The Guild Library is a service offered to all members of the Guild. It aims to support their information needs as current ringers and to provide material for research into the history of ringing, particularly ringing in Devon.

To this end the Library maintains a collection of:

• nearly 300 ringing books and pamphlets
• files of journals and leaflets, including a complete file of The Ringing World
• some original documents, such as minute books and the first Guild Peal Book
• photographs
• gramophone records, CDs and DVDs.

Many of these items can be borrowed or photocopies or scanned copies can be supplied to meet requests for specific pieces of information.

A Summary List of items held in the Library is available.

More details on the library services are available.

A New Home for Library from September 2019

Most of the Library is now housed at St. Petrock's Church in Exeter (High Street, EX4 3LN). It will be open for members to make personal visits on the following dates, all Saturdays, 3 00 - 5 00pm:  21 Sept, 12 Oct, 16 Nov.

A few items, mostly the manuscript originals, will continue to be kept at the Librarian's home, as will the Travelling Library collections, the Learners', Trainers' and Conductors' Libraries. Members visiting the Library to consult or borrow particular titles are advised to notify the Librarian ahead of their visit so that he can check that they are available or can bring them to St Petrock's.

On-line resources

A growing range of resources is now available to consult on-line. These include older ringing books, earlier ringing newspapers and journals and biographical records from the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers. We have also started to make available scanned copies of some of the Guild Annual Reports.

Our On-line Publications gives links to all of these.

What's new in the Library

Regular purchases of new publications are made and details of these are published in Ringing Round Devon from time to time. 

It is normally the Library's policy to acquire only general ringing books and those relating to ringing in Devon and the neighbouring counties of the South West.

Donations of all materials relating to ringing and particularly ringing in Devon are welcome on the understanding that decisions on whether to retain or dispose of items donated rest with the Librarian. Many local and ephemeral items such as orders of service for rededicated bells or ringers' personal records are of particular interest to the Library as they might otherwise be lost to future researchers.

Contact

The Librarian may be contacted using the email address on the Guild Officers page or using the details contained in the latest Guild annual report.