LogoFriends of the Library Newsletter - Wellesley College

Contents: (Volume 16, number 2 -- Fall 2000)

Wellesley College Library is Number One, says ACRL
 Micheline Jedrey, College Librarian and Vice President for Information Services

On May 15, Wellesley College Library celebrated its selection as first recipient of the Excellence in Academic Libraries Award given by the Association of Academic and Research Libraries (ACRL). The ceremony on Library steps and sumptuous reception on the nearby plaza attracted over 100 people: Library and information services staff, Library student assistants, current faculty and faculty emeritae, members of Friends of the Library, and senior administrators. Each guest received a specially designed metal bookmark in the shape of the Wellesley lantern, the lighting fixture which has illuminated the campus since the 1920s.

President Diana Chapman Walsh opened the ceremony by describing the Library as a place of innovation. Dean of the College Lee Cuba expressed his gratitude for the strong partnership existing between Library staff and faculty, , citing his nearly 20 years working collaboratively with Library staff.

President of ACRL Larry Hardesty said he established the new award to recognize contributions not by a single individual, but by an entire library staff. "The Wellesley College Library staff has demonstrated that through hard work, dedication, imagination, and flexibility, a library team-the right team can bring acclaim to an institution of higher education.

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Pictured from left at ceremony are:
Micheline Jedrey, Diana Chapman Walsh '66,
Lee Cuba, Larry Hardesty, and Patricia Adams.

Wellesley College should be proud that its library staff has enhanced the tradition of academic emphasis at this fine liberal arts college." Patricia Adams, Regional Sales Manager-Northeast, Blackwell's Book Services, presented a $3,000 check to Vice President for Information Services and College Librarian Micheline Jedrey.

Mich acknowledged Library support from generations of alumnae benefactors. "The Library currently has nearly 100 endowed funds supporting the purchase and care of books, periodicals, and, most recently, electronic

resources. These endowed funds, established through donations from alumnae and friends of the Library, represent a continuum of giving spanning the College's 125-year history." In addition, Mich expressed her deep gratitude to Library staff for their commitment to providing outstanding service to the Wellesley College community.

Mich concluded by announcing that the Library will donate its $3,000 award to the Mather School, an elementary school in Dorchester, Massachusetts. As a site for the College's teacher certification program, the Mather School has for many years provided a place for Wellesley students to learn the art of teaching. The award will purchase hardcover read-aloud books to supplement the science and social studies curriculum for Mather's K-3 Early Literacy Learning Initiative book room. In presenting the check to Principal Kim Marshall, Mich said, "We see this as an investment in our future as well, young children who learn to love reading eventually become college students and faculty members who love the library. "

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Ferry and Pinsky Join to Honor Wellesley's 125th
Judith E. Harper '75

Two inspiring teachers and brilliant poets of international stature, David Ferry and Robert Pinsky have dedicated their lives to portraying the range of human experience through poetry. On Sunday afternoon, September 24, from 2:30-4:30 p.m. in Jewett Auditorium, Friends of the Library welcomes them as they return to Wellesley College to read their verse in a special anniversary program, "Celebrating Wellesley's 125th: An Afternoon of Poetry with David Ferry and Robert Pinsky."

Poets and critics have hailed both men as among the best contemporary poets in the United States. Ferry's most recent collection, Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations (University of Chicago Press, 1999), received the Bingham Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the New Yorker Book Award for Poetry and for the PEN New England/Winship Award. Earlier works have earned the Pushcart Prize (1988), the Teasdale Prize for Poetry (1995), and the William Arrowsmith Prize for Translation.

Reviewers have characterized Pinsky's newest volume, Jersey Rain (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), as his most personal and meditative. His The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1965-1995 (FS&G, 1996) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. He has also been honored with the Saxifrage Prize, the William Carlos Williams Prize, and the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.

During his tenure as 39th Poet Laureate of the United States (1997-2000), Robert Pinsky created "The Favorite Poem Project" to encourage Americans of all ages and backgrounds to submit their favorite verse. The project evolved from a discovery Pinsky made as a teacher-that students develop intimate, powerful connections to poems that evoke personal meaning. Tens of thousands of people responded to a call for poems, 200 of which appear in Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology (Norton, 1999), a volume Pinsky co-edited with Maggie Dietz. Hundreds more have been audiotaped and videotaped.

