The following is an extract from the Annual Report of the Council of the Library and Museum Charitable Trust for the year ending 31 January 2009. The major areas of activity are exhibitions and tours, cataloguing and conservation, acquisitions, the provision of resources for research and raising awareness of the collections.

Exhibitions and Tours

The Library and Museum has maintained its policy of free access and is open from 10 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday. Staff provide up to five daily free tours of the ceremonial rooms of Freemasons’ Hall with pre-booked tours on Saturdays. The Library and Museum and the ceremonial rooms of Freemasons’ Hall were opened on 15 September for London Open House, attracting more than 2,000 visitors.
     During 2008 the Library and Museum organised three exhibitions: Recognising London: The Centenary of London Grand Rank, Square Meals: Three Centuries of Masonic Dining and Women and Freemasonry: The Centenary.
     The Library and Museum supported the Province of Cumberland and Westmorland in staging an exhibition in association with the Helena Thompson Museum in Workington in April 2008, which enabled Library and Museum objects to be seen by an even wider audience.

Cataloguing and Conservation

Good progress continued to be made cataloguing museum items, books and items of sheet music, ritual and detailed catalogue records for some archive material. With funding support from the Supreme Grand Chapter of England, work continued on cataloguing the print and photograph collection.

Acquisitions

The Library and Museum received a grant of £7,500 early in the year from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund towards the purchase cost of an archive of documents, books and objects relating to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
     Donations of regalia, books and artefacts have continued to enable the Library and Museum to expand its collections and the Council is grateful for the generosity of all donors.

Provision of Research Resources

Increasing use is being made of the Library and Museum as a research resource with over 200 new readers registered during the year. The issue of books and documents has continued to increase steadily.
     In association with Sheffield University, the Library and Museum is undertaking the updating of Lane’s Masonic Records from 1894 when the printed version ends. This is a major resource for the history of lodges and local history. It is expected to take two years to complete. With the support of the Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons, the Library and Museum is undertaking a pilot project to digitise in searchable format the content of masonic periodicals from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

Raising Awareness of the Collections

Members of staff spoke at lodges around the country and at meetings of family history societies and local and specialist history groups.
     The Library and Museum has continued to co-ordinate the Subject Specialist Network on Fraternal and Friendly Societies and Associations originally established with the support of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) in 2006.

Financial Review

As at 31 January 2009, the consolidated net assets of the Library and Museum Charitable Trust were £2,561,639 (2008: £2,819,927).

Future Plans

Plans are in hand for the exhibition programme during the year which includes an exhibition on masonic support for charitable causes and on Freemasonry and the French Revolution.
     The Library and Museum is scheduled to apply to the MLA for Accreditation this year. One of the major elements of this is a requirement to develop a Documentation Plan and eliminate any documentation backlogs within a set timescale and this will be the focus of much curatorial work during the year.
     The Library and Museum is also coordinating, on behalf of the Board of General Purposes, a survey (the “Historical Records Survey”) of all records held by English Constitution lodges and chapters in order to assess their condition and establish what historical resources they provide for the study of Freemasonry in social history.