A major philatelic library compiled by James Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford, will join the massive online Global Philatelic Library – located at globalphilateliclibrary.org – on May 30.

The Crawford Philatelic Library comprises more than 1.3 million pages and represented about 95 per cent of the world’s published philatelic knowledge when it was created at the beginning of the 20th century. Following Lindsay’s death in 1913, the former earl donated his philatelic library to British public. It has been carefully kept and conserved by London’s British Library, where it is available for researchers in the Reading Room. The recent digitization project was helped with funding from the British Library, the former British Philatelic Trust, the Philatelic Fund and The RPSL.

A presentation led by Royal Philatelic Society London President Frank Walton is scheduled to take place at the highly anticipated World Stamp Show in New York City. On May 30 at 2 p.m., Walton will welcome attendees in Room 1E07 of Manhattan’s Javits Center.

CONTRIBUTING LIBRARIES

Since its inception in 2010, the Global Philatelic Library has been helped by 25 contributing libraries around the world. Among those is Toronto’s Vincent Graves Greene Philatelic Research Foundation, which has contributed 5,500 documents.

A list of contributing libraries and their respective catalogues can be found here.