In addition to crafting their own poetry, both men have translated others to critical acclaim. Ferry's masterful renderings of The Odes of Horace and Virgil's Eclogues (FS&G, 1998, 1999) have been widely praised, and his Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse (Noonday Press, 1993) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Renaissance scholar Stephen Greenblatt has described Pinsky's best-selling The Inferno of Dante (FS&G, 1995), winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award in Poetry, as "the premier modern text for English-language readers to experience Dante's power."

Both men have long-standing connections to Wellesley. An Amherst alumnus, Ferry earned his Ph.D. from Harvard, joining Wellesley's English faculty in 1952 and becoming Sophie Chantal Hart Professor in 1971. Pinsky completed his undergraduate education at Rutgers and received his Ph.D. from Stanford. He joined the Wellesley English faculty in 1967 and remained until 1981. Since 1989, Pinsky has taught graduate students in the Creative Writing Program at Boston University, where Ferry has been a Visiting Professor since his 1989 retirement. Both poets have won Guggenheim Fellowships and are Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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From the CO-Chairs
Ruth R. Rogers, Special Collections Librarian, and June M. Stobaugh '66

Since our last report, Nancy Pasley '65, who in 1999-2000 chaired a Bylaws Review Committee for the Steering Committee, has agreed to lead a Strategic Planning Committee in 2000-2001. Please mail ideas for new initiatives in outreach, membership, and fundraising to: Friends of the Library, Margaret Clapp Library, Wellesley College, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481, or email stobaug@attglobal.net.

At fiscal year's end, the Steering Committee voted to award each of 75 graduating seniors who had worked in the Library during 1999-2000 a one-year complimentary membership in the Friends. The Committee also voted to continue setting aside $500 for new tenure-track faculty to add materials to the Library in their fields.


Special Collections Librarian Ruth R. Rogers, Co-Chair of Steering Committee, greets Eleanor Bunn Thompson '37, sole member serving continuously since Committee's 1985 formation.

The John Ruskin watercolor, on loan to London's Tate and Sheffield Galleries as part of the Ruskin Centennial, has returned to Special Collections. It is a self-portrait given to the College by Charles E. Goodspeed.

Megan McNamee, one of the Library's star student conservators trained by Collections Conservation Associate Sue Leong, graduated in May and was hired for the summer by Harvard's Widener Library to assist with preservation. Clapp Library's Conservation Facility, funded in large part by Friends of the Library, enacts a vital educational mission to introduce Wellesley students to the skills and technology of book conservation.

As Wellesley celebrates the 125th anniversary of its founding, we thought it appropriate to say something about the Friends' own early days. Librarian Mary E. Jackson '24, listed on our masthead as Founder, made a 1984 gift of $10,000 to start a Friends group strengthening the Library by funding special projects. In contributing this seed money, she noted that the library is the heart and soul of a liberal arts college.

The first Honorary Member of the Friends was another librarian, Helen Hooven Santmyer '18, whose novel, And The Ladies of the Club, received little notice when first published, but in 1984 became an immediate bestseller and TV miniseries. "Fame came late to Miss Santmyer, but it came in style with republication of her portrayal of a women's club in small-town Ohio," said an early Friends Newsletter. No word processor for Miss Santmyer: she wrote her 1,184-page novel in longhand in a bookkeeper's ledger.

Lovers of books and libraries, Miss Jackson and Miss Santmyer were accomplished women and devoted Friends. Alive in spirit, they infuse the present Steering Committee with their dedication to Wellesley and to its libraries.

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Handmade Keepsake Recognizes Life Members

To commemorate the College's 125th anniversary, each Life Member of Friends of the Library will receive a special keepsake: a three-inch square book handmade by students in the Spring 2000 Book Arts Lab/Arts 107 course.

Book Arts Instructor Marilyn Hatch with two students

Printed on a computer-generated background of Archives photographs and current campus scenes, each keepsake contains text individually composed, set in lead type, and letterpress-printed by a student. This "retro-tech" project, a collaboration among the Book Arts Lab, Knapp Center, and Mac Lab, draws on 600 years of printing technology from the invention of movable type and letterpress printing to the latest computer techniques.

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Friends' Newest Initiative
 Honor with Books

For each $100 gift, a bookplate bearing your name and the name of the person you are honoring will be placed in the book. The honoree or family receives written acknowledgment of your thoughtfulness. Your gift pays lasting tribute to the person you honor and helps the Library purchase scholarly resources for tomorrow's students. A double gift.

