This article inaugurates a new feature of the Friends of the Library Newsletter highlighting current issues at the Wellesley College Library.

On May 28, the Wellesley College Academic Council unanimously passed a resolution "to request ... members of the Massachusetts delegation in the United States Congress to work with diligence to repeal any sections of the USA Patriot Act ... especially as they relate to American institutions of higher education." In discussion preceding the vote, faculty cited the act's chilling effect on freedom of inquiry. Provisions expand the authority of law enforcement officers to access personal records, including scholars' use of library resources.

We at Clapp share these concerns. A fundamental principle of the library profession is protection of patron privacy. The Patriot Act is only the most recent attempt by government to challenge this right to privacy and the confidentiality of library users' records. In 1939, as the United States was on the brink of war and attempts to revoke this right loomed, the American Library Association issued the Code of Ethics for Librarians, stating: "It is the librarian's obligation to treat as

access to and retention of information connecting individual patrons to specific library resources.

On July 31, several senators, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, introduced the Library, Bookseller, and Personal Records Privacy Act, which amends the Patriot Act by setting limits on the federal government's access to individuals' library records. Those at the national level will continue to debate the appropriate balance between individual privacy and national security. We at Clapp will continue to do what we have done for many decades-provide an environment promoting intellectual exploration by protecting an individual's right to privacy when using library resources.

confidential any private information obtained through contact with library patrons." This tenet was supplemented in the Library Bill of Rights (1948), which pledged free access to information for all patrons without regard to "origin, age, background, or views."

In accordance with these earlier documents, our own Library's mission statement adopted in the early 1990s specifies that we shall "assure equitable, unbiased access for the Wellesley College community to the Library's collections and services" and that we will "uphold the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights." Such long-held principles characterize our policies and procedures regarding access to and retention of information connecting individual patrons to specific library resources. American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights." Such long-held principles characterize our policies and procedures regarding

October 21: Bernays and Kaplan Recall Back Then
Diane Speare Triant '68

She was East Side, he was West Side. Her German-Jewish parents looked askance at his Russian-Jewish roots. Yet the daughter of affluent public relations czar Edward Bernays and the son of shirt merchant Tobias Kaplan led remarkably parallel lives. Both received mid-century Ivy-League educations: Bernays left Wellesley for Barnard, finding the former staid and traditional; Kaplan was graduated from Harvard. Both returned to New York to pursue publishing careers and reveled in the city's cafe society, when, in their own words, "the pent-up energies of the Depression years and World War II were at flood tide." In this charged atmosphere, destiny brought the two together.

Now in their 70s and a married couple for 49 years, novelist Anne Bernays and biographer Justin Kaplan recall those heady years in a double memoir: Back Then: Two Literary Lives in 1950s New York. The Boston Globe praises the cooperative effort for its "blazing intelligence and caustic wit." Friends of the Library will welcome the couple on October 21 at 4:45 p.m. in Clapp Library's Lecture Room to discuss their collaboration on the book.

In alternating chapters of Back Then, Bernays, who currently teaches writing at Harvard's Neiman Foundation, and Kaplan, editor of the most recent revision of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, share intimate details of their coming-of-age years, including sexual escapades and dual experiments with psychoanalysis. On both family sides, Bernays is a great-niece of Sigmund Freud-a man Kaplan considers "the pied piper of our generation." Kaplan credits a psychoanalytic experience emphasizing internal conflict and unconscious motivation with preparing him for the work of a biographer. Both Bernays and Kaplan paid their dues as writers to-be through a variety of New York publishing stints. Kaplan carried out research for anthologist Louis Unterrneyer and editorial tasks for book publisher Max Schuster. Bernays landed jobs at Town and Country, discovery literary magazine, and Houghton Mifflin. By day, the two wrote captions, read manuscripts, and negotiated contracts; by night, they rubbed elbows with a lively assortment of twentieth-century icons. Bernays enjoyed a Thanksgiving turkey served by an uppity cook in cocktail dress and apron-Marlene Dietrich; Kaplan had drinks with a gent displaying "yellow pouches under lizard eyes and a neck wattled and retractile like a tortoise's"-Somerset Maugham; Bernays played terrified party hostess to "a slight man with delicate features, a furry gray mustache, and melancholy eyes" -- William Faulkner; and Kaplan danced with a blonde in a dingy apartment, "gently kneading the little tire of baby fat around her waist" -- Marilyn Monroe.

