Welcome to the British Haiku Society

The British Haiku Society Library

Ever since its founding in 1990, the Society has been building a library of books, journals and other material concerned with haiku and the other poetic forms within our sphere of interest. Many items have been specifically purchased, but we also gratefully acknowledge many donations by members, authors, editors and publishers. For many years titles from the library stock have been available for postal loan to members (regrettably, loans are restricted to UK/NI members only, due to the much higher costs and much increased risk of loss or damage with overseas postings - sorry, but 'overseas' includes RoI). There is no charge for loans, but the borrower must pay the postage costs both ways.

Alison has been preparing an on-line catalogue of the library holdings and this is now complete. It is to be found at www.librarything.com. If you wish to borrow any item listed, click on its title, which will open a new page with details. In a small blue panel at top left, under 'Editions, by Popularity', will be found the weight of the item. Go then to www.royalmail.com and navigate from there to the postal rate pages to calculate the amount to send to Alison with your loan request. You may choose 1st Class or 2nd Class mailing on items below 750gms. However, from 21 August 2006 Royal Mail is introducing a new mailing schema where size as well as weight determines postage. It may reasonably be assumed that anything over 100gms (and certainly everything over 750gms) will have to be mailed as a packet, while hopefully anything under 100gms can be mailed as an ordinary Letter (this includes A5 booklets of less than 100 gms).

Borrowing from the BHS Library

If you are a BHS member and would like to borrow mfrom the BHS Library, please contact the Librarian by post, telephone or e-mail (contact details below). All items are lent for a period of four weeks but loans can be extended if no other borrowers have requested the item concerned.

As already mentioned above, borrowers are required to pay the postage costs of items borrowed (as well as paying the postage when they return items). The usual procedure is for borrowers to send unused stamps with their request. When requests are made by telephone or e-mail, please include unused stamps to cover the cost of the outward postage when returning the item (in view of possible complexities in pre-determining postage under Royal Mail's new 'size and weight' rates, it may make life easier in future to always request loans by 'phone or e-mail).

Please obtain a Certificate of Posting when returning loan items, so that a claim may be lodged if the package is lost or damaged. If you fail to obtain a Certificate of Posting you will be required to pay for any necessary repair or replacement.

Librarian: Alison Williams, 2 Ayres Court, 60 Hill Lane, Southampton, Hants. SO15 5AZ
tel: Home 02380 235980 Mobile 07845 193121 e-mail: alison dot williams at virgin dot net (you will need to convert this, of course)