More about Cincinnati's Illustrious Librarians

By Don Heinrich Tolzmann, Curator of the German-Americana Collection, don.tolzmann@uc.edu

More on Ainsworth Rand Spofford

Spofford may be considered a forerunner of the Congressional Research Service, as members of congress often consulted him with all kinds of research and reference questions. They also often ran their speeches by him, requesting him to review and revise them for content as well as grammar. When questions arose in Congress regarding the need for further information, the call usually went out for "Spofford.” He often personally retrieved books, and seemed to know their exact location. As Registrar of Copyright he reviewed books as they arrived, and seemed to have a photographic memory of books received. When asked for books on a topic, he could construct a bibliography from memory. Spofford's long tenure, as well as his photographic memory made him a legend. For example, a senator once asked him to do research on the pre- and post-Civil War statistics on the production of cotton. Spofford immediately cited the statistics and the sources. The senator then went to the sources and found that Spofford was amazingly correct in all that he had recalled from memory.

Spofford was also well known for his diplomacy and cordiality and was no doubt the consummate spokesman for the Library. And, to assist his fellow colleagues, he often provided advice, witticisms, and aphorisms. For example, what was his advice for dealing with "bores?" Spofford advised: "Receive the bore courteously but keep working. Always retain your good humor. Never say you are too busy. Never hint he should go away but go on with your own work. Gradually, the bore will take the hint and go away." Always impeccably and meticulously dressed in a frock coat, Spofford was often seen galloping on horseback in Washington, D.C., holding the reins in one hand, and a book in the other. And, when it rained, he would hold an umbrella, but nonetheless still be reading a book, as he trotted along. “There goes Spofford,” commented bystanders.

A prolific author, Spofford's bibliography contains close to two hundred titles. In 1866, the first printed annual report of the Library of Congress was published, something that became standard operational procedure during Spofford’s tenure, and thereafter as well. Many of Spofford’s works were reference works, including the annual American Almanac and Treasury of Facts, Statistical, Financial and Political (New York: American News Co.), which he edited from 1878 to 1889. However, a collection of his essays, A Book for All Readers, Designed as an Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900) provides the best insight into his views.

Spofford wrote that he divided books into three classes: acquaintances, friends, and intimates, and noted that: “It is well enough to have an acquaintance with a multitude of books, as with many people,” but that “with our literary friends we can spend more time, and are to be read with zest, and consequently with profit. But for our chosen intimates, our heart-companions, we reserve our highest regard, and our best hours.” And, he described reading as comparable to feeding “on nectar and abrosia.” Books acquaint us “with the best thoughts which the human mind has produced, expressed in the noblest language.” They “create for us the many-sided world, carry us abroad, out of our narrow provincial horizons, and reveal to us new scenery,” and “as we read, the mind expands with the horizon, and becomes broad as the blue heaven above us.”

More on William Frederick Poole

An historian, as well as librarian, he kept up his publishing, and one of his works became a veritable classic, a description and history of the Tyler Davidson Fountain (published in 1872 and reprinted in 1988), which had recently been donated to the city by Henry Probasco, a former member of the board of the Library and a well-known “Clifton book baron.” The value of Poole’s publications is underscored by the fact that many of them have been reprinted, and, or made available as electronic sources.

Elsewhere Poole advised that one should read on a given topic as if one had to write about it and advised: “I read with a block of paper at hand…I make over the thought of the author into my own language, and this I retain, but not the literal language of the author. This practice trains us in observing the leading points, in clear thinking, and in concise modes of expression.” He also said: “I am constantly asked, ‘What shall I read?’ My answer is, ‘Read what interests you: baseball, fishing, Italy, Switzerland, witchcraft, philosophy, or what not. Pick something you are interested in, and master it completely.”

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