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

Tue Oct 7 18:23:22 PDT 2014

Dear Richard,

Thank-you for this notice; it is very sad news indeed. Now that I have
found tenure-track employment, I was looking forward to coming to the
Durrell School and contributing more actively to your program.

I never had a chance to meet you in person and to let you know what a great
influence you have had on my own writing about Durrell. Most recently my
article on Durrell and the language of diplomacy was published in *The
Global Review,* and edited by James Gifford, and there is a chapter on
Durrell in my first book, which is forthcoming with Northwestern UP.

http://www.theglobalreview.net/?page_id=11

Thank-you for all your work, and for preserving Durrell's library. I hope
to be able to visit in the near future.

All the best,
Caroline Krzakowski
-- 
Caroline Z. Krzakowski, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, 20/21 C British Literature
Department of English
Northern Michigan University
1401 Presque Isle Ave., Marquette, MI 49855
(906) 227-1633
ckrzakow at nmu.edu

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 7:28 AM, <mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org> wrote:

> 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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>
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