The Keeneland Association Library: a Guide to the Collection
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge Library Science Social and Behavioral Studies 1958 The Keeneland Association Library: A Guide to the Collection Amelia King Buckley Keeneland Association Library Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Buckley, Amelia King, "The Keeneland Association Library: A Guide to the Collection" (1958). Library Science. 1. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_library_science/1 The Keeneland Association Library This page intentionally left blank The Keen eland Association Library A Guide to the Collection by Amelia King Buckley University of Kentucky Press 1958 COPYRIGHT © 1958 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY PRESS COMPOSED AND PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 58-12481 The publication of this book has been possible partlu by reason of a grant from The Keeneland Association Foreword WHEN KEENELAND accepted the obligation to maintain an organized library on Thoroughbred racing and associated sub jects, it was not responding to popular demand, since there was no general demand for information in such a specialized field. Rather, it was establishing a broad inventory of reference material for horsemen, a few hobbyists, and a few scholars. In a broader sense, it was storing up information against the day when racing, as the most nearly universal of the great spectator sports and as a large industry affecting social and economic life, would be called upon to furnish data for research in genetics, probability theory, economics, manners and morals, history, law, physiology, psy chology, and other fields of inquiry. The opportunity for such studies has been only dimly ap preciated, partly because horsemen themselves are too entangled with detail to search for generality and are untrained for such work; partly because the scholar with time for research has been unaware of the possibilities in available data; and, of course, partly because so few students have addressed themselves to the task of assaying the abundant ore in one of mankind's oldest and most important forms of recreation. A catalog listing the resources of the Keeneland Association Library is a contribution to numerous fields of knowledge. It provides a handbook in a highly specialized and relatively obscure branch of library science. It challenges the student of genetics, probability mathematics, and population statistics. Not altogether incidentally, it offers the historian a list of sources which may be absent from much larger but less specialized libraries. The old [vi] Spirit of the Times, for instance, provides one of the most faithful records of American life and manners in the nineteenth century. This unique work will, at the least, prove useful to writers, turf historians, folklorists, librarians, booksellers, publishers, oc casional students, and the scattered few whose pleasure it is to collect and pore over the literary treasures and reference materials of Thoroughbred racing and breeding. Conceivably, it may draw the attention of scholars in many fields to a tremendous store of raw material awaiting the research worker. But even if Mrs. Buckley's work serves only as a guide to a comprehensive collec tion, it remains unique and valuable. Lexington, Kentucky Joseph A. Estes February 11, 1958 Acknowledgments IT IS WITH sincerest appreciation that I acknowledge the con sideration in time, technical advice, and sustaining encourage ment which Dr. Edward J. Humeston, Jr., head of the department of library science of the University of Kentucky, and Mrs. Emma Lou Lecky and Miss Laura K. Martin, professors in that depart ment, have given me. Miss Norma Cass, head of the reference department, and Miss Jacqueline Bull, head of the archives department, of the Margaret I. King Library of the University of Kentucky have been more than generous with their assistance in the development of this study. I was most fortunate in having the interest and aid of W. T. Bishop, general manager of Keeneland Race Course, and Joseph A. Estes, editor of The Blood-Horse, both of whom were most cordial in sharing their time and store of knowledge about the racetrack and the library. Without the information gleaned from lawyers, public li brarians, track managers, horse trainers, magazine editors, book dealers at home and abroad, and forbearing friends, the study would have been the poorer, and I am happy to express my thanks to each of them. A.K.B. This page intentionally left blank Contents FOREWORD, by Joseph A. Estes page v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii INTRODUCTION xi THE COOK NEGATIVES: A SAMPLING following page xvi NOTE ON THE COOK NEGATIVES xvii GUIDE TO THE COLLECTION 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY 173 SUBJECT INDEX 175 This page intentionally left blank Introduction