1901-1902
Concerns about fire at the Observatory were somewhat alleviated by a donation that funded a brick storage wing for many of its photographs. The library was still housed in a wooden building, however, and the Observatory installed a hydrant and hoses to augment its fire alarms and fire extinguishers. Fire drills were conducted every other month.80
1902-1903
Concerns were raised about the inefficient and insecure storage of rare books in Gore Hall. They were arranged by subject in “small locked closets which have been built at frequent intervals as needed against the ends of the book-rows in the stack.” Each time he wanted to consult a rare book, a reader needed to fetch an attendant to open the necessary closet(s). Closets were sometimes left unlocked.81
1903
The Rules of the Library stated that “no borrower shall write or mark in a book belonging to the Library; and any damage to, or loss of, books, shall be made good to the satisfaction of the Librarian, at a valuation to be determined by him.” Students could not graduate until their fines to the library had been paid.82
February 27, 1904
The Med. Fac. Society, a secretive club that had existed at Harvard since the early 19th century, vandalized the reading room of Gore Hall with brown and white paint. The main targets were statues and chairs. Eggs were broken on the superintendent’s desk.83
1904
The Harvard Library, conscious of its own disastrous history with fire, donated one hundred books to the National Library in Turin following its destruction by fire.84
1904
The Radcliffe Student Library Committee was partially responsible for keeping the Radcliffe Library orderly and quiet. In following years, they often found or replaced overdue and lost books. When reserve books were lost from the Radcliffe Library, the classes for which they were reserved contributed money to replace them.85
1904-1908
The new Radcliffe Library was planned, constructed, and opened. Dean Agnes Irwin convinced Andrew Carnegie to make a gift of $75,000. This amount was matched by gifts from alumnae and friends of Radcliffe. The new library was open- stack, at the insistence of the librarian, Caroline Farley.86
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80 Edward C. Pickering, “The Observatory,” Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College 1901-1902 (1903): 266 and 275.
81 William Coolidge Lane, “The Library,” Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College 1902-1903 (1904): 216.
82 Harvard University. Records of the Harvard University Library. Records relating to the activities of the Library. “Rules of the Library,” 1903. UA.III.50.29.03.2. Harvard University Archives. Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives.
83 “Vandals at Harvard Again,” New York Times, 27 February 1904.
84 William Coolidge Lane, “The Library,” Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College 1903-1904 (1905): 212.
85 Caroline Farley, “Report of the Librarian,” Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Radcliffe College 1904-1905: 66.
86 Dorothy Elia Howells, A Century to Celebrate: Radcliffe College, 1879-1979 (Cambridge: Radcliffe College, 1978), 21; Porritt, “The Radcliffe College Library after Seventy-five Years,” 338-340; see L. B. R. Briggs’s and Caroline Farley’s annual reports of this period (in Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Radcliffe College).