Chess libraries are library collections of books and periodicals on the game of chess. In 1913, preeminent chess historian H. J. R. Murray estimated the total number of books, magazines, and newspaper columns pertaining to chess to be about 5,000 at that time.[1][2] B. H. Wood estimated that number, as of 1949, to be about 20,000.[2] David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld write that, "Since then there has been a steady increase year by year of the number of new chess publications. No one knows how many have been printed..."[2]