CHAPTER II APPRENTICE LIBRARIAN If Charles Cutter's library work as a student served in part as his recruitment to librarianship, his subsequent experience at Harvard was his apprenticeship. The decade of the 1860 1 s was a fortunate time for him to be at the Harvard College Library because the library was undergoing' far-reaching and very basic changes. The experience that Cutter gained from that library situati~n would come to be reflected in his later library work time and again. It was also a for- tunate time in that he came under the tutelage of Ezra Abbot, a man that Cutter later described as having patiently intro- duced him to cataloging, classification and bibliography, and without whom he would have amounted to "nothing' in the library world."l Finally, Cutter did not just soak up in- struction passively. He was aggressive in expanding his own 1Editorial, LJ, IX (April, 1884), 60; ALA Conference Discussion, LJ, XXVII(July, 1902), C190. Cutter also at ot,her times ;QuId mention when an idea of his or of some other person could in actuality be traced to Abbot. Cf. Editorial Notes, LJ, XVI (August, 1891), 23; XIV (January-February, 1889), 54. The latter is a note appended to a notice of M. Dewey's Rules for Author and Classed Catalogs. At least two other librarians of note als6 had contact with Abbot. Stephen B. Noyes worked under Abbot's direction as a cataloger from August 1854 to July 1855 at the Boston Athenaeum. Charles Alexander Nelson reiterated Cutter's above comment at the 1902 Conference, and at the 1895 Conference mentioned that Abbot's Cambridge High School catalog' "was probably the book that made me a librarian." LJ, XX (December, 1895), C76. 43 44 professional capabilities. He involved himself in the work of the College library to an extent far beyond what was re- quired of him. He read widely. He participated in a vari- ety of bibliographical ventures beyond the immediate envi- ronment of Gore Hall. And by the end of the decade he was making his first literary contributions to the professional library world. Harvard College Library Although the library of Harvard College 1 began with the bequest of John Harvard in 1638, it remained relatively small until the nineteenth century. It was not until the administrations of presidents John Kirkland (1810-1828) and Josiah Quincy (1829-1845) that the idea of the library as an indispensable arm of a university began to receive its first hearing. That came as a result of the influence of a younger generation of scholars, most notably Joseph G. Cogswell, George Bancroft, George Ticknor and Edward Everett, who had IThe general history of the Harvard College Library up to the 1860's is taken from the following sources: C. A. Cutter, "Harvard College Library," North American Review, eVIl (October, 1868), 568-93; John Langdon Sibley, The Annual Re ort of the Librarian of Harvard Universit Read 15 Jul , 1 4 to the Committee of Overseers A ointed to Visit the Library 1 3 4 Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 1865), pp. 12-29; an account by Charles Folsom, in Harvard University. Overseers Committee on the Library, Report of the Committee of the Overseers of Harvard Colle e A ointed to Visit the Library for the Year 1 3 1 3 Boston: George C. Rand & Avery, 1864), pp. 7-14 (Hereinafter cited as Report ••• for the Year 1863 [1862/63J); Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, passim; Clifford K. Shipton, "John Lang­ don Sibley, Librarian," in An American Librar Histor Reader, selected by John David Marshall Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1961), pp. 161-89. Other helpful information may be found in "Harvard College Library, 1638-1938," Harvard Library 45 1 studied in Europe. Special purchases increased the size of the collection during the 1820's and the 183U's and the plan of the impressive University of Gottin~en library was adopted for arrangin~ the books on the shelves. A new catalog was printed in 1830 and a supplement in 1833. Finally a new building, made possible by an unrestricted bequest by Massa- chusetts Governor Christopher GOl'e, was erected in 1841. Althou;!,h the increases in the size of the collection were substantial, the growt,h of the library was at best un- ~ystematic, especially since there were only very limited funds allocated for regular book purchases. The more rigor- nus expansion of the librcu'y began only after the appoint- ment of John Langdon Sil>ley in 1841. Sibley, who served as assistant liLrarian from 1841 to 1855 dod as librarian from 1856 to 1878, was preeminently a zealous, perhaps even