Diary of a Shelf Reader : What the Heck is an Athenaeum? (And more on the Library of Congress)4/3/2020
A few years ago I visited the Boston Athenaeum with my friend Denice, who lives in Dorchester, MA. She had shelled out the money for an annual membership. But why? Why pay to go to what is basically a library with dusty, moldy old books? I’ll tell you why: an athenaeum is not just “a building or room in which books, periodicals, and newspapers are kept for use,” as Merriam-Webster has it; nor is it simply a literary or scientific association. An athenaeum is, simply put, a house of worship for bibliophiles (booklovers), generally without children present, though the Boston Athenaeum does have a fantastic collection of classic children’s literature. And art galleries, lectures, concerts, and, yes, books! While the Boston Public Library was the nation’s “first large free municipal library,” the Boston Athenaeum was one the country’s first private libraries, which is how libraries started in the first place—private collections. The Boston society was modeled after the original Liverpool Athenaeum, or Lyceum as it was sometimes called. Yes, Liverpool can claim a distinction other than the Beatles!! The current Boston Athenaeum building was constructed in 1849. It has several levels of galleries with little walkways around shelves holding rather old items--A compendium of husbandry (1864); Saddle and Sirloin: or English Farm and Sporting Worthies (1870); the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religion (1904–1914). This last title is actually quite useful for getting biographical information about nineteenth-century luminaries that don’t merit Wikipedia entries. But the most amazing thing at the Boston Athenaeum is something called “The Drum.” It’s basically the stacks that you might find in a university library—metal shelves and metal walkways jammed together holding books that no longer fit in the galleries. But The Drum is, well, a huge semicircular drum with no floor or ceiling. Metal walkways, stairs, and shelves go up and go down as far as you can see. If you drop something between the walkways you can kiss it goodbye forever. (I lost a pen that way.) Many of the books in The Drum are antiques, though the majority simply contain the vast collection of the Athenaeum. I can only imagine the incredible papers, or even books, that might be written after studying the contents of some rare books or collections. Like, who has read the correspondence between Lafcadio Hearn and Henry Watkin (1907) any time in the last fifty years? Or the “Letters written on the occasion of a dinner given to George Edward Woodberry, New York, May 12th, 1925?” I wonder. Like the library’s motto, Literarum fructus dulces (Sweet the Fruits of Letters), its name athenaeum (ath-uh-KNEE-um) is Latin, and means “a school in ancient Rome for the study of arts.” And like many cultural Latin words, it comes from the Greek Athenaion, “a temple of Athena.” That’s what I’m talking about—a temple for books! With appreciation to Denice Stephenson and Nick Genovese for their corrections and comments on this blog. Thanks also to Patrick Clary and Mary Rhiel for taking me to the Portsmouth Athenaeum, also an amazing temple to learning. Addendum to article about the Library of Congress Catalog system from Nick Genovese: The LOC biblioalphabetic mnemonic system has some advantages over Dewey Decimal, to wit: A, Anything At All G, Geography et al. L, Learning M, Music, of course N, No Words Necessary Q, Quiddities, Queries, Quandaries R,℞ S, Seeds and Stuff T, Technology, of course U, Uniforms Z, Zetology (ζητεῖν, to research)
Amy Kennedy
12/24/2021 03:32:50 am
I went there several years ago with two friends who wanted to see the Ruby Slippers Dorothy wore in the Wizard of Oz. They were in a traveling exhibition.
Rebecca Moore
12/24/2021 02:39:19 pm
Thank you for your comments. I think the ruby slippers are in the Smithsonian for now, so you're lucky you got to see them!! Comments are closed.
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Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
December 2021
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