Addition of the 100,000th Volume to Special Collections
November 9, 2001: Pitts Theology Library celebrated the addition of the 100,000 and 100,001 books to its Special Collections. At a morning celebration on Friday, November 9, 2001, Dr. M. Patrick Graham, Librarian and M.A. Pitts Associate Professor of Theological Bibliography offered the following comments to an audience that included Candler and Emory students, faculty, staff, guests, and members of Candler's Committee of 100, a group of people who support Candler School of Theology in exceptional ways.Addition of the 100,000th Volume to Special Collections
November 9, 2001
On May 1, we added the 1/2 millionth volume to the Pitts Theology Library; today we add the 100,000th volume to Special Collections. I am absolutely delighted to have all of you here today to celebrate this milestone. I welcome each of you as partners with the library:
* Candler administration, faculty, & students-our primary clientele-who
use and help produce these collections; names from this generation and earlier
ones are inscribed on the circulation cards in thousands of volumes and attest
the value of these materials for the work of this school;
* Library staff-who have made this library with its collections and services
their life's work;
* Committee of 100-every year I look forward to your arrival and the opportunity
of visiting with you about the mission of Candler and the role of the Pitts
Library in that mission. Through the gifts of your members, you have made the
growth of this institution possible; some of you undoubtedly remember Miss
Margaret Pitts and her devotion to this library; many of the items displayed
here today you were purchased with her gifts.
To celebrate this event, we have designated two items to highlight:
1. The 100,000th piece is a volume of the works of Frederick George Lee (1832-1902),
an Anglican priest who vigorously supported the Oxford Movement and promoted
the reunion of the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches; he finally followed
Newman, Manning, and others who left the Church of England, and he became a
Catholic himself in 1901. The surprise inside is that it's not one book, but
24 printed items and another 4 manuscript pieces. Most of these 24 items cannot
be found at any other American library, and they were purchased as a collection
from Mr. Brian Carter and is a part of the library's English Religious History
Collection, which has been developed to help researchers understand the context
for Wesley and early English Methodists.
2. The 100,001st volume is the second edition of John & Charles Wesley's
Hymns on the Lord's Supper, printed in Bristol in 1747. This beautifully-bound
collection of 166 hymns is part of the library's Wesleyana Collection, which
was established when the library itself began about 1915. According to the
largest library database in North America, this work is held by only 3 other
American libraries: the theology libraries of Duke, Drew, & SMU.
Since Special Collections are shelved in a restricted area, we have brought out some other items so that you can see something of the breadth and depth of these materials: early printed Bibles from the 15th-17th centuries; representatives of the Kessler Reformation Collection; additional items from the Wesleyana and English Religious History Collections; a nice selection of early hymnals and psalters; manuscript examples from the Fred Pratt Green and Henry Edward Cardinal Manning papers; and items from the Thomas Merton Collection.
The purpose of Special Collections at Pitts is not to constitute a museum of items to be carefully guarded and kept from human hands. Rather its mission is to:
1. Nurture and support research and theological education (last year over
1,900 Special Collection items were pulled for researchers, exhibits, digitization,
or other needs; and staff made 48 group presentations to nearly 1,000 persons,
typically using these materials); all that to say, Pitts' Special Collections
are an integral part of the library's mission for Candler and the University;
2. Ensure that future generations have access to the finest expressions of
the Christian faith and heritage; these collections have been built carefully
and with strategic purpose, targeting the Protestant Reformation in Germany,
the development of the Christian Church in England since 1660 (an important
part of which is the rise and flowering of Methodism), Christian hymnody, etc.
Since no one has the resources to collect everything, we collaborate with other
theological libraries and seek to develop research collections of great depth
in specific areas that are critical to the history of the Christian faith and
that complement the holdings of peer libraries; and
3. Remind the church and its leaders of their heritage-the noble sacrifices
and achievements of past generations, as well as the records of their missteps
and failures; "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it." (George Santayana [1863-1952], U.S. philosopher, poet.)
This is a grand enterprise and we are all partners in it. I will close with three points:
* About 30 years ago, my predecessor, Professor Emeritus Channing R. Jeschke
interviewed with the Candler faculty for the post of Librarian. The seminary
library held about 90,000 volumes, and he asked them what kind of library they
wanted. Someone in the group said immediately, "A library like that of
Yale Divinity School!" Jeschke accepted the post and the challenge, and
within five years a string of moving vans were bringing 220,000 volumes from
the Hartford Seminary to Atlanta. In my judgment Jeschke was more than successful,
leaving Emory after 23 years of devoted service with a theology library that
was larger than that of the Yale Divinity School.
* Earlier this week a colleague told me that a librarian at Princeton had commented
that Pitts had the finest staff of American theological libraries, and she
asked me what I thought of that. I said "I'd have to agree!" The
Pitts Library staff is not the largest, but I'd have to say, it is the best.
And I am honored to be the colleague of such a well-trained, highly motivated,
intelligent, and creative group of people.
* Finally, early Thursday morning I opened by email to find a note with the
results of a survey of American doctoral students, in which they ranked their
doctoral programs. I'm pleased to report that the survey awarded Emory second
place-tied with the UC Santa Barbara-ahead of many other illustrious institutions.
I mention this not to argue that Emory is superior to other schools for the
study of theology but to affirm what you surely know already: the study of
theology is taken seriously at Emory and it is taught well here. Such a place
surely deserves a great theological library.