The Ethical Society of St. Louis Book Listing

By: Paul Doudna (November 9, 2005)

This inventory was made after noting that over 2000 volumes of old books have been stored in the Ethical Society Building for nearly 40 years.  Most are in shelves on two walls in the downstairs hallway.  The remainder are in boxes behind the platform or in the Leader’s office.  Most are old and in deteriorating condition.  Very few are of any use for the average reader because of age, condition, or subject matter.

The starting point in this inventory was a set of three index card catalogs in the library area downstairs.  These were copied into a computer database a number of years ago, but never used for any purpose at that time.  I combined these into one listing and found about 75% of the books in these card catalogs corresponded to books stored on shelves in the downstairs hallway.

A number of books are written by Walter Sheldon, Percival Chubb, or Felix Adler and should probably be kept by the Society.  Some may be of value for a historical society.  Some are in good enough condition to be of interest to book collectors.  Many are in bad enough condition that they should be thrown out.

Several categories of books have been separated from the original listing:

·       Books in English

·       Books in German (listed separately)

·       Books in French (listed separately)

·       Books in Italian and other languages (listed separately)

·       Books by Ethical Culture leaders (Felix Adler, Walter Sheldon, Percival Chubb) and books in the leader’s office. (listed separately)

·       Books removed for sale at the Ethical Book Fair (not listed)

1. Catalog Source (column 1)

There are 1365 lines (table rows) in this inventory.  Each line represents either one volume or possibly multiple volumes of a set.

2. Author

3. Title

4. Date

The date was usually included on the original index cards.  In some cases the date was obtained from the book.

5. Multiple use (column 5)

Category: Included on cards from source “S” or source “C”.

Publisher: Included on cards from source “E”.

Comments: My additions are in brackets [ ], often comments about books in bad condition.

The condition of these books varies from very good to very bad.  Many books have deteriorating covers but contain pages in fairly good condition.  Many of the older books are very fragile.

6. Dewey Decimal Code (DDC)

The Dewey Decimal Code was usually included on the original index cards.  In some cases the Dewey Decimal Code was written in the book.  I used whichever was available but made no attempt to classify those books not previously classified.

7. Volumes / Language (VOL / LAN)

This column is used to record both multiple volumes and books written in languages other than English.  A numeral indicates number of volumes and a letter code indicates language.

7a. Volumes

When the VOL column is blank or contains only a letter code, each line represents one volume.  If the VOL column contains a number, the line represents multiple volumes in a set.  Not all sets are complete.  Duplicate lines with identical author and title represent duplicate copies, which may or may not have the same date or same location code.

1365 lines (table rows)

1660 total volumes

7b. Language

When the VOL column contains a letter code, the book is written in some language other than English.  Most of these books are in English, but a large number are in German.  Most of the books in German are printed using the German “fraktur” typeface, which occurs in a variety of different styles.  All foreign language books have been removed from the main listing.

8. Location Codes (LOC)

There are 30 shelves on the east wall and 42 shelves on the west wall.  Some books in the library area (on the other side of the east wall) are cataloged in one of the three original card catalogs, but none of those books are included in this inventory.  Some books are located behind the platform in 10 boxes or on an overhead shelf.  Also, one section of 7 shelves is located in the Leader’s office.

Location codes are assigned as shown in the following table.  Note that N5x are loose pamphlets on top of other books on shelf N5.  See diagrams on next page.

Selected Collections

Following the initial inventory, I have made an attempt to identify specific collections of related books and move them to dedicated shelves..  The following categories have been established at this time.