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Alan Pritchard
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Posted: Wed Nov 24th, 2010 07:34 pm |
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From academic-study-magic
Guido Woudenberg to ACADEMIC-STUDY.
show details 7:27 PM (4 minutes ago)
Some of you may have heard the news already, but I wanted to share the new anyway.
Wouter Hanegraaff this morning: "Everyone in our field should know of the vital importance the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica has played in the collection, conservation, and dissemination of esoteric literature, much of it in rare and first editions from the fifteenth century to the present. Its helpful and highly qualified staff, publications, exhibitions, and open-bay collections have fostered scholarship to an unprecedented extent in Europe and more widely in the international community since 1957.
The collection is now in danger of sale and disposal."
Please sign this petition to save it.
Express your protest against the dissolution of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (Ritman Library)
It is widely known that the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam, founded by J.R. Ritman, was in great danger in the 1990s, when the ING bank took possession of the collection and threatened to sell it. Fortunately, the Dutch government intervened: the BPH was put on the list of protected Dutch heritage, and the State eventually acquired over 40% of it. The books remained at the same physical location, integrated with the rest of the collection, and the government would eventually acquire all of it. As part of this process, there were great plans for further expansion. Largely due to the financial crisis and a change of government this was taking somewhat longer than originally anticipated, but nobody doubted that the library was safe.
Last week this turned out to be incorrect. An extremely valuable medieval manuscript owned by the BPH (The Grail of Rochefoucauld) was put on sale at Sotheby’s, and this triggered a reaction from the Friesland Bank, which took possession of the library, that had apparently been brought in as collateral, in order to get back a 15 million euro loan from mr Ritman. At present the BPH is closed, and intense negotiations are going on behind closed doors. It is impossible at this moment to predict the outcome, but there is no doubt that the situation is extremely serious. There is a very real possibility that the Friesland bank will try to sell at least the ca. 60% of the library that is still owned by mr Ritman, and nobody knows what implications this will have for the rest of the collection and the BPH as a whole, including its staff. The brand-new government of the Netherlands has announced a program of radical financial cuts in the culture section and elsewhere, which makes a renewed intervention from that side highly unlikely.
If the Ritman library would go down, this would mean an enormous blow to international scholarship in hermetic studies. The damage would be irreversible. By signing this petition you express your concern, and ask the Dutch government and the Friesland bank to do their utmost to ensure that the collection will be saved and will remain available for the international scholarly community.
Additionally, you can express your concern by means of a signed letter. The initiative for this petition comes from the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and related currents at the University of Amsterdam (organizationally independent of the BPH, and not in any danger itself), so please send your letter to its director: Prof. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Oude Turfmarkt 141-147, 1012 GC Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: w.j.hanegraaff [ at] uva.nl
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Wed Nov 24th, 2010 08:29 pm |
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Link to petition is:
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ritmanlibrary/
Would a Facebook campaign be of any use?
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Alan Pritchard
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Posted: Thu Nov 25th, 2010 10:13 am |
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Thanks, Paul.
That message was forwarded in a hurry & I did not check to see that the link was still active.
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