From Bothell to Boston

This winter we reached out to archivists in charge of large collections of Christian Science literature and asked if any used books on our shelves were of interest. We had done a thorough inventory and sent them an on-line spreadsheet to review. In response, we received a very long request list from The Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston.

It was quite a project pulling out the many specific items they wanted for The Mother Church’s archival collection and carefully packing them up for safe travels.

With so many boxes and such large, heavy boxes, it seemed worthwhile to take our library cart to the US Post Office to make shuffling through the line easier on everyone.

A couple of weeks later, all the boxes arrived safely at the Christian Science Center in Boston. Here they are at The Mary Baker Eddy Library, awaiting their official admission to the church history collection.

We have done several other similar shipments to MBEL since we started more proactively trying to find new homes for all the “old” books that are donated to us. We have also sent large shipments to Longyear Museum.

Even old Christian Science literature in poor condition might be desirable to archivists, if it’s something rare — or an excellent specimen of something common. Please ask us before destroying literature, or just send it to us and we’ll sort through it and do our best to find an appropriate new home for every item— maybe even in an archival collection!