 

For donor form, check Friends' Website: www.wellesley.edu/Library/friends.html

      
More than 150 alumnae toured the Library during reunion in June. Tour stops included Knapp Media and Technology Center and the newly renovated fourth floor. Before an afternoon tour, the Annual Meeting highlighted Friends' activities.
   

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Team Named to Redesign Clapp Main Floor

Sally Blumberg Linden '56
Special Projects Manager

Vice President for Information Services and College Librarian Micheline Jedrey has appointed a group of staff led by Special Projects Manager Sally Blumberg Linden '56 to work with Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott (SBRA) on a plan to refurbish Clapp Library's main floor. Most of the SBRA team also collaborated on the Library's 1995 master plan, 1997 Knapp Media and Technology Center, and 1999 major fourth-floor renovation.

While preserving ambience and treasured features, the renovation will introduce exciting new elements. The beloved reference room will retain its inspirational character, with arched ceiling and presidential portraits untouched. But the spacious area behind reference, whose tall, handsome windows are among the building's oldest features, will become a reading room providing a serene, comfortable environment for study and reflection. Since students now research and compose on computer, main-floor enhancements include additional network connections and commodious computer workstations. Plans also incorporate relocated reference and computer help desks, and new lighting, air handling, carpet, and furnishings. Although books and computers must be kept crumb- and coffee-free, it seems natural to include a small cafe for social as well as intellectual conversation.

Following design completion and development of a preliminary budget, a renovation schedule will take shape this fall. The next Newsletter will contain a project update.

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Echoes of the Past:
the first 50 years
  Voices and Views

By reflecting on the past, we inform the present. Here is the voice of the past itself : short excerpts of authentic Wellesley voices from the College's first 50 years.

Few things ... are more depressing to a thoughtful mind than the tremendous amount of misdirected and non-utilized power latent in the feminine half of humanity.
Professor Vita Dutton Scudder (English), ca. 1900

God's band is in it ... He is calling womanhood to come up higher, to prepare herself for great conflicts, for vast reforms in social life, for noblest usefulness.
Henry Fowle Durant, 1875

The College is first and foremost a place for study. If on applicant intends to use it for four years as a pleasant lodging from which she may make social excursions with only enough study to keep herself above the passing grade, we do not wish her here and cannot bid her welcome.
To Parents of Prospective Freshmen, April 6, 1926

The object I have in view in making a special collection of the dictionaries, vocabularies, grammars, and translations of the Bible (in the utterances of primitive people) is to provide a place where the origin of spoken language may be made the subject of research by ladies qualified for the task.
Eben Norton Horsford, philanthropist and amateur linguist, 1887

We expect our students to be noted for good principles, ladylike manners, and thorough scholarship, but not for display, or love of dress... The entire apparel should be made light, loose, and in every way comfortable. Dresses should be short enough for easy walking, and free from heavy trimmings. Few persons seem aware of the amount of strength expended doily in bearing the burden of heavy dresses.
Circular To Parents and Students, 1882

Sunday is the day which we give to resting our bodies and improving our minds. Is not this just the day when we might well become acquainted with [parts] of the library which it is impossible for us to use during study-hours?
News, April 14, 1894. In response to these remarks, the Library began Sunday hours on May 5, 1895

Heretofore, the numbers have been gilded on the books by a binder who come out especially for this work once a year. In the interval between his visits a large number of books accumulated whose shelf marks appeared only on the book plate. This retarded the assistants in replacing books and gave rise to... errors,
Librarian's report proposing use of white ink by Library staff to mark classification numbers on book spines, 1904

As an experiment, students are this term to be allowed free access to the stacks and all parts of the building. Any considerable misplacement of books or disturbance through talking will necessitate a change in this arrangement.
News, April 6, 1910

How good it is of you to write to me! The long years vanish like shadows, and my mind goes back to those days of the lost century when you were so heavenly good to a very scored, very prim, very inwardly tremulous young instructor-who was finding under your friendly encouragement that she had really discovered the love of her life, in the classroom! They were good days, and teaching, ever since has not lost its fine excitement!
Professor Vita Dutton Scudder to Professor Louise Manning Hodgkins (English), 1928

Our education is not paid for ... but given us-as a charity if we like to call it so-by strangers on whom we have no claim... We rise on stepping . -stones of the lives of those who have struggled in this tough old world before us. We must, if we can, at least maintain what they have left us.
Professor Emily Greene Balch (Economics), ca. 1900

The editor is grateful to Archivist Wilma R. Slaight for suggesting an article in the form of quoted material and for gathering voices on undergraduate life and the Library. Thanks also to Yale University Press for permission to quote from Patricia Ann Palmieri's 1995 volume, In Adamless Eden: The Community of Women Faculty at Wellesley. The spring Newsletter will look back at Wellesley's last 75 years.