THE KEENELAND Association Library is a research library in Thoroughbred racing, breeding, and related subjects, and is located at the Keeneland Race Course, Lexington, Kentucky. Keeneland was organized for operation on a wholly nonprofit basis, with all returns beyond maintenance expenses being de voted to charity, education, and research. Because of the unique philosophy of its organizers, education and research have been emphasized from the outset. It is the only racetrack in the United States which maintains, provides service in, and makes available to the public a comprehensive library of turf literature.1 The library was begun in 1939 with the gift of William Arnold Hanger. No library had been anticipated in the original plans of the organizers of the track, but as the entire Keeneland picture developed, such a library seemed suitable and appropriate at a racetrack dedicated to the betterment of the sport. When Mr. Hanger, one of the stanchest and most imaginative supporters of the new track, offered a collection of books to the association for the establishment of a library at Keeneland, it was readily ac cepted. The board was quick to sense the benefit to Thorough bred racing and breeding interests to be derived from such a library at the racecourse. It promised to be a fitting and well placed adjunct to the whole establishment. As a nucleus for the proposed library, Mr. Hanger purchased 1 In April, 1957, Monmouth Park Jockey Club purchased the turf library of the late John Lawrence O'Connor. It was stated at that time the library would be established at Monmouth Park Race Track as a memorial to Mr. O'Connor. [xii] the carefully selected turf library of Robert James Turnbull, a New York lawyer and bibliophile. Numbering approximately 2,000 volumes, this collection was a sound foundation with which to begin, for Mr. Turnbull had spent twenty-five years buying, discarding, and replacing books which emphasized the historical aspects of Thoroughbred racing and breeding. Comparison with other collections in the field reveals how thoughtfully and care fully this one was assembled. Mr. Turnbull not only knew the desirable familiar titles, but exercised rare discernment in search ing for less well known works. If a well-known title is missing, one may believe that this is because he never found a copy of it which met his standards. After Mr. Hanger's original gift was housed, other owners of turf libraries made gifts of books from their collections to the new Keeneland library. The late Robert Livingston Gerry, mem ber of the Jockey Club, Thoroughbred breeder, and owner of the experimental Aknusti Stud in the Catskill Mountains, was the first to make such a gift, in March, 1941. In addition to a large number of finely bound and rare volumes, there were pamphlets and materials of an ephemeral nature covering the widest range within the field. Sales catalogs of yearlings and breeding stock, broadsides and leaflets, and booklets and pamphlets concerning breeding farms provide a revealing picture of the Thoroughbred horse of an earlier day. Mr. Gerry's preservation of many catalogs attests to his appreciation of their usefulness in a research library. This portion of his gift has formed a fine nucleus for the present pamphlet file. Pierre Lorillard, grandson of the founder of Rancocas Stud at Jobstown, New Jersey, and presiding steward at Keeneland for several years, donated approximately 100 volumes from his family's library in the summer of 1942. Later individual gifts of titles of local interest have added material that otherwise would be difficult to acquire. A copy of Benjamin Gratz Bruce's Memoir of Lexington is an example of this kind of gift, as is the two volume Stallion Register by William Treacy and Kenner Walker. Leonard Sutcliffe, America's foremost photographer of the Thor- [xiii] oughbred horse in the 1920's and 1930's, assembled to special order his albums of Famous Stallions and Famous Mares. The library's copies, which otherwise would have been almost impos sible to obtain, were a gift from the family for whom they had been made. In January, 1954, files of the three American sporting papers loosely called Spirit of the Times, covering the years 1836-1892, were given the library. It has been written that "No sporting library is complete without a file of the Spirit of the Times, as during its publication it provided a chronicle of the events in its world which was complete, conscientious, admirable, and for the period unequaled. In the history of sporting journalism it must on this account, occupy a distinguished place."2 The library's file contains volumes 5-31 of the "old" Spirit of the Times, volumes 1-6 of Porter's Spirit of the Times, and volumes 1-104, 106-122, 125, and 126 of Wilkes' Spirit of the Times (later, "Wilkes"' was dropped from the title and the paper appeared until its merger as Spirit of the Times).