From the Director
This time, at the end and at the beginning of centuries and millennia, gives
all of us a chance to reflect and to plan, to see where we have been and to
think about where we want to go. One key to making this a productive time is
to see if we can integrate those two categories of thinking into one: to understand
the past as a source of thinking for the present and the future; as a way to
help to shape, but not to determine, the path we follow. A library is a particularly
resonant place for such thoughts: the institution of cultural memory that works
best when the student asks new questions of it, finding answers from a vast
array of old and new sources and from veteran and new members of the staff.
The Mariam Coffin Canaday Library sits on the space where M. Carey Thomas lived,
presiding over the life of this College for a quarter of a century and setting
it on its path. She left a rich heritage not only of an intellectual but also
of an artifactual nature: the College is filled with objects and photographs
and books and manuscripts that she gave to us. And she left the extraordinary
painting that graces this cover and will preside over the newly refurbished
Class of 1912 Rare Book Room, a room restored and renewed after more than thirty
years of service through generous donations by the Friends of the Library. An
exhibit focusing on the College's second President will join her portrait in
the fall of 2001, as we take stock of the College's heritage in the beginning
moments of putting into practice the Plan for the New Century.
That Plan sees a new role for the Canaday Library as a renewed focus for what
the liberal arts college has to offer. We are working through plans with students,
faculty and staff to unite in the College's main library the most sophisticated
electronic information technologies with the most beautiful and most valuable
of our rare holdings. Our goal is a library that reflects and respects the cultural
legacies that shaped it and that can be used by the coming generation of faculty
and students to continue to build that heritage.
Five new staff members joined us this year, continuing the cycle of renewal
of the Library and the College: John Shank, as a Mellon-funded member of both
the Computing and Library staffs, who is helping us with our electronic reserves
system; Betsy Reese, as an assistant in the Lois and Reginald Collier Library,
with special skills and knowledge in geology; Anneliese Taylor, Science Librarian
at Collier, who comes to us from George Mason University; Melissa Kramer, assistant
in the Acquisitions department of Canaday and Class of 2000, Bryn Mawr College;
and Marianne Hansen, Special Collections Librarian, just arrived from Cornell
University. Three members of our staff retired this year, all members of the
Technical Services division of the Library: Dorothy Elicker, Irene O'Connor
and Ruth Hunter, whose work we celebrated in three delightful farewell parties.
And we mourn the loss of Judy Regueiro, who passed away at the beginning of
this year, at the same time as we think about the indelible memories and the
strong legacy she left to the members of the College community.
We were joined in the Friends of the Library this year by a new Chair, Mary
Scott, who succeeded Susan Klaus in the fall. I would like to thank them both
for their past and future support of this Library and all of the Friends for
making the new Rare Book Room possible.
Elliott Shore
The Constance A. Jones Director of Libraries and Professor of History