ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


166

The Rare Book Librarian
Marjorie G. Wynne

Editor s Note: This is the last in a series o f arti­
cles on the academic library profession. Marjorie 
G. Wynne is research librarian, Beinecke Rare 
Book and Manuscript Library, Tale University.

In 1943 when Professor Chauncey B. Tinker, 
the keeper of rare books in the Yale University 
Library, invited me to transfer from the Serial 
Department to the Rare Book Room, I accepted 
his invitation against the advice of my elders who 
suggested that it would lead me nowhere. In­
stead, it led into an environment that I recog­
nized at once as paradisial and th at has r e ­
mained so for me during all the succeeding years.

Rare book librarians collect, p reserve, and 
make available the earliest records on all subjects 
in all periods. Some do this in highly specialized 
public or private libraries, some in large universi­
ty libraries, but all have essentially the same 
objective, depending on the character of their 
collections. Cuneiform tablets, papyri, illumin­
ated manuscripts, incunabula, maps, manuscripts, 
books, broadsides, p am p h lets— th ese are the 
kinds of records that must be found, studied, and 
stored. Incidentally, it would be well if we could 
find other names for rare book rooms and treas­
ure rooms, for even today these labels give off an 
aura of preciosity that is sometimes daunting to 
the uninitiated.

The first duty of the rare book librarian is to 
keep the collection alive with new acquisitions. 
This means checking bibliographies, reading cata­
logs, maintaining lists of desiderata, exchanging 
visits with booksellers, making friends with col­
lectors, and looking at every dusty parcel brought 
in by people who think that they have found a 
fortune in the attic. It also means soliciting funds 
for endowment, as well as increasing the budget 
with contributions from an official friends group 
and with the sale of duplicates (a thorny problem, 
this, and one not easily resolved).

In buying and in accepting gifts one must know 
when to build on strength and when to attempt 
new d irectio n s w ith th e ir accom panying d e ­
mands. At Yale, we are constantly adding to our 
collection of pre-1800 British pamphlets, and be­
cause these pamphlets are arranged by date and 
are thus easily accessible, a history professor has 
built a course around his students’ use of this 
material in investigating specific lustrums or dec­
ades. In a new direction, we recently accepted 
the gift of an internationally famous collection of 
playing cards and by so doing accepted also the 
responsibility for preparing a multivolume catalog 
and for adding stellar items when circumstances 
permit.

The rare book librarian must know how paper 
and books are made and how best to preserve 
them with tem perature and humidity controls, 
acid-free folders and cases, and restrained res­
toration. The librarian must also monitor the re­
lentless requests for photoduplication, deciding 
what may be photocopied and what may be mic­
rofilmed. The rarest, the most fragile, and the 
most frequently used material should be filmed 
automatically as part of the preservation program, 
and the films should be used instead of the orig­
inals whenever possible.

The rare book librarian must see that books are 
adequately described on catalog cards and that 
various special files, such as provenance, imprint, 
and chronology, are established and maintained; 
m anuscripts should be controlled by cards for 
single items and registers for large collections. 
Actually, rare book librarians must do much more 
than this: they must prepare themselves to par­
ticipate in the development of machine-readable 
data bases as these affect rare books and manu­
scripts. As more and more rare books are de­
scribed in ever greater detail, com puters will 
eventually be able to provide a sophisticated ac­
cess to this information from participating collec­
tions throughout the world.

Quarters for using rare books and manuscripts 
should be com fortable and a ttra c tiv e , w ith 
admittance as easy as security will allow. Exhibi­
tions help to inform the scholar of what the li­
brary has and to instruct and entertain the gener­
al public, but they are of the greatest use to the 
librarian who, in the course of preparing them, 
learns enough about a new subject to recognize 
lacunae and to attempt to fill them.

Card catalogs, registers, and guides are essen­
tial tools for introducing readers to a collection, 
but some readers will still need to consult the 
librarian about specific problems. These consulta­
tions, for me at least, are the most interesting 
and valuable part of the day’s work. I learn, for 
example, about work in progress, about the dis­
covery of important material (sometimes for sale), 
or about corrections and additions to our catalog­
ing information. In return, I can describe new ac­
quisitions, point to manuscripts that ought to be 
published, or suggest the location of pertinent 
material in other libraries.

The librarian must also carry on a voluminous 
correspondence with readers and colleagues at 
hom e and abroad: answ ering specific bib lio ­
graphical queries, sending lists of holdings, au­
thorizing publication, discussing loans to exhibi­
tions, and in general interpreting the collection 
and regulating its use.

Not all requests for the use of rare material are 
equally conventional, and the librarian should



167

welcome the unusual whenever possible. Several 
years ago a midwestern insurance company asked 
for slides of a dozen or so scenes of the Christmas 
story from some of our most beautifully illumin­
ated manuscripts. The request was granted, and 
in the evenings betw een Christmas and New 
Year’s the slides were flashed on the side of the 
company’s building, while an attractive pamphlet 
identifying the scenes and the manuscripts was 
handed out to the hundreds of people who came 
on foot or in cars to see this special display.

Rare book librarians, it seems to me, enjoy a 
life of infinite variety built around the collecting

of early, important, and useful records. The late 
Wilmarth S. Lewis, that great collector and chron­
icler of Horace Walpole, once said of collectors 
that they “appear to noncollectors as selfish, 
rapacious, and half-mad, which is what collectors 
frequently are, but they may also be enlightened, 
generous, and benefactors of society, which is the 
way they like to see themselves. Mad or sane, 
they salvage civilization.” For me, and I am sure 
for many other rare book librarians, it is a source 
of unending pleasure and satisfaction to think that 
we are joined with private collectors in a con­
tinuous effort to salvage civilization. ■■

Letters
Louis Round Wilson
To the Editor:

I should like to mention that in addition to the 
o ther relevant facts of Louis Round Wilson’s 
illustrious life and career (p.71 CirRL News, 
March 1980), the death of this Melvil Dewey 
medal recipient on December 10, 1979, came on 
the anniversary of Dewey’s birthday.—C hrist­
opher A lbertson, director, Orange Public Li­
brary, Orange, Texas.

Closing the Catalog
To the Editor:

The cover article, “Close the Card Catalog?” in 
the February issue is by far the most informative

thing I have found on the impact of AACR 2.
Like other librarians, I have serious reserva­

tions about this business of “closing” the card 
catalog.—Robert Underbrink, head librarian, 
Blackburn College, Carlinville, Illinois.

“The Reference Librarian”
To the Editor:

Ann T. H inckley’s article “ The Reference 
Librarian” in the March 1980 College Lr Research 
Libraries News really catches the flavor of the 
work of reference librarians. Indeed, her article 
expresses the very reasons why I became a refer­
ence librarian.—Judith B. Quinlan, reference 
librarian, Perkins Library, Duke University. ■■