Welcome to Iron and Glass
by Nick Dease on 2020-01-14T23:48:00-05:00 in Library Collections, Special Collections | 0 Comments
Post contributed by Johanna Bauman, Head of Digital and Special Collections at Pratt Institute Libraries.
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Pratt Institute Libraries’ new blog “Iron and Glass.” The name was inspired by the glass-block flooring and beautifully designed iron railings, shelf supports, and balusters that grace the stacks, a signature feature of our building which was opened to the public in 1896. It was designed by the Pratt Family’s favorite architect William Tubby (1858-1944) and artfully decorated throughout by the Tiffany and Glass Decorating Company. In the issue of the Pratt Institute Monthly devoted to the history and opening of the Pratt Institute Free Library’s new building, the stacks are praised for their innovative use of ventilation, lighting, oak wood shelving, and the capacity to house 200,000 volumes. (Pratt Institute Monthly Vol. 4, No. 10 (June 1896): 298-299.) What once were considered positive features, such as the ventilation spaces below the rows of shelves and the copious amount of sunlight that shines in through the windows, today pose unique challenges for staff, patrons and collections, but still the stacks are beloved by all for their beauty and charm. For this reason we thought it would be fitting to name our blog with the stacks in mind, and upon reflection realized that its physical features served as the perfect metaphor for our goals for this blog: to bring to light, make transparent, and reveal hidden, new, and surprising items in our collections, with a particular emphasis on materials in Special Collections and Archives.
View of glass floors and ironwork in the stacks
View of the library stacks and the former circulation desk soon after the opening of the Library in 1896
The idea for this blog project began when I assumed the role of Head of Special Collections in 2018 and began to research the provenance of items in our collection. I was delighted to find that I was able to glean information about some of the materials I was discovering in such historical publications as the Pratt Institute Monthlies, as well as the Pratt Institute Free Library’s Annual Reports, Monthly Bulletins, Quarterly Booklists, and the like. These publications, hard copies of which are housed in the Pratt Institute Archives and many of which have been digitized and made available through the Hathi Trust, ceased being created with any regularity by the early 1940s, and I have been stymied in my ongoing research by the lack of similar evidence for the long stretch of time between then and now.
Pratt Institute Monthly cover from 1892 and title page spread of the Report of the Pratt Institute Free Library, 1914
What was unanticipated but just as exciting is that in addition to being able to trace back the acquisition of this or that cookery book or the gifting of important items in our collection, these publications revealed the voices of the librarians whose job it was to acquire, manage, prepare and make available the library’s collections. The contributions of Laura Palmer, for example, who served as the Head of the Art Reference Department from 1896 until her retirement in 1925 revealed charming descriptions of the reading room she managed and the processing of items in the photograph collection:
A visitor to the Art Reference Room at the close of a busy day could have no doubt as to the usefulness of the photograph library. Sometimes it seems as if a volcanic upheaval had taken place beneath the wide shelves, burying them in pictures of almost everything in the realm of art-creation...One who has not seen the process of mounting, labelling and cataloguing these photographs, can have no idea of the time, study, and labor involved; but although long, like art, it is well repaid by the success of the undertaking. (Pratt Institute Monthly Vol. 6, No. 3 (December 1897): 87-88)
Somewhat surprisingly, Miss Palmer (as she is referred to throughout these publications) enhanced her fact-based, dry accounting of items acquired and circulated with passages that give you insight not only into her labor, but her personality as well. This was not what I was I expecting to find in publications called reports, bulletins, and annuals; it sounded more like something you might read in a 21st century blog.
Laura Palmer (circled) in a detail of a group photo of the Library Faculty from the 1915 Pratt Annual
View of the Art Reference Room from 1896 shortly after the opening of the building
In “Iron and Glass” our aim is not to replicate the purpose of published annual reports and bulletins or to preserve a comprehensive history of the Pratt Institute Libraries’ collections and acquisition practices. We will, however, seek to contribute to an understanding of the development of our collections for posterity, while at the same time capturing the voices of those of us who engage with these collections on a daily basis; the people without whose labor and care they could not be preserved and maintained. To that end, we look forward to featuring new posts every two to three weeks during the regular fall and spring semesters covering such topics as new acquisitions, recently processed and donated archival collections, as well as unearthing unique and seldom seen items. The posts will be authored by library staff and graduate assistants with an eye toward making visible and transparent the works and the work that contribute to the Libraries’ meaning and mission, and we hope that our efforts, in Miss Palmer’s words, are “well repaid by the success of the undertaking.”
-- Johanna Bauman, Head of Digital and Special Collections, Pratt Institute Libraries
Look for our upcoming post by Elizabeth Kobert, Archives GA describing her archives projects from the fall 2019 semester.
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