Alpine Club Notes OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE FOR 2001 PRESIDENT. .. D KScottCBE VICE PRESIDENTS .. PF Fagan BMWragg HONORARY SECRETARy . GD Hughes HONORARY TREASURER AL Robinson HONORARY LIBRARIAN DJ Lovatt HONORARY EDITOR OF THE ALPINE JOURNAL E Douglas HONORARY GUIDEBOOKS COMMISSIONING EDITOR . LN Griffin COMMITTEE ELECTIVE MEMBERS . E RAllen JC Evans W ACNewson W JE Norton CJ Radcliffe RM Scott RL Stephens R Turnbull PWickens OFFICE BEARERS LIBRARIAN EMERITUS . RLawford HONORARY ARCHIVIST . PT Berg HONORARY KEEPER OF THE CLUB'S PICTURES P Mallalieu HONORARY KEEPER OF THE CLUB'S ARTEFACTS .. RLawford HONORARY KEEPER OF THE CLUB'S MONUMENTS. D JLovatt CHAIRMAN OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE .... RFMorgan CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE MH Johnston CHAIRMAN OF THE LIBRARY COUNCIL ..... GC Band CHAIRMAN OF THE MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE RM Scott CHAIRMAN OF THE GUIDEBOOKS EDITORIAL AND PRODUCTION BOARD LN Griffin GUIDEBOOKS PRODUCTION MANAGER JN Slee-Smith ASSISTANT EDITORS OF THE Alpine Journal .. JL Bermudez GW Templeman PRODUCTION EDITOR OF THE Alpine Journal Mrs JMerz 347 348 THE ALPINE JOURNAL 2001 ASSISTANT HONORARY SECRETARIES: ANNUAL WINTER DINNER MH Johnston LECTURES . MWHDay MEETS.. .. JC Evans MEMBERSHIP . RM Scott TRUSTEES . MFBaker JG RHarding S N Beare HONORARY SOLICITOR . PG C Sanders AUDITORS .. Pannell Kerr Forster ASSISTANT SECRETARY (ADMINISTRATION) .. Sheila Harrison ALPINE CLIMBING GROUP PRESIDENT. D Wilkinson HONORARY SECRETARY RARuddle GENERAL, INFORMAL, AND CLIMBING MEETINGS 2000 11 January General Meeting: Mick Fowler and Steve Sustad, Anva Tower 24 January Northern Lecture: Peter Gillman, On Mallory andEverest 25 January Informal Meeting: Audrey Salke1d, The Last Climb 4-5 February Scotland Winter Meet 22 February Informal Meeting: Dennis Gray, Climbing in South Africa March 3-4 North Wales Meet, Dinner & Lecture 14 March General Meeting: Stephen Venables, Mountains of the Far South 28 March Informal Meeting: Charles Clarke, Science, Tibetan medicine and the Nyanchen Tangla 11 April General Meeting: Paul Deegan, Forbidden Summits - Tall Tales from the Pamirs 18 April Informal Meeting: Bear Grylls, Facing Up 5-7 May Peak District Meet and Dinner 9 May General Meeting: Julian Freeman Attwood, The Mountains ofthe AntarcticPeninsula 17 May Alpine Ski Club Evening 23 May Informal Meeting: Henry Day, Annapurna 1- 30years on (and three days) 14 June Eagle Ski Club Evening 8-15 July Alpine Meet: (with ABMSAC & CC) Bregaglia Circuit 15 July-12 Aug Alpine Meet (with ABMSAC & CC) at Pontresina 4-11 September Joint AC/CC Cornwall meet. 12 September General Meeting: Tom Chamberlain, The Lemon Mountains ofEast Greenland 21 September Informal Meeting: Steve Razzetti, Trekking & Climbing in Nepal ALPINE CLUB NOTES 349 22-23 Sept. Lake District Meet 26 September Informal Meeting: Roger Smith, European Summits 1999 4 October Alpine Ski Club evening 10 October General Meeting: David Simmonite, Rock Climbing in England and Wales 11 October Northern Lecture: Steve Jackson, Kangchenjunga 2000 24 October Informal Meeting: Hamish Brown, The Mountains look on Marrakesh and launch of exhibition of mountain paintings 8 November Northern Lecture: Marko Prezelj, Slovenians at home and abroad 11 November Annual Symposium and Meet at Plas y Brenin, Climbing in China, including Tibet 16 November Italian Evening: Val d'Aosta Lecture & opening of 'Theodul Pass' Exhibition 14 November General Meeting: Valeri Hardin, Kyrgyzstan 28 November Informal Meeting: Julian Freeman-Attwood, The British Trans-Himalaya Expedition 8 December Annual General Meeting, followed by Sir Chris Bonington, AroundAnnapurna - reminiscences ofAnnapurna 11 and Annapurna South Face 9 December Annual Dinner The l32nd Annual London Dinner was held on 9 December at The Great Hall, St Bartholomew's Hospital. The principal guest was Joe Brown. The toast to the guests was proposed by Ian McNaught-Davis. THE BOARDMAN TASKER MEMORIAL AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE The 18th award ceremony was held at the Alpine Club on 10 November 2000. The judges were Kathleen Jamie (Chairman), Alan Hankinson and Steve Goodwin. The winning book was The Wildest Dream by Peter and Leni Gillman (Headline). Other shortlisted books were Hell of a Journey - On Foot Through the Scottish Highlands in Winterby Mike Cawthorne (Mercat Press), Travail So Gladly Spent by Tom Price (The Ernest Press), White by Rosie Thomas (William Heinemann) and A Slender Thread by Stephen Venables (Hutchinson). THE ALPINE CLUB LIBRARY ANNUAL REPORT 2000 Four Council meetings have been held this year, with work proceeding largely on the decisions made in 1999. In March we published the special Index to the Year Books of the Ladies 350 THE ALPINE JOURNAL 2001 Alpine Club 1910-1975, painstakingly compiled by the former Editor of the Alpine Journal, Johanna Merz. This provides a concise history of the remarkable contribution of British women to Alpine climbing