Library update (July 2026)

Ephemera

‘I seem to have a special liking for little things, – things that show the spirit of the times like small cards of meetings and handbills and small pamphlets and leaflets.’ Agnes Inglis to Max Nettlau, March 28th 1929 Max Nettlau papers. [1]

We’d like to thank the comrade who sent us a box of uncommon papers and leaflets (mostly) from Britain in the 1980s. It’s been fascinating: a mention of London’s Sacco and Vanzetti Library, Swansea anarchists looking back at their ‘Local Heroes’, the life of Clara Thalmann and (in this issue) Bristol anarchists going (back) to the Welsh valleys.

Other libraries have treasures, too. The photo shows Suceso Portales of Mujeres Libres protesting at the Stoll Theatre.[2] More details about the protest can be found in ‘1952: Barcelona executions, global protests (Case number 658-IV-49)’ [3] 

Books

Imanol tells us that a new book is out dedicated to the Libertarian Maquis in Catalonia 1939-1963: ‘Trying to follow the trail of clandestine histories is no easy undertaking. We never expected to turn up so many people who were involved; not only that, but fresh stories keep on popping up, once we said that we had no room for any more.’ The book pays tribute to the nameless individuals who had to ‘risk their lives on a daily basis, they trekked through Catalonia’s mountains on the run from the Civil Guard or survived on the streets of Barcelona, dodging the Francoist police.’ See https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/dv43rr  

Gape Half a Million Tramps (1936) by Bill Gape is now online at https://archive.org/details/bill-gape-tramps. 

Stuart - BBC Profile on Stuart Christie [1981] 

To many people the word “anarchist” conjures up the vision of the sinister madman dressed in a black cape and hat, with a bomb or demijohn of Anthrax bacillus to poison the population of London, but that image is the result of emotive conditioning people receive from early childhood. […] To portray an anarchist as someone resisting injustice and promoting the ideas of self-management, with people’s control over their own affairs – that is to subvert the authority of the state, and make the whole concept of political leadership redundant. That’s the REAL reason why anarchists and libertarians are portrayed the way they are by the media.
https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/4b8jp9  

Romania

The Libertarians of Romania [1951] by Eugen Relgis and a biography of Mina Neuwirth by the Anarhiva Collective via https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/0gb64h  

Sources: Umanita Nova digitised

https://ola.bida.im/archivio/BDLDR/umanita_nova/indici/it/index.html 

Libraries

FICEDL (International Federation of Anarchist Documentation and Study Centres) is meeting up in September 2026. The open assembly asks ‘what role for anarchist archives today?’
https://ficedl2026.bida.im/en/programma/assemblea-aperta/ 

Italy Luigi Balsamini’s ‘Libraries and Archives of the Anarchist Movement in Italy’ has some interesting thoughts on why materials might not be preserved: ‘The troubled history of many activists […] fear of falling into a web of repression […] a general distrust must be recorded towards anything with a hint of “museumification”’. 
http://www.progressivelibrariansguild.org/PL/PL40/001.pdf 

Post

The constant rise in the price of stamps is one of the factors that’s made it harder to do mail order. Would any UK post area subscriber like a free copy of one of these when they renew their sub?
The Anarchists in Paris, May-June 1968 / One Hundred Years of Workers’ Solidarity : the History of “Solidaridad Obrera”

Also, Freedom have given us some copies of their Summer 2026 issue. It contains our tribute to Albert (reprinted here), but the rest of the issue is dedicated to Black Anarchism with a piece by Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, a tribute to Benjamin Zephaniah – and more. Send us a large stamp if you’d like a copy.

Notes

1, The Inglis quote is in the Max Nettlau Papers https://search.iisg.amsterdam/Record/ARCH01001 folder 647.

2, Joaquin Delso de Miguel Papers, folder 47,  https://search.iisg.amsterdam/Record/ARCH04479. 

3, in KSL 97-98, Feb. 2019 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/nzs92j.