Libraries and Special Collections

  • Allan C. Boschen Esperanto Collection at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Library includes instructional materials in the language from around the world along with a diversity of imprints ranging from novels and poetry to travel books, histories and biographies, political writings, materials on China and Vietnam, children’s literature, and even a cookbook. The collection is named after its creator, Allan C. Boschen, an engineer with General Electric in Pittsfield, who was a student and teacher of Esperanto and longtime officer with the Esperanto Society of New England. For more information, click here or contact Steve Brewer.
    Esperanto Book Collection Presentation, by Steve Brewer and Humphrey Tonkin: November 9, 2016 at UMass. Video
  • Hector Hodler Library consists of around 15,000 books and pamphlets, including bound volumes of journals. In addition, it has a great number of unbound journals, chiefly complete volumes. It also houses manuscripts, correspondence, photos, audio discs and cassettes, videotapes, printed music, tourist items (prospectuses, maps, postcards), posters, insignia, and postage stamps. No other library in the world receives practically every new publication in or about Esperanto. ESF is supporting the preparation of a long-range plan for preserving the library and making its holdings more readily accessible to researchers, including the preparation of a comprehensive catalog. The library is currently located in the central office of the Universal Esperanto Association in Rotterdam. For more information, click here.
  • The International Esperanto Museum (Internacia Esperanto-Muzeo) is located in Vienna and is associated with the Austrian National Library. Interactive media stations allow visitors to get to know not only Esperanto, but also some 500 other planned languages, such as the mystical Lingua Ignota of Hildegard of Bingen or Klingon from the television series Star Trek. For more information, click here.
  • The Montagu Butler Library is the library of the Esperanto Association of Britain (Esperanto-Asocio de Britio), named after Montagu Christie Butler (1884-1970). It is housed with the EAB office at Barlaston, near Stoke-on-Trent. The Butler Library has around 13,000 books and many other documents about Esperanto. For more information, click here.
  • The Esperanto Collection at the British Library contains approximately 1,000 titles in Esperanto in the current catalog, which covers items acquired since 1975. For more information, click here.
  • The Auld Esperanto Collection at the National Library of Scotland contains nearly 5,000 books in and about Esperanto, including Esperanto translations of works by writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Scott and Robert Burns, as well as original Esperanto fiction and poetry by Scottish writers. These books are from the library of William Auld, a leading Esperanto scholar, a prolific translator of literature into Esperanto, and a major Esperanto author, whose generous donation makes the National Library of Scotland one of the world’s major centers for Esperanto studies. The collection is available to consult in the Special Materials Reading Room. For more information, click here.
  • The Neil Salvesen Esperanto Collection at the University of Manchester Library contains 710 items, but only 246 of them are to be found in the Library of Congress, and a mere 66 are held by the British Library, which makes this an important collection. It is named after Neil Salvesen (1944-1990), an enthusiastic Esperantist, active member of the Manchester Esperanto Society, and later an official of the Universal Esperanto Association (Universala Esperanto-Asocio) based in Rotterdam. For more information, click here.
  • The Esperanto Collection at the National Library of New Zealand contains around 200 books, periodicals, and manuscripts. It was presented to the Turnbull Library by George Gordon of Christchurch in 1942 for the use of Esperantists. Additional books were donated by Bertram Potts in December 1980. The Collection catalog can be consulted only onsite. For more information, click here.
  • The Center for Documentation and Exploration of the International Language (Fonds Centre de documentation et d’étude sur la langue internationale; CDELI) at the City Library in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, founded in 1967. CDELI collection contains more than 20,000 bibliographical units, among them 1900 on Esperanto, 190 on Ido, 75 on Occidental, 60 on Volapük, 50 on Interlingua de IALA and the rest on other constructed languages. The collection and its catalog can be consulted only onsite by appointment with a curator. For more information, click here.
  • The National Esperanto Library and Archive hosted by the State Archive in Massain northern Tuscany (Italy) contains about 8,000 items, of which the majority was donated by the Dazzini family, and later by other Italian Esperantists. The collection also includes 176 magazines, not yet cataloged, as well as other documents such as travel diaries, correspondence, photographic images and music recordings. The official library of the Italian Esperanto Federation, the collection is accessible to the public. For more information, click here.
  • The George Alan Connor Esperanto Collection at the University of Oregon Library includes more than 3,500 books, periodicals, and pamphlets written in or about Esperanto. For more information, click here.
  • For additional Esperanto libraries and collections, see the Wikipedia page.

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