Butler Library

The Butler Library is the library of the Esperanto Association of Britain (EAB), named after Montagu Christie Butler (1884-1970). It is housed with the EAB office at Barlaston, near Stoke-on-Trent.

The Butler Library has around 13,000 books and many other documents about Esperanto.

More information about the library can be found on its dedicated website, which is managed by the librarian Geoffrey King.

Members of EAB can visit the library for on-site study. However it's necessary to book your visit in advance, because the room is also used for other business, meetings, etc.; see the details in the contact us page.

• Visit the dedicated website of the Biblioteko Butler.
  (Like most of the books in the library, that website is written in Esperanto.)

• Visit the Biblioteko Butler Sonbanko (sound archive).
  (Listen online to archive Esperanto sound recordings.)

Library Catalogues

We don't yet have a complete and up to date catalogue of the Butler library, but there are two partial catalogues in development, which (between them) cover a large portion of the contents.

The search engine explores all three catalogues:

• The detailed catalogue of the Butler library has around 6700 records.

• The concise catalogue of the Butler library has around 13600 records.

• The bibliography of translations from English doesn't directly relate to the Butler Library, but can be helpful when researching books; it has around 2500 records of Esperanto translations which have appeared as separate publications or as articles in periodicals or anthologies.

The current search engine is very simple: you have to search for complete words, exactly spelt, and the search tool doesn't distinguish between different record fields. For example, if you know the name of the author and a word from the title, you can give both as search terms. All accents are ignored, apart from the Esperanto ones, which you can also type as a following X: e.g. "Pauxlo" instead of "Paŭlo".

(Like the contents of the library, the search results are in Esperanto.)

Library Catalogues Search

Reference information:

• Explanations about the catalogues (fields, abbreviations, etc.)
• Download the catalogues (as a ZIP file).

Tape Library Bendoteko

EAB's Tape Library (Bendoteko) contains more than 300 audio cassettes of varying duration, and 18 video tapes. They cover a wide range of subjets, offering great interest and entertainment: science, literature, philosophy, music and Esperanto. The library is housed at a volunteer's home in Suffolk.

EAB members can buy copies of the audio cassettes for £3.00 each (including UK P&P), but if your order includes several short recordings these will be combined onto a single cassette wherever possible, to minimise cost. Many cassettes have accompanying texts, which carry an additional charge of 5p per sheet.

Videos are available on monthly loan within the UK at a modest charge.

Orders are usually dispatched within a week.

A full catalogue and/or a shorter list The Best of the Bendoteko (approx. 40 titles, especially selected for interest and clarity) are available (see below). Having made your selection from the catalogue, send your request (with payment) to Ben Gosling, at the address shown in the catalogue.

For more details about the EAB tape library, see the relevant leaflet in the EAB Members' Info Pack, or e-mail Ben (benjamin.goslingbtinternet.com) with your query.

Selected Esperanto recordings on tape, CD and DVD are also available from the EAB Bookshop. The Butler Library also has a sonbanko (sound archive), where you can listen online to archive Esperanto recordings.

Tape Library Bendoteko Catalogues

You can download the Bendoteko catalogues (as PDF files), to view or search them.

• The Best of the Bendoteko [60 KB]

• The Best of the Bendoteko (as A5 booklet) [60 KB]

• Full Bendoteko Catalogue, sorted by author/speaker name [210 KB]

• Full Bendoteko Catalogue, sorted by classification [210 KB]

• Full Bendoteko Catalogue, sorted by order/tape number [210 KB]

Other Public Collections

There are several other important public collections of Esperanto books in Britain.

• The British Library has an Esperanto collection. There is a brief description on vikipedio and the curator/cataloguer is olga.kerzioukbl.uk .

• The National Library of Scotland has the William Auld collection, within the "Special and Named Printed Collections in the National Library of Scotland".

• The TUC collection in the London Metropolitan University has some Esperanto pamphlets and books; enter search term "Esperanto" in the catalogue keyword search.