Wymberley Wormsloe De Renne

• Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Feb 7 2018, 20:32:34 UTC

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https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/de...

Wymberley Jones De Renne died disappointed that his library was incomplete and inadequately cataloged. It fell to his son, Wymberley Wormsloe De Renne worked off and on most of his life to complete the library his father had begun. The Catalogue of the Wymberley Jones De Renne Georgia Library became the basis of the sale of the De Renne Georgia Library in 1938 to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, for placement in the University of Georgia Libraries. He gave Leonard L. Mackall, the De Renne Georgia Library's first and only librarian, carte blanche to fill all significant vacancies on the shelves, and Mackall made much progress before World War I (1917-18) intervened. After the war, De Renne contracted with Azalea Hallett Clizbee of the American Art Association to produce the Catalogue of the Wymberley Jones De Renne Georgia Library, which listed and described more than 4,000 items, dating from 1700 to 1929. Business reverses further delayed the work until it was underwritten by De Renne's sisters, Audrey Howland and Elfrida Barrow (who was inducted into Georgia Women of Achievement in 2008), with De Renne supervising the project. The catalog was finally issued in three royal octavo volumes by the Plandome Press in 1931.

The catalog became the basis of the sale of the De Renne Georgia Library in 1938 to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, for placement in the University of Georgia Library. There De Renne was employed as a member of the library's staff from 1938 until his retirement in 1956. He sold the Permanent Confederate Constitution to the Regents in 1939, and together with the books of the De Renne Georgia Library, it is now a part of the University's Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.