ANA Library Opens Again

A year after the pandemic shut everything down, the ANA Library is back! ANA members can check out books from the library and have them shipped.

The ANA announced the library’s opening yesterday in their monthly Money Mail. After reading it, I found my notes with the four books I want to consult and submitted a request.

The ANA Library might be the most underused benefit of being an ANA member. The library contains many hard-to-find and expensive books that might be useful for a short time. All you do is pay for the shipping in both directions, and the entire world of numismatics is delivered to your mailbox.

Books are an excellent resource for information that is no longer in the mainstream. For example, I developed an interest in foreign coins used as legal tender in the United States and the foreign coins struck by the U.S. Mint. There are a few resources, and they are challenging to find. None of the books are available in digital format.

Since the start of the pandemic, I have been on a book buying spree. References books that I wanted to borrow from the ANA were purchased and added to my growing library. The expansion of my numismatic library has forced me to downsize my old techie books. Numismatic books are more fun.

Having a ready library of references helps satisfy my curiosity. A few of the books have references to scanned books and articles found online at both the Newman Numismatic Portal and the Government Printing Office. These resources help in providing background to my reading.

Having access to the digitized editions of the Numismatist also helps. ANA members can access the complete library of the Numismatist via their website or a smartphone app. It has been common to have the app open on my iPad while staring into the computer screen reading another resource.

Since all of the Numismatists are available online, I will be finding new homes for the paper copies taking up valuable shelf space.