The Selection of Books for Lamont

The selection of books for Lamont The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Williams, Edwin E. 1949. The selection of books for Lamont. Harvard Library Bulletin III (3), Autumn 1949: 386-394. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42672680 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Tl1e Selection of Books for Laniont NDERGRADUATES are the pri1nary concern of hun- dreds. of college libraries, but, even ,vhcn an institution offers no graduate courses of any kind, its library norn1ally n1ust give sotne attention to faculty needs. The Lan1ont Library is in u different situation. It is contributing to the biblio- graphical ,ve11-beingof the faculty and of graduate students by re- lieving \~/idener and some other Harvard Hbrarics of heavy use by u n dcrgrad u ntcs~ and it is some times vi sited ( as the reserved coliecti on s in the 1.\'idcncr Rending Roon1 used to be) by instructors and gradu- ates ,,~hen they require copies of boo~s in great <le1nand; but books ought to be placed in Lamont only because thJey,vill be ,vantcd by undergraduates. There is another distinction. Elsc,vhere, ,,rhen a student ,vishcs to use books that arc not in his O\vn college library., he must generally.,if he is to borro-\v thcn1 at alt call upon son1e other institution at a distance frorn the can1pus. Herc~ ho\vcvcr, if L-an1ont does not have ,vhat an undergraduate ,vants1 \\'idcncr, Houghton, and ·other H::tr- var<l libraries are nc2rby, and they have not curtailed the privileges he had during the pre-La111ontperiod ,\lhcn he VlclS entirely dependent on thctn. If indhriduali~n1 and divers1t_varc dcsjrable in colleges, it n1ay be argued that no t\vo college library book collcc;tions ought to be iden- tical. J-'atnont~in so far ~sits pnrpo~es and 111Bicn~re unique, js clearly· entitled and obHgatcd to differ fron1 its feUo,vs even n1ore than thc)r differ fro1n one another. }-Jenee cxten1urtio11 1 for the defects of its collection n1ay be off cred~ There \Vas no 1nodcl to he copied. Reservntion 1 tnight folloYv: Tvlo n1ajor portions of the collection \verc already in existence ,vhcn the selection project began under the snpcrvi~ion of the author of this paper.. The books on reading lists for' undergraduate courses,.many of thcn1 a.1read)7 on reserve, ohvjously ,vould be needed in the nc,v ljbrary? and the Superintendent of the ,,~?iclencrReading Room (no,v Lihr~rian of La1_11ont)made sure-thrrt ~11of ,vhich copies could be acquired ,voul4 · 386 Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume III, Number 3 (Autumn 1949) 1,be Sel_ectivnof Books for Lmn_ont be found there. This accounted for approxjmatcly 4,500 titles (,vhich duplication brings ro 22,500 v0Jun1es) on reserve, and for 1norc than 5,ooo additional titles in the general collection. Reading lists, of course, arc a faculty product, so selection by Ebrarians ,vas not in- volved. Recreational reading ,Yas to be furnished by the Farns\vnrth Roon1 (about 5,ooo vohnnes) and the Poetry Room (about 31000 volun1cs)., both of ,vhich hnd been opcr8ting jn "\\7jdcner for years. The forn1er collection had been ,vccdcd and renovated ,vhilc the· roon1 ,vas closed during _the,var'.1- and both are kept up to date by a 'Curator of the Poetry Roon1 and Subject Spccjalist in English Literature in the E-Iar~ vard College Library. t . At first glance lhe rcscrv-ation n1ight seen1 to 111akea special selection project unncccss'dry. Sludents, Jike other 1nen, presu1nably read for profit, for p1casure,or for son1econlbina tjon of the t,vo. '\~7idcncr, next door, can supply extraordinary needs; ,vith norn1al required and recreational reading in Lamont cared for already, ,vhat n1ore is needed? This question should~ nt Icastl suggest renssurn11ce, : It js l1nlikel)7 that . anyone ,vill bc-irrcparnbly dan1aged by omissions or other results of poor selection ju the general co1Jectionfor Lan1ont. Stil1, from the pre1nise that no single volume 111it can he termed essential1 it docs not foUo,v that a general c0Hcctio1~ is undesirable. Perhaps students ought to read more than js required; in preparing ter,n papers, for cxa1nple, they ma.y often have to turn to books that no instructor has rccomtnended or assigned for any class as ,a \vhole. fvloreover, interest in chosen subjects 1nay· lead a student to find p]easnre in volun1es that do not divert enough of his c]2ssn1ates to ,varrant their inc]usion in a F arns"~orth lloo111. '\'hcther or not access to their stacks cnn he