{"id":2950,"date":"2016-10-03T16:45:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T20:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/?page_id=2950"},"modified":"2016-10-03T16:45:56","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T20:45:56","slug":"powerhouse-of-a-library","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/reporter-fall2016\/features\/powerhouse-of-a-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerhouse of a Library"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Watkinson celebrates 150 years of service<\/strong>
\nBy Rick Ring<\/em><\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>
David Watkinson, an English-born Hartford merchant and a founding trustee of Trinity College<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, August 28, 1866, in downtown Hartford. The newly constructed Watkinson Library, in a purpose-built wing of the Wadsworth Atheneum, was opened for inspection to members of the city government and invited guests. Its elegant rooms and alcoves of oak were designed for 25,000 volumes and so far held 12,000, which had been purchased over the previous three years on a rigorous plan by J. Hammond Trumbull from booksellers in London, Paris, Leipzig, New York City, and Boston. That evening, at the nearby Allyn House \u2014 the finest hotel in Hartford at the time \u2014 a gala celebrating the opening was held for 200 ladies and gentlemen, including the mayor and the governor.<\/p>\n

All of this was made possible by the 11th codicil of the will of David Watkinson, which in 1857 directed $100,000 in trust to the City of Hartford to found a \u201cLibrary of Reference.\u201d The equivalent value of that gift today would be about $30 million.<\/p>\n

In those early years, Trumbull bought books, helped a steady stream of patrons, and devised his own classification system (this was a decade before Melvil Dewey helped to found the American Library Association and published his \u201cdecimal system\u201d), laboriously writing information for each book on small catalog cards and filing them alphabetically by author and subject. Within four years, the shelves were full, thanks to purchases and the enthusiastic generosity of donors. The need for more shelving became a refrain in the annual reports that continues to the present day.<\/p>\n

The Hartford Courant<\/em> regularly announced new books donated or purchased and reported on events and how the library was being used. In 1893, some expansion was made possible after years of effort, and 10 years later, the shelves were full again. The Watkinson nevertheless continued to flourish under the management of Trumbull, who retired in 1897, and his successor, Frank Butler Gay, who collaborated well with other libraries in the city until he retired in 1934.<\/p>\n

\"Watkinson<\/a>
Watkinson stacks are overflowing in the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1950.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the late 1940s, the Watkinson Library was bursting at the seams with 130,000 volumes and was running out of money. As it happened, at that time the Trinity College Library was also bursting at the seams, crammed into Williams Memorial. The boards of both institutions began talking, and after raising $300,000 from Paul Mellon and his Old Dominion Foundation (among others) and clearing things with the state legislature and the courts, the merging of the two libraries created a new, remarkably rich academic library for the College.<\/p>\n

The transfer happened in 1952; according to the Trinity College Bulletin<\/em> of March 1952, \u201cThe moving of the Trinity collection of 225,000 volumes will take approximately four weeks. The present book stacks will then be dismantled and re-erected on the top floor of the new building to shelve the 130,000 Watkinson books \u2026 [which] must be moved from upstairs in the Wadsworth Atheneum in downtown Hartford, through one of the busiest districts of the city, to the College campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six years later, on December 1, 1958, in a speech during the Watkinson\u2019s centennial celebration, Trinity President Albert Charles Jacobs H\u201968 proclaimed that \u201cwe are extremely fortunate in having this storehouse \u2014 perhaps the better word is powerhouse \u2014 on our campus.\u201d Another speaker, Thomas R. Adams, librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, predicted that this merger \u201cwill play an important part in the future of this College and in the never-ending search for a better understanding of the work and achievements of the most complex of animals \u2014 the human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the moment the Watkinson arrived at Trinity, it has acted as a lodestone for gifts of important collections and single works of utmost rarity and has provided the raw materials for advanced research and an impressive program of more than 400 exhibitions for more than 60 years. Now with more than 200,000 volumes ranging in date from the 11th century to the present, more than 10,000 sound recordings, 20,000 pieces of sheet music, and thousands of separately issued maps, prints, posters, and other ephemera, not to mention the 4,000 cubic feet of manuscript material that includes the College Archives, the Watkinson is indeed a powerhouse. Each year, more than 100 class sessions meet in the Watkinson to view more than 3,000 items from the collections that relate to their classes, and nearly 2,000 readers \u2014 half of whom are Trinity students \u2014 per year come in for their own research.<\/p>\n