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Lecture and Exhibition Survey 600 Years of Chaucer

Judith E. Harper'75

On Thursday, October 19, at 5 p.m. in the Library Lecture Room, distinguished Chaucer scholar Martha Driver will lecture on Renaissance editions of works of the 14th-century English poet. Sponsored by Friends of the Library and the Wellesley College English Department, this lecture will follow a gallery talk in Special Collections at 4 p.m. In the talk, Driver, Associate Professor Kathryn Lynch, Wellesley's Chaucer specialist, and Shafina Shehnaz'01 will discuss details from "600 Years of Chaucer," an exhibition mounted in Special Collections to spotlight Clapp Library's extensive collection of original Chaucer editions dating from the 16th century. This collection includes a full-size photographic facsimile of the magnificent Ellesmere Chaucer, a 1995 gift from Friends of the Library. (California's Huntington Library houses the ca. 1400 Ellesmere original.)

Martha Driver received her B.A. from Vassar and her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. A member of the English Department at Pace, she is not only an expert on Chaucer, but also a leading authority on early English books and manuscripts. A founder and chair of the Early Book Society, Driver has been honored with numerous grants and fellowships. In 1996-1997, she was a Fellow in the Study of Manuscripts at Harvard's Houghton Library.

 

Engraved frontispiece from Volume I of Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Edinburg, 1782. Wellesley College Library, Special Collections.

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Hannah French and the Art of the Book at Wellesley College

Alexis Rose Dinniman '00

The concept of book as art - appreciating the book for historic, literary, and artistic values-enjoyed a remarkable revival in the 1880s and 1890s. The English Arts and Crafts movement of William Morris and his followers influenced this revival by renewing emphasis on traditional bookbinding techniques and styles. In the 20th century, the approaching 500th anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg's first printing sustained enthusiasm for the movement. Hannah French's 1939 arrival at Wellesley coincided with this anniversary. Having studied under one of the greatest book arts experts, Dr. Hellmut LehmannHaupt, Miss French seemed the perfect person to undertake the establishment of a book arts facility within the Wellesley College Library.

 

Alexis Dinniman '00 makes presentation in Special Collections during Ruhlman Conference in May.

Born in 1907 in Hadlyme, Connecticut, Hannah French grew up in New England, graduating from Mount Holyoke in 1929. She received a library science degree from Drexel Institute in 1930, then spent eight years in the Wheaton College Circulation and Reference department. At Wheaton, Miss French became interested in the bookbinder's art. While pursuing a second master's degree in library science at Columbia in 1939, she focused on these new interests' leading to publication of her thesis, "Early American Bookbinding by Hand," part of the 1941 volume Bookbinding in America.

Believing that through actual practice, "hands could follow heads ... in exploring the arts that make a book fine,"Hannah French set about creating a laboratory in which members of the College community could learn to set type, design, print, and bind books in both old and new ways. Opened in 1944 through a generous contribution by Annis Von Nuys Schweppe '03, the Book Arts Laboratory has served the College for over 50 years as a place in which to learn about the historic, literary, and artistic nature of the book and to experiment with its production. By the time of Miss French's 1972 retirement, alumnae of the laboratory classes numbered over 150.

To Hannah French, the purpose of the Book Arts Laboratory was clear. She emphasized that it was "not to take the place of a printing shop. The stress is on the actual process, and experiencing the mechanics of the handcraft. The end is not the finished product." But most important to the librarian was how the laboratory benefited its students.

We feel, however, that we are offering students a real and valuable experience when we give them an opportunity to practice a handcraft of such significance, in a day when any handwork, and the satisfaction derived from it, is so rare. I do not think it too much to say that the few students who have taken the time to use the Book Arts Laboratory have discovered an entirely new world and found quite a new sense of values. Most of the students will inevitably remain completely children of the machine age, but we are proud of the few who recognize something else.

As the Laboratory was unique among Eastern women's colleges, Hannah French was unique in the book arts world. Beyond the tangible legacy she left at Wellesley, Miss French also left her mark on the larger book arts community, conducting extensive research in her field of early American bookbinding and publishing numerous articles and two books, including Bookbinding in Early America: Seven Essays on Masters and Methods (1986) before her death in 1993. Her dedication to that subject, combined with over 30 years of service to Wellesley as Special Collections Librarian, have secured a place for Hannah French in the annals of Wellesley College and its long and ongoing respect for the value of the book.

