| Historians of both higher education and academic libraries too often restudy certain institutions and periods. This study examines Brown University and its Library, an institution perhaps less prestigious than Harvard, during a period which could be called the dark ages in the history of American academic libraries. It provides some historical insight into the growth and development of one academic library within its institutional context, as well as the men who helped define the future of academic libraries, librarianship, and higher education. While many contemporary historians of higher education and library science would agree that neither Brown University or its library are premier institutions, this research helps establish them, historically, as pace-setters in the development of the academic library. Brown University established a committee to oversee the library in 1785. The Permanent Library Fund created in 1831 by Francis Wayland, moved the library from a passive to an active role in its own development. This Fund was the first sum of money created for and dedicated to collection development. Brown hired the country's first full-time professional librarian, Charles Coffin Jewett, in 1842. After the passage of Wayland's New System in 1850, faculty were required to provide supplemental reading lists to students, as well as report to the librarian those titles needed to support instruction. In 1852 the Corporation accepted the guidelines for collection development delineated by the Joint Library Committee. If a work was required for instructional support; if it was an indispensible instrument for research; if it represented ultimate authority in a field; and if it had intrinsic value in and of itself, then it should be acquired. The historical evidence presented indicates that the changes which eventually transformed the colonial college library into the academic library of today began to occur far earlier than 1876. That, in fact, the transformation took place, at least at Brown, during the twenty-seven year tenure of Francis Wayland, 1827-1855. |
