Treasure in the Stacks

Ever since fire destroyed the Reverend John Harvard's library on a wintry night in 1764, College librarians have retained a penchant for preserving valuable books. Only 200 books from the 5000-volume collection originally bequeathed to the College survived the blaze which razed the first Harvard Hall in 1764. For generations, Harvard librarians have tried to restore all or parts of that collection with little or no success.

In the spirit of John Harvard's lost collection, over ten rare book libraries have been established over the years through the diligence of College librarians and benefactors.

Some of the rare book collections are highly sought by researchers, and in many cases represent some of the only remaining prints. Security measures vary in effectiveness, but curators are reluctant to discuss that aspect of their job. "It's hard to keep track of two million books," one curator notes.

Few universities can boast of the same extensive collections that Harvard has acquired. The age of the specialty field determines, to some extent, the size of each collection.

Most of the libraries have small staffs, usually with at least one member who specializes in book binding and restoration.

Though Harvard undergraduates are not frequent patrons of most of these collections, rare book aficionados can find out about Harvard's assemblage through catalogues circulated around the world. However, most do not have regular circulation. Only some professors and specialists in particular fields can touch these treasures.

Houghton

Houghton Library, the granddaddy of Harvard's rare book libraries, contains one of the world's most extensive collections--over 450,000 volumes. According to Hugh Amory '52, a curator at Houghton, the library collects any book printed before 1601, English books before 1701, and North American books printed prior to 1815.

Visitors to Houghton's Reading Room may request any book in the entire collection for closer inspection. But security is tight-not even pens are allowed in the Reading Room-and most of the other libraries follow the same procedure.

The room opens into a rotunda with wall to wall shelves of original works by such authors as John Donne, Samuel Coleridge, and Cotton Mather.

Also on the first floor in the ornate Exhibition Room are the library's "incunabula" or "cradle books" published between 1455 and 1501. These rarities demonstrate early printing shortly after the inception of the printing press. Houghton a staff includes a large staff of cataloguers and book binders. Houghton Library periodically puts together thematic displays in the Exhibition Room for visitors, as it did last month with one commemorating the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's birth.

The top floors of Houghton Library are reserved for specific collections-like the Emily Dickinson and John Keats Rooms, the Richardson Room of exquisite bookbindings, and the Hyde collection of Samuel Johnson's works.

While the library's forte is in French and English literature of the 17th century and in medieval manuscripts, it offers such diverse memorabilia as Leon Trotsky's personal papers, and original works by William and Henry James, James Joyce, Alexander Pope, and many more. One of Houghton's lesser known attributes is its autograph collection; a wall of well-known signatures is featured in the Houghton Collection-but not open for public display.

So voluminous is Houghton's assemblage of rare books that most of the prizes remain on the shelves, cloistered in special humidity controlled rooms away from scholars and students alike. One example of the diverse collection is the library's copy of a book written by James Monroe in 1797 which criticizes the first presidential administration. A personal copy belonging to George Washington, the book contains Washington's rebuttal of Monroe's arguments in the margins of the pages.

Business

Bookstores abound in Harvard Square. But how many bookstores today sell hand printed, hand-bound books in the first or second edition? The Kress Library of Business and Economics, located in the Business School's Baker Library, preserves the fine art of printing and bookbinding.

"How a book was put together is just as important as the text," says curator Ruth R. Rodgers, adding. "There's nothing like seeing a primary source, the actual artifact, for the first time."

Kress Library contains 30,000 "treasured volumes, which represent the foundations of economic philosophy and business theory," Rodgers says. "Imagine carefully opening the 1776 first edition of Adam Smith's classic The Wealth of Nations or turning the fresh pages of David Hume's Political Discourses printed 230 years ago," the curator noted.

Like Houghton, the Kress Library is humidity controlled with special temperature gauges for the preservation of the Business School's rare books. Like Houghton, this library is one of the world's most famous, although it is seldom appreciated, and security is tight at Kress as well.

Some of the jewels of this library include a first edition of Karl Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto; practical books describing how to be shrewd businessman in the 18th century; old broadsides which were never bound and served as vehicles of protest; business periodicals which record the social life of past generations; and even "Thomas Mann's renowned treatise in which he defines the doctrine of the balance of trade."

Law

Harvard Law School has a library collection which equals the school in distinction. The Treasure Room of the Law School's Langdell Library contains "the only serious collection of English legal manuscripts in the country," curator Edith Henderson proudly boasts. "Langdell's Treasure Room owns one third more books than the British Museum Library and some item which you can't find at either Oxford or Cambridge," Henderson added.

The total collection approaches 100,000 rare books, most of which are unshelved and remain uncatalogued in old classrooms, while the most significant works-"the icing on the cake" Henderson calls it-are stored in the Treasure Room.

