Friends Colleges Expand Library Facilities

FRIENDS COLLEGES EXPAND LIBRARY FACILITIES By Edwin B. Bronner* Virtually all of the Friends colleges are turning simultaneously to enlarge their libraries at the present time, and such plans include new facilities for collecting and preserving Quaker historical material. Some are building or have completed new libraries, and the others, with one exception, are planning extensive renovations and expansion. Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, has just opened the Lilly Library, with space for nearly 200,000 volumes and a section called the Friends Collection. Furniture associated with the early days of Quakerism in Indiana has been gathered along with appropriate pictures, to make the alcove very attractive. There are some 9,000 volumes in the Friends Collection, including a number of seventeenth-century publications. Earlham has a sizable collection of manuscripts related to Earlham College, the papers of the artist Marcus Mote, and those of the twentiethcentury Friend, Homer Morris. The archives of various Young Friends organizations are also at Earlham. The Friends Collection is catalogued as an integral part of the 110,000 volume library at Earlham. Whittier College at Whittier, California, is completing the new Wardman Library, which will hold 300,000 volumes. This building contains a John Greenleaf Whittier Room in which the college is collecting manuscripts, first editions, and other material about Whittier. Space is also provided for the Clifford and Susan Johnson Library of Quaker Literature. This collection includes many early writings and representative materials from more recent times. In the past Whittier has not been able to spend as much time and money on this collection as it would like, but has ambitious plans for the future. A magnificent mural depicting a number of crucial events in Quaker history has been planned to extend from the ground floor to the roof on one wall of * Edwin B. Bronner is Curator of the Quaker Collection and Professor of History at Haverford College. 4 Quaker History the stairwell in the new building. Currently the Whittier College library is in the process of changing the classification of its 75,000 volumes from the Dewey Decimal system to the Library of Congress classification. George Fox College of Newberg, Oregon, recently completed the Shambaugh Library with one section on the main floor set aside for the Quaker collection. The college has made a conscious effort to collect material related to the founder of the Religious Society of Friends as well as other Quaker material. The library is small, some 25,000 volumes, but it is in the hands of a competent librarian, the new building was constructed with foresight and imagination, and it is developing rapidly. Malone College, the liberal arts institution recently organized by Ohio Yearly Meeting (Damascus) at Canton, Ohio, also has an attractive new library building. Built upon the collection of the Cleveland Bible College, the new library is growing to meet the needs of a liberal arts college. Special emphasis has been placed on the history of Friends and a good collection is being accumulated in that field. At present the library is about the same size as the one at George Fox. William Penn College at Oskaloosa, Iowa, which has benefited from a renaissance in the last few years under the leadership of S. Arthur Watson, is constructing the Wilcox Library, which will include adequate facilities for a Friends collection. The library contains nearly 45,000 volumes, and includes a good collection of standard Quaker works, pamphlets, and periodicals as well as some more unusual material, and a few manuscript journals. Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio, has placed greater emphasis on its library in the last two years, since the appointment of Willis H. Hall as librarian. Plans have been made to add an annex to the present library, and to provide much improved facilities for the Quaker Collection. At present there are nearly 40,000 volumes in the library. Guilford College in North Carolina is making plans to double the size of the present library building, for the 50,000 volumes in the collection fill the building to capacity. The Quaker Collection Room and the vault contain a great deal of Friends material in both printed and manuscript form. While the emphasis has been...