Welcome to the Kate Sharpley Library

The Kate Sharpley Library exists to preserve and promote anarchist history. (More information.)

Everything at the Kate Sharpley Library - acquisitions, cataloguing, preservation work, publishing, answering enquiries is done by volunteers: we get no money from governments or the business community. All our running costs are met by donations from members of the collective, subscribers and supporters, or by the small income we make through publishing. Please consider donating and subscribing.

We also try to promote the history of anarchism by publishing studies based on those materials - or reprints of original documents taken from our collection. Check out our books and pamphlets available for sale or explore our online documents or browse back issues of our Bulletin.

Our physical library (in California) includes books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts and ephemera documenting the history of anarchist movements. Contact us to arrange a visit.

Recent news

The Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular (Barcelona): an injustice in need of repair

The Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular was founded in Barcelona in 1902 and became a central part of the city's combative working class culture. For that reason their building was stolen and archives and library burnt by the victorious nationalists in 1939. 

You can read a manifesto giving a history of the Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular at: http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/tx97ft

Please sign the petition in support of the Ateneu's campaign for a new building http://www.avaaz.org/es/petition/LAteneu_Enciclopedic_Popular_Una_injusticia_pendent_de_reparar/

Flavio Costantini, goodbye

The Kate Sharpley Library collective are sad to pass on news of the death of Flavio Costantini, anarchist artist who who succeed in capturing the spirit of an age. More details from Stuart Christie.

February 2013 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online

KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 73, February 2013 has just been posted on the site. You can get to the contents here or read the full pdf here.

This issue contains
Book Review – The Tragic Procession: Alexander Berkman and Russian Prisoner Aid, 1923-1931 (KSL/ABSC, 2010)
Helping Freedom
Books for cooks (and other workers)
Confronting Dostoevsky's Demons : Anarchism and the Specter of Bakunin in Twentieth-century Russia by James Goodwin [Book Review]
The Role of the Anarchists in the Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921: A Case Study in Conspiratorial Party Behavior during Revolution. John W. Copp. Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1992
Siberian Makhnovshchina : Siberian Anarchists in the Russian Civil War (1918-1924) by Igor Podshivalov [Book Review]
March of the Anarchists
Alan Woodward 1939-2012
Georgette Kokoczinski (la mimosa)

Freedom Bookshop attacked

London's Freedom Bookshop has suffered a firebomb attack. It looks as though lots of books have been damaged.

Their website gives an idea of what's been going on:
Freedom firebombed
The clean-up continues
Open as usual
Bookshop re-opens

"Our stock is somewhat reduced, but now features some interesting fire-damaged memorabilia.

"As so much of our stock was damaged, we would appreciate any book donations you can make.

"Please drop off books at the bookshop during our normal opening hours: Monday to Saturday 12 noon to 6pm, Sunday 12 noon to 4pm."

The Freedom collective have made the following suggestion for how comrades who can't get to the actual bookshop can give financial support:

"We are setting up a donation page. In the meanwhile, anyone who wants to donate can do so by ordering a book/s through the www.freedompress.org.uk website, and emailing us at shop@freedompress.org.uk to let us know that your purchase was a donation.

"Alternatively, [UK] cheques or postal orders made payable to Freedom Press can be sent to Freedom Press, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX."

Further info at http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/
See also http://libcom.org/news/freedom-bookshop-firebombed-01022013

Audrey Goodfriend 1920-2013

We are saddened to report the death of Audrey Goodfriend (1920-1913). Audrey, we were honored to you call you a comrade.

http://www.moesbooks.com/pages/Audrey-Goodfriend.html

Audrey Goodfriend (1920-2013): black diaper baby, lifelong anarchist, radical educator and inspiration to all who fight for a better world. I only met her twice, but I'll remember her youthful enthusiasm, her amazing tales of growing up in an anarchist household in the '20s and '30s in the US and the fact that, despite her age, she hung out with the most radical group of Bay Area anarchists :-)

I'll also remember how, just as she was leaving a gathering I'd arrived at, someone turned to me and whispered in my ear, "That's Audrey. She knew Emma Goldman."