Foreword: Germanic Studies at Harvard: a Symposium and a Celebration

Foreword: Germanic studies at Harvard: A symposium and a celebration

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Citation Olson, Michael P. 2000. Foreword: Germanic studies at Harvard: A symposium and a celebration. Harvard Library Bulletin 9 (4), Winter 1998: 3-4.

Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37363484

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Foreword Germanic Studies at Harvard: a Symposium and a Celebration

n May 16, 1997, in the Forum Room of Lamont Library, the Harvard College Library hosted an all-day symposium to celebrate the 125th 0 anniversaries of the appointment of the first Professor of German at Harvard, Frederic Henry Hedge, and the founding of Harrassowitz, the Harvard University Library's primary German bookseller since 1882. The guests of honor, Professor Eckehard Simon, Victor S. Thomas Professor and Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Dr. Knut Dorn, managing director of Harrassowitz, received commemorative plaques. The symposium was organized by the Germanic Section of the Collection Development Department in Widener Library. Sidney Verba, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the Harvard University Library, delivered the opening remarks. Reinhold Brinkmann, Harvard's James Edward Ditson Professor of Music, spoke on "Inserted Lieder in German Novels: The Case of Goethe and Morike." The symposium's three other papers appear in this issue of the Harvard Library Bulletin. When Johann Wolfgang Goethe presented thirty-nine of his own works, all signed, to Harvard in 1819, little did he know that his gifts would jump-start the discipline of Germanistik, or German studies, in the United States. German was not taught formally in New England until 1825, when Harvard appointed Charles Follen instructor of German. Courses in German were formalized at Harvard in the second half of the nineteenth century. By 1850, several professors taught German (though there were not yet any full-time Professors of German), and by the 186os the study of German was mandatory for all sophomores. Frederic Henry Hedge (A.B. 1825, graduate of Harvard Divinity School 1828) delivered an address at the Commencement in 1866, calling on the graduates to use their new power to make Harvard first "among the universities, properly so called, of modern times." Hedge was speaking about the founding of graduate schools, which turned Harvard College into Harvard University. The Graduate Department (today's Graduate School of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences) was established in 1872, the same year Hedge was named Professor of German. Professor Hedge is still very much with us today, by the way: his portrait hangs immediately to the left upon entering the Harvard Faculty Club. This I did not know until the day of the symposium itself, when, as the host of a luncheon at the Club for the speakers, I happened to look over and see the portrait for the first time. To my tremendous surprise and yet with as much aplomb as I could muster, I casually indicated the work of art to the group, all of whom were very favorably impressed. The Harvard-Harrassowitz relationship dates back to 1882, when Justin Winsor, Librarian of Harvard College, wrote to ask whether the firm of Otto Harrassowitz could supply new German publications. Harvard was Harrassowitz's first library customer in North America, and today the Harvard-Harrassowitz relationship is the 4 HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN

oldest uninterrupted business relationship a Harvard library has enjoyed with any bookseller. Other highlights took place in 1950, when Keyes Metcalf, Librarian of Harvard College and Director of the Harvard University Library, assigned to Harrassowitz the German component of the Farmington Plan (a plan for American libraries to acquire exhaustively research materials from abroad), and in 1982, when Harvard celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Harvard-Harrassowitz relationship in Widener Library. Just how meaningful Harrassowitz is to scholars based in the United States is reflected in the fact that it has provided so many German titles to so many American university and research libraries for so many years. Conducting scholarship in the United States based on German books is largely due to Harrassowitz having had located and sent those books. Its own publishing house, Harrassowitz Verlag, is internationally renowned as well. (I am honored to have had my The Odyssey of a German National Library: A Short History of the BayerischeStaatsbibliothek, the Staatsbibliothekzu Berlin, the Deutsche Bucherei, and the Deutsche Bibliothek published by Harrassowitz Verlag in 1996.) The symposium and the publication of the following three articles could not have succeeded without the generous support of Nancy Cline, Barbara Halporn, Chip Robinson, Kari-Lise Richer, Ken Carpenter, Matt Battles and the symposium's speakers. As I write this on August 17th, 1999-eleven days before the 250th anniversary of Goethe's birth and five months before the new millennium-the development of the Germanic collections at Widener Library, Harvard's primary library covering the humanities and the social sciences, continues to flourish. Since the middle of this century, Widener Library has endeavored to collect publications from Germanic Europe extensively. Approximately fourteen percent of the Harvard libraries' fourteen million volumes are Germanic by language. Currently more than I 50,000 titles are published annually in Germanic Europe. Of these, Widener Library acquires some I 5 ,ooo mono- graphs and another 16,000 serial items. These materials support 65 Germanic courses taught at Harvard annually and many other courses that treat Germanic topics tangentially. Still, it must be noted, the Germanic book trade continues to place Harvard's acquisition budgets under duress, due to three main reasons: proliferating titles, fluctuating currency exchange rates, and high book prices (especially for subscriptions to serials and other long-term commiments). Harvard makes its Germanic collections bibliographically accessible via the Internet (in your web browser, go to www.harvard.edu,click on Libraries,Museums, and then click on HOLLIS). Many titles are accessible to scholars in the United States via interlibrary loan. Harvard's Germanic collections serve users as tangibly and as practically as those of any other North American library. Harvard libraries are increasingly the houses of last resort for scholars. Much of what Harvard collects today will become even more important many years from now. This message has been grasped head-on by the Friends of the Harvard Germanic Collections and other groups and individuals, who have very kindly contributed nearly $200,000 in support of Widener Library's Germanic collections since December of 1995. We invite readers of the Harvard Library Bulletin to support our efforts to build on the excellence of Harvard's Germanic collections. Sustained financial growth is necessary if Harvard is to maintain the depth of the Germanic collections for future generations. The symposium celebrated, and the following three articles celebrate, both German studies at Harvard and the Library's Germanic collections. Clearly, there is much to celebrate.

Michael P. Olson Librarianfor Germanic Collections, Widener Library efthe Harvard CollegeLibrary