Over time, the British Caving Library has been given a number of collections of caving material belonging to once active cavers. We will catalogue it all over time, and provide online access to some of it. However, it dawned on us that it was difficult for researchers and cavers to know what material does exist and is available. A lot of similar collections have also found good homes in caving club libraries, county record offices, museums, and various archives, and we don't want the caving world to forget about them.

We have, therefore, started off an embryonic online register of caving collections, which may be found here:

http://caving-library.org.uk/collections/collections.shtml

It's embryonic in that there are a lot of collections out there which we have not identified, and the accuracy of some of the information currently provided is suspect. Thus, there is an assumption that the original material made available on the MCRA website is held by the MCRA - which is almost certainly not the case.

We would, therefore, welcome additions and corrections to the register so that it can become a genuinely useful resource.  An email address is provide on the page.

Finally - a plea. If you know of a collection that has not found a good home where it can become available, please find a good home for it and let us know where it may be found. The BCL is a willing recipient.

Excellent idea   

Deliberately the MCRA archive is almost entirely digital. Your assumption is correct, the logbooks etc. are with third parties. But your post makes me realise we should let people know where the physical copy is held for those rare occasions when the digital copy won't do.

I'll try and gather the info to update your collections list and the MCRA website.

Cookie said:

Deliberately the MCRA archive is almost entirely digital. Your assumption is correct, the logbooks etc. are with third parties. But your post makes me realise we should let people know where the physical copy is held for those rare occasions when the digital copy won't do.

I'll try and gather the info to update your collections list and the MCRA website.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Cookie. Les has already let me know that the WCC continue to hold their log books.