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LC Conference Report <fwd>



On Wednesday, 4 April 2001, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress (LC) co-sponsored a one-day conference with LC?s Center for the Book: ?Private Collectors & Special Collections in Libraries.? The conference took place in the Mumford Room in LC?s Madison Building on Capitol Hill, and it attracted more than 200 persons from a surprisingly wide geographical area for a one-day event, including attendees from institutions circling Washington in a fertile crescent stretching from Cambridge, Ithaca, and Oberlin around to Durham. There were a good many book collectors and antiquarian booksellers in attendance, including a number of heavy hitters in both groups.

Here follows an informal and unofficial account of the conference proceedings. The speakers included Alice Schreyer (University of Chicago), William Reese (William Reese Company), Robert H. Jackson (Cleveland, OH); other program participants included Selby Kiffer (Sotheby?s NY), Edmond Lincoln (NYC), Merrily E. Taylor (Brown University), John Warnock (Adobe/Octavo), and Mark Dimunation (LC).

Welcoming the attendees at 9:30 am, James H. Billington (Librarian of Congress) said that this conference inaugurated a new series similar to the joint Center for the Book/Rare Book Division undertakings of the 1980s taking place when William Matheson was LC?s Chief of the Rare Book & Special Collections Division.


ALICE SCHREYER

Alice Schreyer gave the first formal presentation of the conference: ?Elective Affinities: Private Collectors and Special Collections in Libraries.?
        Spending public funds or student tuition money on special collections, she began, has long been thought to be an elitist activity, right back to the days of Jefferson. She divided the history of collectors and libraries into three periods: the last decades of the c19 and the first years of the c20 (the Golden Age of American book collecting); the post-World War II period of institutional expansion; and the current scene.

The Golden Age of American Book Collecting

The notion that students need libraries is a necessary precondition for library development; in the final decades of the c19, academic libraries began to grow significantly, a period in which individuals began to build great libraries of their own (Lenox, Morgan, Huntington, Folger). During this period, collectors? libraries -- many of them high-spot -- tended to be dispersed at auction. Those collectors who donated their books to academic and other already-existing libraries had strikingly similar goals: to put students in contact with early books in the belief that such contact would enrich the academic curriculum. After the First World War, institutions increased their efforts to attract library donors; the effectiveness of such campaigns depended in part on their success in hiring faculty members and curators able to interest undergraduate and alumni collectors in giving their collections to their alma maters. George Parker Winship and after him William H. Jackson, the first curator of the Houghton Library at Harvard, were notably successful practitioners in this area, though the going wasn?t entirely smooth (the head of the Harvard College Library?s visiting committee felt that neither the Houghton nor Jackson were desirable additions to Harvard Yard).   
        Various individual collectors gave book collections to institutions during this period (Berg to NYPL; Rosenwald to LC). By the later 1930s, Seymour de Ricci could defend his decision to include individual collectors? holdings among the institutional entries of his Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada: private ownership of such material was a transitional feature, he said: most of the manuscripts he listed were destined for an institutional home, sooner or later.

Post-War Developments

The post-WWII period saw rapid institutional growth, and research libraries became powerful forces in the rare book market. Public funds began to be used for the purchase both of rare books (Ransom at Texas; Powell at UCLA) and of buildings to house them (the Lilly Library at Indiana Univ was built with funds raised by a public bond issue). Special rooms within libraries were created (James Ford Bell at the Univ of MN; Taylor and Scheide at Princeton; Elkins at the Free Library of Phila; McGregor at the Univ of VA; Hunt at Carnegie-Mellon). A tradition of long-term cooperation developed between collectors and institutions (Graff at Newberry; Hofer at Harvard). A generation of institutional collection builders developed (Rosenthal at Chicago; Lohf at Columbia; Towner at the Newberry; Wolf at the Library Company of Phila). Rare book departments changed their name to Special Collections as part of a desire to shed their Treasure Room image. Friends groups were begun or revived.

The Current Scene

In the latter decades of the c20, the focus shifted from collection development to cataloging, preservation, and access. Blockbuster exhibitions with elaborate catalogs proliferated. Fellowship programs (funded by the NEH and others)  were developed to stimulate collection use. Undergraduate book collecting contests became common. Surrogates created new audiences. But providing access to collections is expensive, and there is a sense that many of our present solemn physical spaces intimidate potential users. Education for rare book librarianship has become more professionalized -- so much so that some librarians look more like MBA?s. Curators need a wider variety of skills than was formerly the case: but where are they to come from? In rare book acquisitions, libraries have necessarily become more selective, though deaccession has not yet become important (the publicity surrounding deaccession undermines trust in institutions). Collectors continue to shape libraries: the gift of Carter Burden?s great (and enormous) American literature collection to the Pierport Morgan Library has significantly altered the Morgan?s focus, as has the gift of the Cotsen collection of children?s books to Princeton (?not an area previously of great interest to Princeton?). Are such gifts appropriate? It?s hard to evaluate them over the short haul. Meanwhile, we cannot over-emphasize the impact that collectors continue to have on libraries.
        The questions book collectors should ask themselves before giving their books to libraries remain the ones that Randolph Adams listed a 1950 New Colophon article called ?How Shall I Leave My Books to a Library?? What library? Are you satisfied that the library understands what you are giving it? What is the library?s track record for other such gifts? Will your books be kept in the same condition they are now in? Are you making conditions about the disposal of duplicates, and are you sure that anyone on the staff of the library of your choice knows what a duplicate is? Is security such that your books can easily be stolen by ?nimble-fingered and migratory experts?? What provisions are you making for the expansion, growth, and evolution of your collections?
        Similarly, research libraries should ask themselves: will the proposed gift support the institution?s programs or curriculum? add to or create strength, or serve as a magnet to attract other collections? stimulate new fields of research or help recruit new faculty? What are the implications for staff? preservation? other resources? Are the donor?s expectations reasonable?