The book closes as the two become parents, decide to make the leap from editing to writing, and leave New York for the calmer precincts of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Cambridge decades have been good to them. Bernays has published eight novels, numerous essays, and several works of nonfiction; Kaplan's biographies of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman have garnered National Book Awards, and the former, a Pulitzer Prize. But they will always retain a special attachment to their maturing years in 1950s New York, with its "adrenaline-intoxicated style ... unmatchable anywhere in the world."

On May 28th 2003, The Friends of the Library and Library staff welcomed student workers and their families to a reception in the Clapp Library lobby in honor of their graduation and all their hard work for the Library.

Pictured from left to right, Mich Jedrey (College Librarian), John Mutch (Marylee's father), Marylee Mutch, Elizabeth Mutch (Marylee's sister), Julie Pollock (Music Library staff member)

Dear Friends,

It's been a wonderful year for Friends of the Library. Snapshots on this and succeeding pages demonstrate the variety and vibrancy of our efforts, thanks to you. In April, Boston publisher David Godine presented a fascinating lecture on nineteenth-century English illustrated books, featuring slides of his extensive rare book collection. During June Commencement festivities, the Friends held an awards ceremony for over thirty graduating seniors who had worked in the College libraries during their Wellesley years. It was a time of celebration and poignant good-byes: Library supervisors presented to each graduate a certificate recognizing her contribution to the libraries' work. Each student also received a one-year membership to the Friends.

Restoration of the Sanger Room finished in late April. To thank you, our generous supporters, for making this project possible through additional donations, the Friends held two events following the room's reopening.

In May, FOL Co-Chair and Special Collections Librarian Ruth R. Rogers, along with her colleagues Book Arts Program Director Katherine McCanless Ruffin and Professor of Classical Studies Ray Starr, presented a lively taste of "P3," their first-time collaboration combining lectures in Special Collections with laboratory sessions in the Book Arts Lab to survey over 3,000 years of written communication (see pp. 5-6 for a description of this award-winning course). On October 10, Ruth and Katherine will take this program on the road to the San Francisco Wellesley Club.

Following tours of Clapp Library on Reunion Saturday, we welcomed Friends of the Library to the Sanger Room and adjoining Reading Room with a lemonade social. More than 200 alumnae and Friends saw firsthand the impact of the Friends' $250,000 gift. If you were unable to attend these celebrations, please visit Clapp Library to see the remarkable results of your generosity to these and the Library's other recent renovation projects.

Watch for invitations to the 2003-4 Friends of the Library Programs. This month, we'll present Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan speaking about their memoir, Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York. Plans are in the works for February 2004 to host a book dealer who will evaluate and informally appraise your books. In the spring, we'll offer a program featuring food for thought and consumption from culinary mystery book authors Katherine Hall Page '69 and Diane Mott Davidson '70. We hope you'll join us for each of these Friends' events.

We're delighted to welcome five new Steering Committee members this fall: Barbara F Coburn '52, Beverly M. Dillaway '78, Alice B. Robinson '46, Mary Jane Waite DS 2001, and Pamela Worden '66. Together, we look forward to another productive year furthering the educational mission of the Wellesley College Libraries. Thank you for your continued support of the heart of the College.

Notes 'n Totes

from the Wellesley College Library Collections

Proceeds to benefit Friends of the Library

Bronze Doors Gleam Anew !

As part of the first-floor renovation, the heroic male and female depicted on Clapp Library's great bronze doors underwent cleaning and restoration. These doors are the work of Evelyn Beatrice Longman (1874-1954), whose large-scale projects include assisting in design and execution of the Lincoln Memorial. Longman was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Design.