PHW recently had a small boom in our office library thanks to the donation of a box of books from Dick and Dorothea Malsbary. The new additions are mostly on the broad scope and history of American architecture and historic preservation. If this is the first you’re hearing of PHW’s non-circulating library, you can actually check out our catalog online at LibraryThing. We have our books and some periodicals cataloged here.
We are always open for book donations in the fields of architecture, architectural history, landscape and exterior design, interior design, local history (primarily Winchester and Frederick County, but we have a few bits of Clarke County as well), historic preservation, and related fields. If you are downsizing your books and think you might have some things that would be good for our collection, drop us a note. We’d be happy to look over your offerings and we can work with you for in-kind donations for tax purposes.
Our other major book news is that we are very close to finalizing the reprint of the Winchester: Limestone, Sycamores & Architecture book. The book is mostly the same, with minor text edits and corrections throughout, a new introduction to the 275th Anniversary edition, a completely overhauled appendix of contributing buildings in Winchester’s National Register District, an index to the text and images, and a new jacket design. In short, the book is essentially a revised second edition, with the bulk of the revisions tackling consistency and grammar instead of new text and images. While we don’t have a date yet for books to be in hand, we hope to have them in time for our Bough & Dough Shop in November.
Last, while we have you thinking about books, you might also want to check out some recommended historic preservation books from the National Trust and Goodreads communities. Of course, if you are inspired to buy some books from Amazon, we would be thrilled if you made your purchase through our AmazonSmile link so PHW gets a small donation at no extra cost to you. It’s a small percentage, but we are always grateful for a little surprise deposit from Amazon now and then.