We know the value of books, new and old. Restoring old books preserves the future of civil engineering knowledge.

With your help we can restore some of the historic books, paintings and maps in the ICE library collection.

A donation of between £60 and £450 allows us to completely restore an artefact, but any amount is greatly appreciated.

If you make a donation, your name will be inscribed onto the book, map or painting you have helped to save.

Download the "Adopt a book" leaflet to find out more >>

For complete list of materials up for adoption please contact Carol Morgan. +44(0) 207665 2043
A selection of the materials available for adoption are listed below:

Up for adoption

Sir Humphrey Davy´s Collected Works - £150 per volume to restore
Davy, inventor of the miners´ lamp and member of ICE, has his name inscribed at One Great George Street. Published in the late 1830s and early 1840s, these seven volumes were presented to ICE in 1852.

Plans of public works in Canada 1889–1890 - £150 to restore cloth case
Received in December 1891 this album of civil engineering schemes has generally been preserved well, but the cloth case needs restoration. The plans are an excellent record of work carried out in Canada at the time.

Remarks on the present system of road marking, 3rd ed 1820
J McAdam - £150 to restore

The design and construction of harbours, 1874
Thomas Stevenson - £75 to restore

Notes on docks and dock construction, 1894
C. Colson - £75 to restore

Adopted

Lives of the Engineers, 5 volumes                                        Samuel Smiles

On the strengthening of beams, columns and arches, 1870  Benjamin Baker

Britannia tubular bridge. vol 2, 1850                                    Edwin Clark

Iron Roofs                                                                              A.T Walmisley

Lectures on water supply                                                      James Mansergh

Telford's entry on civil architecture in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. vol VI, 1830

Hydroelectric Practice, 1908                                               Von Schon, HAEC

What the Adopters say

Although written in the Victorian era and tinged a little with virtuous moralising, Smiles' volumes on the lives and work of the early civil engineers, of which this is the first, are still a key source of background reading and well worth re-binding. They were the first books I purchased when developing my interest in civil engineering history more than 40 years ago and I refer to them regularly.

Roland Paxton, Vice Chairman ICE Panel of Historical Engineering Works (PHEW)