A collection of circa 300 items tied together with a string and ordered chronologically from July 1920 to June 1924. The materials comprise letters, postcards, telegrams, catalogues and reports in a variety of languages including Italian, French, German and English. Some of the letters are copies (of documents to be found in Box 124a), and there are even some duplicates of those copies. While miscellaneous, the contents generally refer to the years of 1921-23 and concern Library matters, the day-to-day administration of the School, and activities of the School in the Italian context. The authorities represented who are affiliated with the British School include, but are not limited to, Thomas Ashby, Eugénie Sellers Strong, Edgar John Forsdyke, James Smith Reid, and the Assistant Librarian who often writes on behalf of Strong and Ashby.

A key aspect pertains to the expansion and reorganisation of the Library, spearheaded by Strong, who was keen to bring the relatively immature Library up to the standard of others in Rome. Throughout, there is correspondence concerning the exchange of items with foreign institutions, especially with the French and German, but also with the Finnish, American and the British School in Athens. The picture one gets is of great collegial interaction between the BSR and the other academies in Rome. There is also found testimony as to the acquisition and the logistics of transferring resources to the Library, such as James Hakewill’s drawings, Piranesi prints, significant book donations and collections of photographs. The spontaneity and reciprocity of these procurements is important: often the BSR received resources on the basis of established professional networks and through promising guided tours of the city or copies of the Papers. In conversation with this, we find a great deal of emphasis on the restructuring and cataloguing of the Library, with a heightened emphasis on BSR’s student involvement, best exemplified in the detailed Library Report (1921-22) at the end of the bound materials.