in the period before the Ladies Alpine Club merged with the Alpine Club in 1975. Our Librarian, Margaret Ecclestone, has been occupied with the third and final stage of the cataloguing of the 500 bound volumes of 'tracts', which should be completed early in 2001. [check is it complete?] There are now over 23,000 entries in the Library catalogue database. As proposed last year, we have embarked on the major project of computerised cataloguing of the Club's unique, mostly handwritten, archives. After seeking professional advice from the Hackney Borough Archivist, in May we engaged a professional archivist, Susan Scott, to work half-time for two years on the project. In considering the best computer system to use, it was decided to adopt ADLIB software and to link together the Library and Archive cataloguing systems so that a common front end would enable the user to draw search results from both databases, or confine the search to the Library or the Archive database. To do this, the existing Library software and computer had to be replaced and a network devised to cover the total Club and Library requirements. As we rely heavily on the voluntary expertise offered by Club members in their spare time, this took much longer to set up than expected; but it is now in place and the archivist busily employed. We are most grateful to the Pilgrim Trust which has now contributed its promised grant of £10,000 towards the costs of this project. The publicity surrounding the discovery of Mallory's body on Everest on 1 May 1999, and the publication of numerous books and articles about it, has increased the demand for the many unique early Everest photographs held by the Club. To facilitate our relations with the media, these deserve to be freshly catalogued using the latest techniques which would also enable us to duplicate and preserve them from future deterioration. Indeed, with hindsight, we should perhaps have given this project a higher priority than the cataloguing of the written archives. Hopefully we can do both together. A joint AC/RGS three-year 'Everest photo-archive project' has a good chance of raising the necessary funding to employ a photo-archivist to undertake this project in time for the 50th Anniversary of the first ascent of Everest in May 2003, when we expect media interest to peak. The Library continues to be grateful for donations and gifts in kind. The magnificent Ruskin watercolours bequeathed to us by the late Dr Charles Warren were immediately sought for loan to the Tate Gallery's major exhibition 'Ruskin, Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites', and then went on to the Abbott Hall Gallery in Kendal. This friendly contact with the Tate Gallery has led on to the possibility of an exhibition in their Clore Gallery in Spring 2003 ofselected pictures from the Club and other sources to mark the Everest Anniversary. The Club has some 500 pictures, several requiring urgent conservation, and the collection could usefully be digitally scanned ALPINE CLUB NOTES 351 as a spin-off from the above much larger photo-archive project. The Library Council has put a proposal to the Club Committee to use a portion of Dr Warren's bequest to the Library for the conservation of the Club's pictures, and to take over responsibility for their curation, as we are already charged to do for the Club's books and photographic collection. Altogether, this activity is badly in need of further space withirI the Club's premises. A recent visit to the new premises of the American Alpine Club in Golden, Colorado, made me very envious of the space at their disposal. I very much hope the Club and Library can soon afford to take back either the third or fourth floor of our building when the current leases expire, to give us all some more space for research, reading and informal discussion. We could then feel that the Library was properly addressing its responsi­ bilities for which it was established to curate and support the valuable possessions of the Club. The Council continues to be greatly indebted to its professional librarian, the new archivist, and to our core of volunteer workers. At the AGM in April there were a number of important changes. Luke Hughes succeeded Peter Ledeboer as Hon Secretary, and Richard Coatsworth took over from John Peacock as Hon Treasurer. Oliver Turnbulljoined the Council in place of Christopher Russell. David Baldock succeeded Michael Esten as leader of the joint AC/ACL Computer Working Party. Then, in December, Peter Berg agreed to succeed Livia Gollancz as Hon Archivist. We are most grateful for the services rendered over many years by the previous holders of these positions. Finally, we still urgently seek one ortwo people interested in books or photographs to take over from our seemingly indispensable Librarian Emeritus, Robert Lawford. Volunteers please! GeorgeBand Chairman, Alpine Club Library Council ALPINE CLUB SYMPOSIUM 2002 Next March, the Alpine Club will be holding a symposium similar in format to the highly successful 1999 event 'Climbing into the Millennium'.