Befriend a book

As the Society celebrates its 175th anniversary, it has launched a Befriend A Book scheme to support the conservation and restoration of many of the books, volumes and manuscripts held in its Historical Collection at Errol Street.

Please download the Befriend a Book form, complete and return it to: Befriend A Book, The Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street London EC1Y 8LX.

The RSS book collection includes many seminal works on statistics and probability many dating back over 150 years. Intellectually, they represent the foundation on which our discipline was built. Physically, they represent a wonderful archive of historical material. But, as physical objects, they suffer from the ravages of time. The aim of this appeal is to push back effects of time by restoring the older and more important books, so that the Society's heritage can be passed on to future generations.

How Befriend A Book works

The Society is seeking donations from Fellows to help preserve and restore the parts of the collection most in need of repair. More than 200 books have been identified as needing conservation treatment. The books have been grouped into bands or types of conservation examples; download a full list.

Fellows can support a particular book or contribute towards the general conservation and restoration fund.

In return for your kind donation:

• Where the gift is towards the restoration of a particular book whenever possible a bookplate recording your donation will be placed in the book.
• Your gift will be recorded in a Book of Donors and you will be sent a certificate as a record of your
  donation.
• You will receive updates on the conservation project and will be invited to occasional events at the
  Society where you will have the opportunity to see how your gift has contributed to the conservation of
  the collection.

The Society's Campion Fund (arising from the Harry Campion bequest) is supporting the restoration project

Why the historical book collection is worth preserving

The development and maintenance of a library was a founding aim of the Statistical Society in 1834 with books and other relevant literature acquired for the collection through purchase and donation. For the Society's 21st anniversary a Library catalogue was commissioned at a cost of £45. Completed in 1855, and still in the archives today, it is an elaborately handwritten volume detailing 2,000 works. Bequests of personal collections were made by many illustrious Fellows which, as well as giving the Society many valuable and rare items, also reflect the characters of the donors, from the pragmatic banker William Newmarch to the ubiquitously inquisitive George Udny Yule.

The current collection is intrinsic to the heritage of the Royal Statistical Society, a testament to the scholarship of its Fellows and, in this 175th anniversary year, a formidable demonstration of the longevity and progress of the statistical discipline.

The problem with old books

The historic book collection at the RSS shows examples of both structural and chemical deterioration. Structural deterioration is a result of past use and general wear. This has caused cover boards to detach, text blocks to separate and tears and losses to occur both on pages and oversize folded tables and charts.

Chemical deterioration occurs as acids accumulate in the leather bindings and in the paper. Here the cause is either internal reactions due to the structure of the materials or the result of external pollutants. The effects are weakening and discolouration, such as the distinctive breakdown of leather into a red crumbling powder known as 'red rot'. To arrest the continuing damage and to slow down decay, conservation treatments are necessary to consolidate leather, reattach cover boards to text blocks and repair pages.