fanat- ieal collector of library materials. His activities in that r'e~ard fina] 1 y confrolited the issue of regular purchasing funds for' the libral'Y. One of his biographers has written, To Sibley it was the sacred duty of the librarian to preserve a copy of every printed item for the use of posterity. No one else in his generation did more to spread the idea of the importance of ephemeral material for history.2 ~artly, therefore, as a result of his conscious efforts, the ~ 0 t e s, I]I( ~la r c h , 1 93 9 ), 20 5- yo • lHorison, Three Centuries of Harvard, pp. 226-27, ~65-66. For Ticknor's experience in Germany and his subse­ quent effort to transplant that ideal at Harvard College, see T.lack, George Ticknor', ehs. 2 and 3. 2Shipton, "John 1.8ngdon Sibley," p. 168. 46 library increased from about 50,000 volumes in 1841 to nearly 70,000 volumes in 1856 when Sibley himself became the chief administrator. A large part of that increase came from do- nations that he had personally sought out. By 1861 the total 1 had risen to nearly 96,000 volumes and by 1868 to 118,000. His ideal of a comprehensive collection, while not supported by substantial allocations of fUnds for regular purchasing until the 1870 1 s, brought to the library in 1858 a gift from William C. Gray of $5,000 a year for each of five years for the purchase of current materials. The effect was felt during the period 1859/60 to 1863/64 when annual acces- sions amounted to more than 5,000 volumes a year, more than half of which were purchased. The great increase in the size of the collection pro- duced ot.. her problems as well. The most immediate effect was the need for a larger staff. When Sibley assumed the librar- ianship in 1856 he added Ezra Abbot in the assistant librar- ian's position. But it soon became evident that two men could not by themselves handle the great increase in accessions. 1"Librarian l s Report," [1859/60J, in Harvard Univer­ sity. Overseers Committee on the Library, Report of the Committee of the Overseers of Harvard Colle e A ointed to Visit the Librar~ for the Year 1 a Boston: George C. Rand &: Avery, 18 1), P 23; Shipton, lIJohn Langdon Sibley," p. 165. Library statistics are taken from the annual reports of the librarian. For the years 1858/59 to 1862/63 these are included in the printed reports of the Overseers Committee on the Library as given above. They will be cited hereinafter only as "Librarian's Report" with the academic year of the report in brackets. Sibley issued his 1863/64 report separ­ ately at his own expense. See above, p. 44, footnote 1. His r~ports for 1864/65 to 1867/68 are in manuscript form only and are cited accordingly. Other material taken from the Overseers reports are cited as Report ••• for the Year •••• 47 By April of 1859 Sibley had begun experimenting with the use of female clerical help in book processing. He also had the occasional assistance of undergraduates and of the President 1 s secretary. By 1862 the force had reached eleven, Abbot him- self having two assistants, one of whom was Charles Cutter, 1 and during the decade the staff grew steadily in size. In this environment an administrative conflict arose between demands to provide adequately for the public and the needs of the internal operations of the library. A consid- erable part of the conflict was fostered by the physical in- adequacies of Gore Hall itself, a fact that Sibley constantly reiterated. It was a Gothic building totally unfit for an expanding library. Yet, because of its architecture and the fact that it was a gift to the College, few were willing to advocate any substantial changes in its features. Built be- tween 1838 and 1841 it had originally been intended to house Harvard's library collections for a century. With the inde­ 2 fatigable energy of Sibley its capacity was reached by 1860. I"Librarian ' s Report, II [1858/59J, p. 21; [1859/60J, p. 27; [1860/61J, p. 33. In 1876 John Fiske reported that besides himself there were twenty assistants" "A Librarian1s hork,1I Atlantic Monthly, XXXVIII (October, 1876), 480. 2Shipton, "John Langdon Sibley,tI pp. 175-76, 180-83; Kimball C. Elkins, "Foreshadowings of Lamont," Harvard Library Bulletin, VIII (Winter, 1954), 46-51; Harvard University. Overseers Commi.ttee on the Library, Report ••• for the Year 1863 [1862/63J, pp. 7-14; Sibley, The Annual Report of the Librarian" •• [1863/64J, pp. 12-29; John Langdon Sibley, "Library Journal," p. 252, November 29 and December 5, 1864, ~~~), HUA. Sibley's "Library Journal ll was one of two diary ~ecords that he kept. The other was his "Private Journal.