REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN Harriet Evans Hodge to Howard Ayers, President of the University
of Cincinnati December 31, 1902
Sir,
Herewith I submit my first annual report of Librarian
charged with the administration of the book collections deposited in the
Library of the University of Cincinnati. In order to make this report
complete I shall have to include the twenty months since the organizing
of the library began. On May 1, 1901, work was begun with three members
of the library staff - one cataloguer, the stenographer, and the librarian.
They were joined in a few days by the head cataloguer.
The books were stored in many places about the buildings,
as well as in the departmental libraries then kept in McMicken, Hanna,
and Cunningham Halls, and the room used as the library land reading-room
on the third floor of McMicken Hall. The Robert Clarke Library and
the Carson Shakespeare Library, a collections of United States Government
documents, and a large shipment of foreign books were in two connecting
rooms on the first floor of McMicken Hall, and as the Van Wormer Library
building was not finished it was decided to begin work in these rooms.
Lists of library supplies of all kinds had to be
ordered, and pending their arrival the members of the staff furnished the
requisite materials.
The accessing was found practically up to date.
The accessioning of the new books was carried on, and the classifying,
shelf-listing, and plating of the Clarke Library was started. The
labeling began as soon as labels were obtained. The cataloguing could
not be commenced immediately for lack of reference books; lists of books
for the use of cataloguers were made out and ordered; a set of the Peabody
Institute Catalogue was delivered twenty-four hours after it was telegraphed
for, when the work of cataloguing was entered upon. [The Catalogue
of the Library of the Peabody Institute is still available in the
Langsam Library reference collection. It was added to the University
of Cincinnati Library on May 7, 1901.]
By the end of the second week it was decided to
move into the new library building though it was still unfinished, as the
rooms in McMicken Hall were crowded with bookcases and not well adapted
to the needs of library work. The book-stack was not in place in
the new library, but the well-lighted cataoguing-room enabled us to carry
of the work to much better advantage that in the rooms in McMicken Hall.
On June 1st out staff was augmented by the arrival
of four cataloguers from the Illinois Library School, two of whom came
to accept permanent positions and two wo work until September 1, 1901.
These assistants worked in the various departmental libraries, classifying
and shelf-listing the contents, and laying aside books that needed to be
accessioned.
During the month of May and until the middle of
June, the room know as the main library was kept open from 8:30 a.m. to
12 M., 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., each day except Saturday, when it closed at noon.
A student assistant looked after the needs of persons consulting the library
during these hours, her work begin supplemented by a member of the office
staff during the periods when she had to attend lectures. During
the Summer School of 1901 one of the cataloguers took charge of this collection,
and continued the classifying and shelf-listing of the books therein.
It was decided that the catalogue of the University
Library should be typewritten, on standard-sized cards, but there were
many unavoidable delays in procuring typewriter machines suited to this
work and the right kind of catalogue cards, so that it was June 26th before
the writing of the permanent catalogue cards began. There was a small
manuscript catalogue on cards which we decided to file with the new cards,
so as to increase the number of volumes available for use when the University
opened in September, 1901. From time to time the books represented
by these cards have been recatalogued, the cards being typewritten, until
now there are very few of them left in the catalogue.
The stack shelving was not put in place until
October 1st. This lack of shelf-room very much retarded the work;
the books, as fact as they were catalogued and marked, were plied on the
periodcal-room floor, which made it hard to look up added editions
or to refer to them in any way. Owing to the limited amount of shelf
space at our disposal, we could have only a small number of books brought
over from the other buildings at one time. Early in September the
stacks were delivered, and by the last week in the month they were erected
and finished enough to be used. Every member of the library staff
worked early and late to get the books in place before the opening of the
fall term of the University.
......The Procter libraries, including the Clarke, Carson and Chemical
libraries, the old departmental libraries and what was the main library,
are now fully catalogued.
.....The Van Wormer Library has been open every day, except Sundays,
national holidays, and the Christmas holidays, since October 1, 1901.
.....The reference-room now has over 2,000 volumes on open shelves,
wo which everyone had free access. This includes the reference books
and the books reserved for special classes.
The periodical-room how has the current numbers
of 251 periodicals, arranged alphabetically, in the new wall periodical-case,
and the book-shelves just finished along the north wall in the room are
being filled with bound volumes of the periodicals to which free access
in most needed.
.....In accordance with an agreement between the Directors of the University
and the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, entered into for
a period of ten years, the library of the society was deposited in the
Van Wormer Library buidling, in the care of the University Librarian.
It was moved in November, 1901. The books in this library are of
great assistance to students of American history in the University.
The Library of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, numbering several thousand volumes, is deposited
in the care of the Univeristy Librarian in the Van Wormer Library, and
is arranged on the fifth floor of the book-stack.
Growth of the Library
Total number of volumes accessioned
Total number of volumes catalogued on typewritten cards