A tour of the Numismatic Library of William A. Burd is planned for Friday August 19th from 3PM to 5PM. Cocktails & Hors D'oeuvres will be served.

There will be bus service from the ANA Convention departing at 2PM and returning by 6PM. Because of limited seating this event is by invitation only. If you received an invitation and have not replied please do so now by returning the RSVP card or email Bill at wildburd@att.net. Bill expects to have a few seats available on the bus so if you did not receive an invite but would like to attend send him an email.

I'm looking forward to seeing Bill's library for the first time. This is a great opportunity for numismatic bibliophiles to mingle, share information, and see a lot of great books first hand. I hope to see a number of E-Sylum readers at the event.

William A. Burd deserves a medal from his customers. And the everlasting gratitude of every numismatic book author, publisher and member of the Numismatic Bibliomania Society. He is building a numismatic library but not squirreling it away in his private back office for his exclusive use. No - he has put it right inside his coin shop where his customers can peruse any volume they desire.

"It is not a lending library," he points out, "but it is available to serious researchers looking for comprehensive information as well as to the casual collector who may want to obtain information on an elusive coin."

He started this library 13 years ago, shortly after he acquired the Daru Coin & Stamp shop in 1995. He stayed in the same location where a coin shop has been located for 40 years, renamed it the Chicago Coin Company, and now serves a community near the Chicago city line but still inside Chicago. It's two miles west of the Midway Airport in a nice neighborhood, he notes, where a lot of firemen and city employees live who must reside inside the city of Chicago.

Five years ago he added extensively to the library which now numbers over 12,000 items.That's not all books, he explained, but includes catalogs, periodicals and pamphlets. "We are always looking for old and unusual items to add to the library," he says.

To read the complete article, see:CHICAGO COIN COMPANY NUMISMATIC LIBRARY OPEN FOR VISITORS' USE(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v12n05a07.html)

To say that this repository of numismatic knowledge makes the Chicago Coin Company one of the most unusual coin shops in the country would certainly be an understatement. The story behind the library, the location and the principal is an interesting one.

In 1994, prior to striking out on his own, Burd had started researching numismatic subjects for his personal curiosity. Among the early topics researched were the history of the 1894-S dime and the second San Francisco Mint and the career of Superintendent Oscar LaGrange. Those forays led him into writing a couple articles that found publication in The Numismatist and led him to start building a reference library for personal use.

When he took over the Daru Coin shop, renaming it the Chicago Coin Company a couple years later, Burd said that all of the reference books he had at hand would probably have fit into two modest-sized cartons. At that time he was finding it necessary to frequently rely upon the resources of the American Numismatic Association library to fill in the research gaps.

To read the complete article, see:ARTICLE PROFILES BILL BURD AND HIS NUMISMATIC LIBRARY(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n29a14.html)