Thank you for taking the time to visit Eileen's Book Conservation Fund Page.

At the end of 2009 we said goodbye to Dr Eileen Harris, the distinguished architectural historian and writer, who has completed her work cataloguing Soane’s architectural library.

Eileen – the author of such classic works as The Genius of Robert Adam; His Interiors (Yale University Press, 2001) and, with Nicholas Savage, British Architectural Books and Writers 1556-1785 (Cambridge University Press, 1990) - has worked for the Soane on a consultancy basis, one day a week, for 25 years, cataloguing Soane’s architectural library, a project she has worked on with Nick Savage, Librarian of the Royal Academy of Art. In more recent years, other bibliophiles have joined the project, editing entries, transferring them to the database and publishing them online, but much of the credit for the catalogue of Soane’s extraordinary book collection must lie with Eileen. She also curated and wrote the catalogue for the exhibition, Hooked on Books, which was shown at the Weston Gallery, , in the Summer of 2004, and which has remained the standard reference work on Soane’s books and bibliomania (see  http://www.soane.org/Hooked%20on%20Books%20cat.pdf ).

Eileen has generously suggested that, instead of a leaving present, we establish a fund for the conservation of Soane’s unique book collection – some of which is in a precarious state of repair. The Eileen Harris Book Conservation Fund will commemorate Eileen’s remarkable contribution to the Museum and to scholarship as a whole. All monies raised by this appeal will be devoted to the urgent conservation of Soane’s book collection, which is unique as the only intact library of a great architect which remains in situ, and is one of the finest architectural libraries in the world.

If you would like to contribute to the Eileen Harris Book Conservation Fund please do so through JustGiving, which is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to Sir John Soane's Museum and make sure that Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer.  All the funds raised in this way will be designated solely for the Eileen Harris Book Conservation Fund and you can find more details about the library's conservation needs by following this link - http://www.soane.org/saveabook/ - so for the sake of all those broken spines and loose bindings, make Eileen and Sir John happy and please dig deep and donate now.  Thank you.

 

Tim Knox

Director