughts library in the world.
  • Built on the donations of from the private chess libraries of Antonius van der Linde, Meindert Niemeijer and G.L. Gortmans.
  • Contain 40,000 works.

• Chess collection at the Templeman Library, University of Kent at Canterbury.
  • Built on donation of archive material of the British Chess Federation.
  • Contains a number of unique items relating to British chess clubs.

The most significant publicly acknowledged private chess library is currently that of Paolo Ciancarini. However, Mr. Ciancarini states that several people own larger libraries, including Lothar Schmidt in Germany and Mr. DeLucia in New York. Also, the former World Champion Anatoly Karpov is told to own a large chess library. Mr. Ciancarini's is the only one which has a catalog publicly available on the Web, and periodically updated.

External links

• http://www.chessarch.com/excavations/0006_savage/lecture.shtml
• Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana
• The John G. White Chess and Checkers Collection
• University of Kent Chess Collection
• Catalogue of Paolo Ciancarini's library