WILLIAM REESE

The conference?s second major presentation was given by the New Haven-based Americana dealer, William Reese, introduced by John Y. Cole as a major force in American antiquarian bookselling, ?despite his youthful appearance -- well, let?s face it: despite his youth!?
        Reese began his presentation, ?What Have You Done for Me Lately? Collectors and Institutions in the Modern World,? by noting that collectors have played a big role in building libraries in this country since Colonial days, and that there ought to be a natural symbiosis between the two. Though the relationship between donors and libraries seems simple, however, it has a way of becoming complex.
        The major driving force in the rare book market today is the scarcity of material, a scarcity caused by the tendency of materials to move from private hands to institutional ones: ?most antiquarian books in the world are in institutions.? The attics have largely been opened out; and rare books are now uncommon: in good condition, very rare. Collectors from Hoe to Siebert have realized that gifts to institutions would eventually dry up the market. Dr Siebert was angered by libraries, and he could never bring himself to give his collections to any library. He was a misanthrope: but his attitudes are increasingly shared by today?s collectors.

Stamps vs Books

        Stamp collecting offers an instructive comparison to that of book collecting; there is virtually no institutional participation in the market. Here any collector who lives long enough and who has enough money can eventually end up with virtually everything.
        At the time of the Hoe sale, there was no distinction between books and information: the transfer of books represented a transfer of knowledge, and the culture of books and the culture of learning was the same. The first area to come under attack was newspapers, because of microfilming, with pamphlets and government documents next. The importance of books as texts has been greatly reduced; today?s collectors have few illusions that by collecting they are establishing a body of knowledge; they are collecting icons, not information, and no one who owns a copy of Dunlap?s printing of the Declaration of Independence is likely to read the text in that copy. Libraries continue to have a dual role: delivering information while preserving the artefact. Digitization puts libraries in a double bind: on the one hand, some institutions will see digital copies as acceptable replacements for original artefacts; on the other hand, digitization will release some collectors from an obligation to give their books to libraries since they are no longer needed as artefacts.
        There is a lively current debate as to the likely effects of current tax reform. Tax laws in the post-WWII era favored donations, providing an extraordinary opportunity to donate highly appreciated items to institutions. The end of the death tax will be a major blow to institutions. The higher prices that rare books are currently fetching will also mitigate against donation, since book collectors? books tend to loom larger in their estates than was formerly the case.

Collectors

Collectors used to be concentrated in the northeastern United States; they tended to know each other, and they tended to work with a relatively small number of dealers. Collectors are now more dispersed, with less contact with each other. Modern collectors are more skeptical of libraries than they used to be, and every mass disposal by libraries lessens their confidence (viz the dispersal of the Franklin Institute library; that of the Foreign Office, London; and the guillotining of NYPL?s pamphlet collection). Collectors need to be convinced that libraries need their support.
        On the other hand, institutions should look beyond the gift of books to more general support. Dealers can bring collectors and librarians together. Dealers themselves are sometimes considerable collectors (cf Jammes and photographs, Rosenthal and annotated books, H P Kraus and Sir Francis Drake).

Curators

The greatest single thing curators can do is to bring students into contact with rare books; such moments can shape lifetime loyalties. Collectors and institutions should have goals in common beyond the transfer of books. Collectors have a stake in scholarship, too, and they should move beyond the donation of materials to become supporters of programs; in this, libraries should look for guidance to museums, who are already in this business (we are a drop in the bucket, compared to the museum world).
        There are many more stumbling blocks than there used to be between collectors and libraries, though the situation is not necessarily bleak. There are still plenty of comprehensive collectors out there, putting together collections likely to be attractive and appropriate gifts to libraries. A skillful collector of modest means can still do well -- as can one of considerable means: witness Michael Zinman?s collection of pre-1800 American imprints, headed for the Library Company of Phila (its collection of such material is now second only to that of the American Antiquarian Society). The collection stayed intact because of the willingness of collector and institution to work together.


