1860s-1870s
There was ongoing concern about crowding of books in Gore Hall. Thefts in the library could sometimes be traced to students, but more often to collectors.34
1865
A fireproof building (funded by Nathaniel Thayer) was built to house Asa Gray’s herbarium and botanical library.35
1865
According to President Thomas Hill, Gore Hall was under-funded and the collections were suffering as a result. There was not enough money “to keep the bindings in repair,” let alone to purchase new books. The building was full of books, with no room for people. Many parts of the building were damp, hastening the books’ decay.36
October 1868
Charles Ammi Cutter wrote of the Harvard College Library that the “original restrictions on its use—restrictions made apparently in the interest of a remote posterity, from a fear that too much reading would wear out the books—are disappearing one by one.” Thelibrary was open for longer hours and the improved catalogue (Cutter’s own work) provided better access to books.37
1869-1870
Some repairs were made to Gore Hall. Attempts were made to decrease dampness (by increasing ventilation) and to protect the building against the possibility of fire.38
1860s-1870s
The Theological Library’s collection continued to improve in quality, producing concern about the collection’s safety from fire.39
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34 Ibid., 252.
35 Thomas Hill, “Report,” Annual Report of the President of Harvard University to the Overseers on the state of the university for the academic year 1864-1865 (1866): 4.
36 Ibid., 8.
37 Metcalf, “The Undergraduate and the Harvard Library, 1765-1877,” 51.
38 Charles W. Eliot, “President’s Report for 1869-1870,” Annual Report of the President of Harvard University to the Overseers on the state of the university for the academic year 1869-1870 (1871): 26-27.
39 See Oliver Stearns’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).