\"Left<\/a>
Left to right: Indian Bible from 1865; accession records from 1883; Dutch atlas from 1579<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back on December 16, 1878, Trumbull was quoted in The Hartford Courant <\/em>about the Watkinson: \u201cTo it years will bring no decay. Interested guardians will take care that it does not become hidden in the dust of ages. Each year time will add something to, not take aught from, its value. \u2018More lasting than brass,\u2019 it will bear witness to future generations, to the generous public spirit of its founder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rick Ring is head curator of the Watkinson Library.<\/em><\/p>\n

VERY CREATIVE<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Watkinson Creative Fellowship Program<\/a> was established in the spring of 2011 to create support for undergraduate students to explore the Watkinson\u2019s collections and to engage with the material to produce something new. Since the first cohort of students in the spring of 2012, 27 Creative Fellows have been named. Below are just a few of their stories:<\/p>\n

CHRISTINA CLAXTON \u201916<\/strong> double majored in public policy\u00a0and law and\u00a0philosophy and was a Creative Fellow\u00a0in the fall of 2013. She worked with the\u00a0library\u2019s 17-volume first edition of Denis Diderot\u2019s famous Encyclope\u0301die<\/em> (1751\u201365), a cornerstone of the Enlightenment, and created a website \u201cto explore this work and to give my own perspective on an incredible composition from a very important time in history.\u201d
\nChristina Claxton \u201916 website: http:\/\/xtinaencyclopediephilologie.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

ALIX DE GRAMONT \u201915<\/strong> was a religion major and a Creative Fellow\u00a0in the spring\u00a0of 2014. She studied book-binding structures in the Watkinson and apprenticed with book artist Daniel Kelm in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to produce\u00a0a\u00a0series of structures\u00a0on her own; she donated her pieces to the Watkinson.\u00a0She now\u00a0helps\u00a0run\u00a0the art gallery RARE\u00a0for\u00a0Glenn Horowitz Bookseller\u00a0in New York City.
\nAlix de Gramont \u201915 bookseller website: http:\/\/www.glennhorowitz.com\/rare<\/a><\/p>\n

MAIA MADISON \u201915<\/strong> was a history major and a Creative Fellow in the fall of 2013. After discovering a passion for the history of chocolate in Assistant Professor of History and American Studies Tom Wickman\u2019s course \u201cFood and Power in the Americas,\u201d Madison imagined herself as a 17th century businessman in New Spain, seeking funds for a chocolate factory from the crown, and produced two hand-drawn maps and a\u00a014-page pamphlet tracing the known chocolate factories in 1700 and the products and recipes one would have found in use at the time.<\/p>\n

FRANCIS RUSSO \u201913<\/strong> double majored in music and history and was a Creative Fellow in the spring of 2012. He\u00a0worked with a\u00a0newly acquired French manuscript\u00a0book\u00a0of popular songs (ca. 1830),\u00a0scored it in modern\u00a0notation,\u00a0got his friends to sing some of the songs, and composed and performed original piano pieces that were inspired by the illustrations and that he produced on a CD.
\nFrancis Russo \u201913 CD: http:\/\/digitalrepository.trincoll.edu\/fellows\/3\/<\/a><\/p>\n

JULIA FALKOWSKI \u201913<\/strong> double majored in American studies and English and was a Creative Fellow in the fall of 2012. She worked with historic cookbooks in the Watkinson, making dishes from recipes dating between 1790 and 1970, bringing in samples for the staff to taste, and writing about it in a blog.
\nJulia Falkowski \u201913 blog: http:\/\/watkinsoncookbook.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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