Posted by:
Mythb4meat
(
)
Date: August 20, 2014 12:24AM
Here is Eastern WA, my friend has recently completed a large expansion / building to fully house his mega-sized LDS book collection. It numbers more than 22,000 volumes and is the largest private collection that I have seen. He is a Protestant Christian, a never-mo, and enjoys witnessing to and dialoguing with Mormons. For aprox 40 years he has acquired these books in the following ways:
1) Mormons gave books to him
2) Many trips to D.I. in 5 western states
3) purchased rare books at SLC bookstores
4) ex-mo's gave him their unwanted collections
He hoardes large quantities of certain items, as he is very generous about giving away free books or magazines to those working with Mormons. For example, he has about 200 copies of the official church 1972 Family Home Evening manual, as this manual has a child's level drawing of how mommy and daddy had relations to create a baby, is the same as God and his wife having Jesus!
I think the majority of his books came from D.I. stores, and about 15 years ago one could often find real gems, even fairly valuable church books there.
He has 5 first edition "Mormon Doctrine" by McConkie. Many early editions of D & C, BOM, etc that are quite rare. And several complete, beautiful sets of original 26 volumes of Journal of Discourses; among MANY others.
Needless to say, he has a huge monetary investment in book cases and shelves! The few active Mormons who have seen his library, roam around in there with wide eyes!