pern1ittcd~ 1~'idener and other research libraries arc so large that the best books on 111ost subjects are sub1nerged jn the high1)7 technical, the ohso]esccntt the 1nediocre, and ,vorsc. A spccia]ist needs the jnferior as V{cll ns the great books, nnd should he con1pctent to find his \vay- atnong them; but an und~rgraduate faces ,vasteful ~nd discournging searches unless he can start ,vith a selection of the n1ost ·useful 1n2terial on 3.11)7 fie]d of interest to hin1.. If he exh~usts the selection nnd des1rcs to in,restigatc · further it is then tin1e for him to call on the research coJlections, and his rending in the Lan1ont stacks ought to hav~ 1nadc hin1 enough of specialist to do so clfcctively. Indeed~ ,vhile the nc\v building can Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume III, Number 3 (Autumn 1949) ,· · Harvard·Library B11/lethi grca tly facilitate both hi~ re quircd and his 11nsp e ci alize cl recreati anal reading by offerjng .better physical,2ccon1n1odationst the general collection, ,vhich did not exist before,. n1ay be caHcd ~amont's n1ajor bib Iiogra ph 1cal contri butio n to the u n derg rad ua tc. }}icking out this general collection might haYe been nn enjoyable task for n mr111,vho kncv{ enough to do it, particularly if he ,vere also interested in exerting a salutaf)7 influence on future generations of 1--Iarvsrd students by sparing thcn1 authors 1 ideas, and subjects oh- noxious to h i1n, \Vhi Ic providing gencrou s quan titi cs of those his tastes approved. lnstcadt th c ,vor k of coordinating sciccti on devolved up on one ,vho not onl}Tlacked these qualifications but ,·vho thought it dc- sira bl c for sru d cnts as \v cll as prudent for h i1nself to fall O\V a p rocc dore th~t ,vould shelter hin1 beneath reservntion 2: The faculty has been resp onsihle for Lamont book selection. It might have been simple to go to each instructor or department and request a list of the ·books that ought to be acquired. :B11t,no 111atterho,v ,vell he kn0\"\1'Sthe literature of a subject, a specialist n1ay not be prepared t~ think of all the books on it that ought to be in ::1 library .. Perhaps a better job could be done 1norc easily if fairly coin- - ·prehensive Jists could be .subrnitccdto the faculty for. revjsion. ·un- suita blc titles then 111ightreadily be crossed out~ and sorne, at ]east, of the on1issions "\YOuldprobably be suggested by the titles at hand. F ortunatel)r, n1cn1bcrs of the 1-Iarvard f acuity had already-done i.vork that· could be utilized in co1npi1ingsuch prelirninary lists., E:ach of the seven Houses has a coHection of rnorc than 10,000 ~nd fc\vcr than 13,500 yolu1n~s; in his artic]e describing these libraries! Frank N. Jones has stated that ~the project of getting together the books for the first t\vo Houses enlisted at one tin1e or another the active coopera- tion of a hundred or 1norc F nculty men1hers . ..' 1 All .seven have had the benefit of facult)r 2dvice at least to sonic extent throughout their history., and, though they differ ,videly·~ all have been selected ,vith the needs of Harvard students ju 1nind; consequently it ,vas believed that a large proportion of the books o\vncd by the I-louses _ ,,~ould prove to be desiderata for a general 11ndcrgraduate collection. Typists began carl)T in 1947 to copy main-entry cards for all hooks in the Adams I-louse Library; then the sjx others \Vere incorporated one by one until a card file had been ·made coverjng all volu,nes in the 1 'Th~ Lihrarjc.s of the I-Iarv:ard Houses/ HAR\TARD Lun::ARYIluLLETlN, II .( 1948), 368~ Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume III, Number 3 (Autumn 1949) Tbe Selection of Books for La111011t seven Houses1 \\ 7ith sy1nbo]s jndicating in )vhich of the libraries each tide ,vas to be found.2 The second major source of titles for consideration ,vas one to ,vhich nt least a fe,v n1e1nbersof the Harvard facult)r had contributed. The Carnegie Corporation of Nc,v York, ,vhen 1naking grants-in-a 1d to coilcgcs for book purchases, financed the preparation ::ind pub1ica- tion in 1931 of A List of Books for College Libraries,edited by Charles B. Sha,v, 2nd containing more than 14~000 titles selected by t,vo hundred f acuity 1ncrnbcrs of Harvard and f ort) 7 -ninc other An1erican col1egesand universitics ..8 A supplement, also edited by Sha,v~ and listing nearly 4,000 nc,v hooks that had appeared bet\veen 1931 and 193 8, ,va.sprepared in the sa1nc man1~cr and published in 1940.

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