ROBERT H. JACKSON

The morning?s final speaker was Robert H. Jackson: lawyer, bibliophile, and collector of  Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, George Meredith, c19 literature in general, books in parts, Rockwell Kent, Eugene O?Neill, Robert Penn Warren, color plate books.... His subject was ?Will the Collectors of Today Be the Donors of Tomorrow??
        He noted that the Internet has greatly changed our world, but more people are reading more books than ever before: ?at the moment, the rise of the computer has not killed books, only trees!? Looking around us, the triumph of the printed book would seem to be complete. Yet whenever anybody speaks of the future of the book, ?we get nervous.?
        Though special collections are a relatively recent development in the history of the world, many American collections are now relatively mature, and in danger of becoming ossified. Younger librarians may be increasingly comfortable with computers, but less so with books; and there are fewer venues for training than there used to be. Much of the material in canonized collecting areas is either already institutionalized or too expensive for most institutions to buy. Donors need to be reminded of the existence of special collections

Collectors

From a collector?s viewpoint, the real problem is paucity of material; the days of the open bookshop have passed. Book fairs are the last place where we all meet. Book fairs are like quattrocento balls, places where traditional roles change: dealers become buyers; buyers become sellers, and you never know who?s lurking behind the curtain.
        Today?s younger collectors are not trying to prove themselves via their collections; they are well-educated; they rely on expert advice. Book collectors of moderate means (unlike art collectors) can still prosper.
        Donation remains an attractive option for collectors, especially those who bought in the 1960s, whose collections have greatly appreciated in value. Despite the lessening of tax advantages in donating material, today?s generation of collectors is likely to continue to be generous. Our present cultural infrastructure is largely the result of the generosity of the robber-baron generation of a century ago; it?s difficult to believe that today?s generation of better-educated collectors won?t be as generous as they were. Finally, collectors will be driven by altruism, not tax benefits.

PANEL

The afternoon session featured a panel chaired by Mark Dimunation, chief of LC?s Rare Book & Special Collections Division; members included Selby Kiffer, Edmond Lincoln, Merrily E. Taylor, and John Warnock.

Selby Kiffer

What librarians want collectors to do and what dealers want collectors to do are quite different! Auction houses tend to have closer relations with collectors than with dealers: they?re loyalty is with the seller. Kiffer isn?t as sure as William Reese of the scarcity of material: new collecting interests constantly emerge, and older materials have a way of turning up (five new copies of the Dunlap printing of the Declaration of Independence have appeared since Goff?s 1976 census).

Edmond Lincoln

Lincoln discussed his long association with the research library at Winterthur; he grew up outside of Wilmington and used the library while he was still in high school; he worked briefly as acting rare book librarian there between college and graduate school. He has been a donor to the library for three decades; it?s his way of saying thank you. He tries to give the library material that will fill in its holdings and add to strength; as a donor, he?s reassured by the excellence of Winterthur?s conservation program. For him, the traditional models of donor - library relations still work. He knows where his book are going to go.
        When Lincoln was a student at the Harvard Business School, Kenneth Carpenter was the Kress Librarian. Carpenter used to let students have out-of-scope antiquarian catalogs; this was a wonderful way for a librarian to develop an extended family.
        The dealer-collector relationship is essential. Dealers run open-stack rare book libraries, and let you come in! They are more accessible than many librarians, and often more knowledgeable about their own special fields.

Merrily E. Taylor

Taylor keeps a list of Brown University?s librarians outside her office, to remind herself and her staff that they are part of a larger whole, and they hold not only positions, but also an inheritance. Libraries have a shared passion and commitment to the future to offer collectors: books are a more lasting memorial than buildings. Taylor?s role is to find resources and provide support so that the Brown special collections staff can do what it does; it?s hard to over-estimate the competition within institutions for resources, both within the library itself and within the institution as a whole.
        Taylor?s first library job was in the circulation department, ?the Russian front of the library.? Circulation departments tend to view special collections as devoted to keeping patrons from books. She advises special collections librarians to educate their directors as much as they can about what they do.
        She doesn?t believe collections are drying up; Brown was recently given a collection of 60,000 comic books (the press was interesting on this one: Ivy institution given collection of comic books what is the world coming to &c. &c.). Where there?s a variety of human interests there will continue to be a variety of collections.
        Taylor knows more collectors than dealers. In the places she has worked, relations among collectors and dealers and librarians have been overwhelmingly positive.
        Giving away a collection is like giving away a child in marriage: you need to let go and let the child go off with another.

John Warnock

Warnock became a high-spot collector (history of science, mathematics, economics) in the late 1980s. One of his motives in starting Octavo was to make books like the ones he owns more accessible. Artefacts are icons; there?s nothing like them. But not everybody has access to them.
        Books are like Niagara Falls going into a large library; but they?re like a garden hose, coming out. Collectors are afraid their collections will die on library shelves. In order for me to be persuaded to give my books to a library, I?d have to be assured that the library would put the same sort of energy into the collection that I do. You have to know whom you?re giving up your kids to, to be sure they won?t be brutalized.

-o0o-

Future conferences in this series are planned for October 2001 and April 2002 (the latter featuring Christopher de Hamel, marking the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Lessing Rosenwald?s gift of the Giant Bible of Mainz to LC).

Terry Belanger : University Professor : University of Virginia : Rare Book School : 114 Alderman Library : Charlottesville, VA  22903 : Telephone 804/924-8851   fax 804/924-8824   email belanger@virginia.edu :URL <http://www.virginia.edu/oldbooks/>