From compilations of European civil laws in the 15th century to records of early American stature laws governing relations with Indians in 1671, the room encompasses the gamut of legal history.

"The law never changes and it always changes," says Henderson, explaining. "The underlying principles of fairness remain the same whereas new areas of law develop." As a result, historians worldwide come to the Treasure Room to examine the first Law of Torts, the early history of Court Chancery, and its international law collection.

The Treasure Room is not acquiring many new additions to the collection these days because as the curator explained. "When I ask myself if we already own a certain book, we usually do."

Medicine

The second largest collection of rare books at Harvard University resides in the Francis. A Countway Library of Medicine at the Medical School.

"There are more records in medicine than any other endeavor in American history," says Richard J. Wolf, curator of Countway's department of rare books. "And since some of the earliest doctors in America practiced here in Boston, one idea for such a library developed in New England," he adds.

Wolf brings collections to Countway which enable historians to research medicine from its beginnings to the present time. At its inception, medicine was essentially based upon the natural sciences; botany, geology, and mineralogy. Consequently, the Countway collection of rare books include works by Isaac Newton and Marie Curie. There are one thousand incunabula, numerous papers on inoculation by Madison and Jefferson, the "Gray's Anatomy," and a host of letters by early American doctors like Benjamin Rush and Joseph Warren from which modern clinicians pick up new medical methods of treatment. Even obsolete medical procedures like blood letting and stretching bones can be found in the masses of data available in various diagrams and portraits in the Countway collection. Most of the books have been donated by former professors; it is not unusual for one professors to bequeath 20,000 books.

Divinity

Andover-Harvard Theological Library, in the Divinity School features the work of some of the greatest Protestant theologians. The Rare Book Room concentrates on early New England theology, early Dutch theology and its related literature, and the world's largest selection of Unitarian Universalist materials, says curator Maria Grossman. For such a small library, the Rare Book Room has an impressive array of manuscript featuring the published and unpublished works of theologian Paul Tillich and literature reflecting the continental pietism during the 17th and 18th centuries within the German Lutheran Church. Most of the rare books are unavailable for undergraduate browsing. However, Grossman says she is more than willing to take the time to show undergraduates the collection.

"Unless you ask questions of the staff, you will miss lots of things a rare books collection," emphasizes. Nancy Schmidt, head librarian of the Tozzer Memorial Library of ethnology and archaeology.

"A rare books collection is all relative; it depends on what's valuable," Schmidt added, saying. "This library has things Houghton wouldn't put in Houghton because they are only valuable to anthropologists."

Anthropology

The Tozzer Library does have some unusual artifacts to offer relating to the field of anthropology; the Curtis collection of American Indian photographs depicts life size faces which anthropologists use for comparative research.

Although the library recently doubled its shelf space for rare books, the collection is the smallest at Harvard. Other gems include the travel logs of explorers like Captain James Cook and 19th century plans of archaeological excavation sites.

East Asia

Two other specially libraries at Harvard which remain relatively unnoticed are hidden within the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) and the Yenching Library of Oriental and East Asian Studies.

The Yenching Library offers Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and South Vietnamese literature ad infinitum. It houses the world's largest aggregation of Buddhists scriptures, assembled by Tibetan and Mongolian monks. The curator of the Yenching rare books collection, Sydney Tai, says he would be willing to show visitors treasures as old as the 7th century Sung Dynasty or as capacious as a 10,000 volume rare encyclopedia of Chinese history. This collection owns certain artifacts that even the people of China do not possess, according to Tai. There's only one hitch: almost all the scrolls and manuscripts are printed in Asian languages.

Widener

Aside from John Harvard, the College's most famous rare book lover was Harry Elkins Widener '07, whose mother's donation provided the means for Widener Library. The Widener Memorial Room, the inner sanctum of the colossal library, now contains the prize possessions of the late bibliophile.

Before he died in 1912, Widener had collected 3,000 volumes of what he considered to be the 100 most important works in English literature. Whether saved because of their fine bindings or illustrious owners, the Widener collection heralds the first folio of Shakespeare's plays, and various works by Dickens, Donne, Lewis Carroll, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Authors presented many of these volumes to royalty and friends. As a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, Widener was also inclined to collect books depicting fanciful costumes from France and Spain, says Henri K. Stegemeier, an associate curator of the Widener Room.

Harvard's rare books collections are growing at a pace which far exceeds present library space. In fact, many curators mentioned that most of a given library's collection is currently taken from the shelves of regular open-stack libraries on campus.

With communications and the computer Chip changing the importance of printing and book binding. Harvard's rare books collections preserve a lost art form and scholarly resources.