Alexis Dinniman's honors thesis, from which this excerpt is drawn, will be published by Oak Knoll Press.

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Calendar

November 14

Fall 2000

Authors on Stage

Coffee hour, 9:45 a.m.

Program, 10:30 a.m.

Cost, $15

Call (781) 237-2921 for information and reservations.

 

 

Notes 'n Totes

from the Wellesley College Library and Archives collections

Proceeds to benefit Friends of the Library

1. FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY POSTCARDS I
Our first edition of postcards is reproduced from archival photographs of Wellesley College from 1880-1915. Included are the original library interior, the 1915 suffrage parade, and students engaged in academic and recreational pursuits (crew, hoop rolling, theater). Set of 16 cards (2 each of 8 images) $10.00

2. HOLIDAY NOTE CARDS
Color illustrated note cards of winter scenes from "A Day on Skates: The Story of a Dutch Picnic" by Hilda Van Stockum, 1934, Special Collections. (Cards are available blank inside or with the message: Wishing You joy this Holiday Season. Please be sure to specify your choice.) Box of 8 cards with envelopes. $10.00
3. FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY POSTCARDS II
Our second edition of postcards from the College Archives represents Wellesley College during the 1920s and 1930s. This set contains photographs of Tree Day, Float Night, and scenes of classroom and sports activities (physics, economics, studio art, basketball). Set of 16 cards (2 each of 8 images) $10.00		 4. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT CARDS
Color holiday note cards of illuminated initial (enlarged) from "Book of Hours," Netherlands, 15th century, Special Collections. The elegant illumination portrays a musician with harp, and the interior message reads: Wishing You joy this Holiday Season. Box of 8 cards with envelopes. $10.00
5. SPECIAL FEATURE - LIBRARY TOTE BAG
The new Library tote bag is an updated version of our popular original. Black heavyweight canvas, zippered closure, larger 18 " x 13 " size! New Friends of the Library logo in sky blue and magenta designed by Kristin Lovejoy '01. Tote $25.00

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All in the Family

Since being inspired as an undergraduate by Hannah French in the Book Arts Laboratory, Betsy Palmer Eldridge '59 has practiced the crafts of bookbinder and conservator in Toronto, leading workshops as a respected member of the Guild of Book Workers. She returned to Wellesley for her daughter's May graduation as the proud Cynthia Bonney Eldridge '00 at graduation with parents Robert and parent of a child who Betsy Palmer Eldridge '59. adopts and extends her mother's work. Cynthia Bonney Eldridge '00, an art history and biology major, worked for three years as an assistant in Special Collections and as an apprentice in the Book Arts Lab, helping during classes taught by Book Arts Instructor and Special Collections Assistant Marilyn Hatch. Imaginative and daring, with a wonderful sense of design and color, Cynthia "excelled at making protective coverings for fragile books," Marilyn says. Mother, daughter, and father stand here before the exhibition "Thank you, Cynthia!" that Marilyn prepared to surprise and thank the new alum for her numerous, original protective enclosures.

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Friends of the Library

Steering Committee 2000-2001

    Honorary Chairperson
    Diana Chapman Walsh '66

    Founding Member
    Mary E. Jackson '24

    Co-Chairpersons
    Ruth R. Rogers
    June M. Stobaugh '66

    Newsletter Editor
    Wanda Lankenner MacDonald '72

    Steering Committee

    Mary G. Aydelott '67
    Georgia B. Barnhill '66
    Claire M. Broder '61
    Heather U. Dunagan '95
    Kerin D. Fenster '64
    Kathryn K. Flynn, ex officio
    Judith E. Harper '75
    Deborah Holman '89
    Janice G. Hunt '52
    Charlotte L Isaacs '68
    Micheline E. Jedrey
    Jill D. Marsh '94
    Katherine H. Page '69
    Nancy L. Pasley '65
    Lia Gelin Poorvu '56
    Kathryn Preyer
    Deborah T. Rempis '68
    Donna V. Strouse, ex officio
    Elinor Bunn Thompson '37
    Pamela W, Turner '65
    Sigrid R. Watson '47
    Virginia B. Wickwire DS '81

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Many thanks to O'Neill Photography for their photographs. This web version was prepared by MacKenzie Stewart.

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  • Date created: September 28, 2000
  • Last modified: September 29, 2000
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