1831
President Quincy expressed concern about the crowding of books in the library. There were too many books for the space. This meant that the alcoves were full and the books were held on shelves constructed in the middle of several rooms. Quincy was concerned that this arrangement would be inconvenient to patrons and might result in “damage and even loss” of the books.23
1838-1841
Gore Hall was constructed on the current site of Widener Library. It was the first Harvard building to be used exclusively as a library. Modeled after King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England, Gore Hall was widely considered a beautiful building. Its materials—granite (from President Quincy’s quarry) and iron—were intended to minimize the danger of fire. However, the building was ill-suited to Harvard’s ever- growing collections. It was poorly lit, poorly ventilated, and it soon became overcrowded with books. Concerns about fire meant that artificial light was largely forbidden, limiting hours of access. Moisture caused frost to form in the winter and mold to grow in the spring. The stucco on its interior walls eroded, creating dust. Gore Hall was heated by means of an early—and inadequate—system of steam heating; readers often needed to wear coats in the winter.24
1841
John Langdon Sibley began his thirty-six year tenure as Assistant Librarian and then Librarian of Harvard. (He also worked for the Harvard Library in 1825-1826.) His collection development strategy was based on the theory that every item may one day be valuable. His systematic requests for donations caused books and ephemera to accumulate in the library, contributing to the over-crowding of Gore Hall. On July 11, 1846, Sibley wrote in his journal: “Let the library be filled. If trash comes let it come.What is trash to me may be the part of the Library which will be the most valuable to another person.”25
Late 1840s
President Edward Everett noted the growth in the size and quality of the library collections. He regreted the lack of funds available to keep the library “in perfect condition” and wished that students did not have to be charged a fee to use the collections. He suggested the establishment of a working collection for undergraduates, which would be housed in a building separate from the general library. The general library would remain “a repository of the rarer works in every department of science and literature.” In the meantime, Gore Hall had an anteroom of books for undergraduate use.26
1848
Walter Mitchell, Class of 1846, complained in a letter to President Everett that undergraduates were granted too little time in the library and such minimal access to the books that it was difficult for them to learn. He believed that students were unfairly suspected of theft and vandalism. He wished that the College Library offered the same type of liberal access that the Law School Library did. Everett answered with a brief note, saying that it would be ideal to make the library more open, but that it already was more accessible than equivalent European and American libraries.27
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23 Josiah Quincy, “Report,” Annual Report of the President of Harvard University to the Overseers on the state of the university for the academic year 1830-1831 (1832): 7.
24 Harvard University Library and William Coolidge Lane, Gore Hall, The Library of Harvard College, 1838-1913 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917); Kimball C. Elkins, “Foreshadowings of Lamont: Student Proposals in the Nineteenth Century,” Harvard Library Bulletin 8, no. 1 (1954): 47; Clifford K. Shipton, “John Langdon Sibley, Librarian,” Harvard Library Bulletin 9, no. 2 (1955): 258-260; Bunting, Harvard: An Architectural History, 43-46.
25 Harvard University Library and Lane, Gore Hall, The Library of Harvard College, 1838-1913; John Langdon Sibley, “Sibley’s Private Journal”; available from http://hul.harvard.edu/huarc/refshelf/Sibley.htm; Internet; accessed 24 June 2009.
26 Metcalf, “The Undergraduate and the Harvard Library, 1765-1877,” 50; Elkins, “Foreshadowings of Lamont: Student Proposals in the Nineteenth Century,” 42. See also Edward Everett’s annual reports of this period (in the Annual Report of the President of Harvard University to the Overseers on the state of the university).
27 Metcalf, “The Undergraduate and the Harvard Library, 1765-1877,” 39.