The AP looks at the death of Benjamin Franklin’s library. Scholars already know the collection was killed by his grandson, William Temple Franklin, who inherited most of the books and sold them for cash.
The real crime, historians say, is that there’s no surviving inventory of the 4,276 volumes — a list that could provide valuable insight into Franklin’s life.
That will change in coming months when the Library Co. of Philadelphia publishes a catalog of titles comprising nearly half of Franklin’s lost collection. The volumes range from books on science and medicine to manuals on the mechanics of printing and the making of apple cider, not to mention classics such as “Don Quixote” and “The Odyssey.”
Liberate the Archives
More evidence that Archives and libraries and even private libraries and collectors…have valuable stuff they did not know they had…understaffing, underfunding,sometimes dreadful storage conditions…and it’s lost like the Ark of the Covenant in the Government warehouse…
(ref to Indiana Jones movie)
Keep searching, keep cataloging, keep digitizing it all. Protect the original, give us the digital!
Pull that stuff out of where it’s hidden now!
Liberate the Archives!!!!