"The Friends of the Library" Organization to Increase Number of Valuable Books in Widener

The following article by Alfred Claghorn Potter, Librarian of Widener Library is reprinted from the current issue of the Harvard Alumni Bulletin.

"The Friends of the Harvard Library", an organization not so well-known to the graduates as it should be is now entering on its seventh year. This article aims to give a resume of its history, accomplishments, and hopes.

Its start was at a dinner given to Archibald Cary Coolidge '87, Director of the Library, at the New York Harvard Club, in the spring of 1925. The chief result of this gathering was the establishment of "The Friends of the Library". For the first few years of its existence the affairs of the Friends were administered from New York, under the able secretaryship of Franklin E. Parker, Jr. '18. A year or so ago it seemed simpler to have the details of administration centered in the Library itself.

The annual contributions have ranged from $750 the first year to $7,549 in 1928-29, the peak year. In all, the Library has received from the Friends the sum of $24,777.50. This does not include the unprecedentedly generous gifts toward the purchase of the library of William Augustus White '63. For this purpose, one hundred persons subscribed the sum of $191,965, which enabled the Library to acquire the major portion of the books needed from Mr. White's collection of Elizabethan literature. Most of these donors were already members of the Friends and have continued their friendship.

Past, present, and prospective Friends may well like to know how the money has been expended,--what kind of books, and how many, have been bought with it. No separate count has been kept of the number of volumes purchased, although the total is well in the thousands. It is quality, not quantity, that counts. The purchases cover a wide range of subjects, and only the briefest summary can be attempted here. English literature stands first in the number of works acquired, partly because it has perhaps the widest appeal, but chiefly because certain large subscriptions, amounting to $7,500, were specifically given for the purchase of English prose fiction. As a result of this, the collection of English novels of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is rapidly growing, and the students in Professor Greenough's courses in the history of the novel have adequate material to work with. Another considerable sum was devoted to building up the works of Fielding; and further sums were spent on editions of Byron, making the Library's collection of that writer really in the first rank. A few English plays of the seventeenth century have been bought to help round out the White collection. Various single and rare volumes, picked up from time to time, render more complete the collections of certain authors that are already exceptionally well represented in the Library,--for example,--Donne (including a valuable manuscript), Dryden, Swift, Pope, Gay, and Gray. Another subject that these gifts have helped us to build up is French literature, especially poetry and drama, of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,--a class in which the Library is still lamentably weak. In an entirely different field, there was bought a collection of nearly 700 volumes and pamphlets, including files of several important periodicals, illustrating the history of free thought in England and America in the nineteenth century. The purchase of a number of books relating to tobacco is a further example of the diversity of subjects helped by the generosity of Friends. This was to fill out a collection given some years ago, which, by the way, last year formed the basis of a doctor's dissertation, and has been used by several other research workers. A special group of Friends, mainly from Boston, contributed $1,025 toward bringing up to date the great angling collection given in 1915 by Daniel B. Fearing '82. Finally, there may be mentioned in this brief summary an important series of autograph letters from recent American poets, written to William S. Braithwaite, himself a poet, and editor of the annual "Anthology of Magazine Verse."

Such are some of the books acquired through the aid of the Friends of the Library. While many of them are of great rarity, none of them have been bought solely because of their rarity, that is, as mere, bibliographical curiosities or museum pieces. Each and all of them fit into some one of the Library's special collections, or help to carry on its planned and logical development.

It must not, however, be supposed that all gifts of money to the Library come technically through the Friends of the Library. It has many Friends who are not "Friends." These outside gifts are usually for some specific subject, or perhaps for the purchase of some special collection. Some of them are annual, such as the gifts for twenty-five years from Walter W. Naumburg '89, for Shakspere, and of James Loeb '88, for labor papers (twenty-six years). Others are occasional but pretty constant, as, for example, the many gifts from John B. Stetson, Jr. '06, for Portuguese history and literature, (including the great Palha library); Professor Paul J. Sachs '00, for books in fine arts; Professor James R. Jewett '82, for Arabic literature; Professor Fred N. Robinson '90, for Celtic books; Augustin H. Parker '97, for original drawings by Walter Crane; and another graduate, who prefers to hide in modest anonymity, almost countless treasures in English literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, all in memory of Lionel de Jersey Harvard '15.

Perhaps some graduate who reads this is wondering why all these gifts are needed. If he consults the Treasurer's reports he will see that the Library has many book funds that yield what appears to be a pretty large income each year; and if he looks back over the reports for the last half-dozen years he will further see that several new funds, some of them large, have been established in that period. Why, then, is more money needed? The answer to this natural and pertinent question is not difficult, although it falls under several heads. The Library has to cover nearly all fields of knowledge, and in each of them is an ever increasing crop of new and important books that must be bought. Then from time to time there are new fields to be cultivated; for example, books on the War are still pouring from the press, and, for another and more recent example, conditions in India make it necessary to buy more books on that troubled country. Also, as the Library grows older and more used, there are more and more worn-out and lost books to be replaced. The number of periodicals and other serials that must be taken is constantly growing, and eats up each year a very substantial part of the annual income,--estimated at nearly twenty-five per cent. A new periodical is like a new baby in a family, it is an additional and continuing expense; but unlike the baby, it never grows up and becomes self-supporting. And the birth rate of periodicals is greatly in excess of the death rate. Binding and rebinding is another steadily increasing drain on the income of the Library. Finally, many of the funds are restricted to certain more or less limited fields, and thus the amount of unrestricted income, especially after the periodicals and binding have been cared for, is never sufficient for the current needs of the Library. Often, in the case of subjects fairly well provided for by restricted funds, it happens, especially toward the end of the year, after the income has been spent, that opportunities to make important purchases have to he passed by for lack of money. Here the Friends gifts have been of really great value, and have enabled the Library to secure books that otherwise would perhaps have been lost forever.

The gifts from the Friends of the Library thus serve a very special and useful purpose. Merged as they are, large and smalls into one account, they form a mobile fund ready for any emergency. In general, it may be fairly claimed that very few of the many valuable works bought with these gifts in the last six years would be in the Library today without the help of the Friends.

It is earnestly hoped that all of the old Friends will renew their subscriptions and that many new Friends will join the ranks. There are no formalities or restrictions as to membership. Graduates or non-graduates, women or men, are all welcome to join. Subscriptions have ranged from $5 to $1,000, and all gifts are gratefully received. They all help the Harvard, Library to keep its rank as the largest university library in the world.