[ilds] Closure of Durrell School and opening of Durrell Library

[david wilde]

Dear Richard Pine.  If the library has closed I would appreciate having my book Black Innocence returned to me so as to contribute elsewhere.  many thanks.  David Wilde (UNM)

From: mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org
To: info at richard-pine.com
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2014 11:28:55 +0000
CC: v_pine at hotmail.com; emiliepine at yahoo.co.uk
Subject: [ilds] Closure of Durrell School  and opening of Durrell Library

This is
addressed to all (for whom I have a current email address) who have contributed
to the growth, welfare and objectives of the Durrell School of Corfu since its
foundation in 2001-2.

Attached to this message is the text of an announcement which will appear
in the next (and, I’m sorry to say, final) edition of the Anglo-Hellenic Review.

I wish on a personal basis to add to that statement by expressing my
own gratitude to, and admiration of, you all for your commitment to the DSC.

Many of you made a very substantial contribution – either in time,
or in finance, or intellectual energy, or all of these. Those of you who have
given your advice and support in larger measure will appreciate how much it has
meant to me, personally, that so many have made that commitment in the same
spirit that possessed me when I founded the DSC.

I cannot thank everyone personally/individually, but I thank you all, profoundly.

However much you may have given, freely, to the DSC has made it the
fine and enviable institution that it became in the 12 years of its activity.
Above all, it has been an enabling
activity: it has brought together people who would probably never otherwise
have encountered one another; it has facilitated the discussion of topics
espoused by Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell, often within the same optic;
it has attracted a faculty, both resident and visiting, of unparalleled
distinction; it has in some instances advanced academic careers; it has drawn
attention to the island of Corfu which was so important in the personal and
professional development of both Lawrence and Gerald Durrell; it has created a forum, a community.

Financial conditions would eventually necessitate closure, even if
the spirit were still willing and the flesh not so weak. The cost of the
premises reached the point where it was no longer sustainable. Without a
massive injection of charitable funding, the DSC, which was always a
loss-making activity, could not continue, and it has been clear for the past
two years that closure was inevitable. And, indeed, it needed an injection of
younger energy and ideas. Therefore, the need for a different future for the
enterprise: a new name and a new type of activity.

We (and by ‘we’ I mean myself, as founder, and you as invaluable
supporters and participants) can look at our achievement with justifiable pride
and satisfaction. The record of our seminars, our publications, and the
international éclat which we have achieved, are enviable in any institution,
large or small, not least in one dependent on private sponsorship and largely
unpaid personnel.

The DSC may have been small in terms of personnel, funding and
premises, and modest in the number of its seminars, but it has been huge in
terms of what it has become for the academic world, the ecological community, and
the development of modern Greece, especially Corfu.

Ironically, those achievements were summed up in a chapter I
recently contributed to David Wills’ Greece and Britain Since 1945, which
appeared earlier this year. Ironically, of course, because the chapter gave the
impression that the DSC’s state of health was not as imperilled as it in fact
was. I wrote it in a spirit of hope and resistance to reality; I saw the
possibility that the DSC could in fact continue on a reduced, limited, subdued
level of activity, but the reality caught up with the four remaining directors
and the decision was taken (nem con.)
in April of this year to dissolve the Greek-registered company.

However, no door closes but another one opens. As stated in the
announcement attached to this message, the vast bulk of the 3,500 volumes of
the Library, previously housed in our city-centre premises, is now re-shelved
in my own house in Perithia (in north-east Corfu). It’s unlikely that more than
a handful of visitors will find their way to my door, but the Library,
preserving a large amount of Lawrence-related material (unavailable in any
other single location) exists and is operational.

Furthermore, a new domain name has been created for the Durrell Library of Corfu (DLC): www.durrelllibrarycorfu.org and
very soon there will be a website with the following features:

-       
the DLC catalogue;

-       
the DSC archive;

-       
a bibliography of Lawrence and
Gerald Durrell;

-       
free access to my Lawrence Durrell: the Mindscape and
Brewster Chamberlin’s Chronology of the
Life and Times of Lawrence Durrell (revised edition)

-       
an archive of theses, essays,
and other scholarly work on both Lawrence Durrell and Gerald Durrell; 

-       
a ‘notes & queries’
facility for exchange of views and information;

-       
a ‘noticeboard’ for all
activities Durrellian.

 

I am confident
that this new facility will enable us – those of us, that is, who wish to
pursue Durrellian studies and issues – to continue the DSC ‘forum’ by other
means, so that we can contribute to the growing international traffic in the
expression of ideas, research, notes & queries, and all other aspects of
the work we have already  facilitated in
the cause of the topics essential to the lives and works of Lawrence and Gerald
Durrell.

            So this isn’t a ‘vale’ but an ‘ave’, or an au revoir: we
will meet again.

My heartfelt gratitude and warmest greetings to you all. May this
community continue to thrive.

Sincerely

Richard Pine 

 I would be very grateful, in view of recent email robberies etc, if you would kindly acknowledge receipt of this message, and also forward it to anyone you may know who would was associated with the DSC and would be interested in the work of the Durrell Library.









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