A Bookish Anniversary
July 1, 2020 will be the 160th anniversary of the birth of one of Brown University’s great librarians, Harry Lyman Koopman (1860–1937). Oddly enough, on July 1, 1930 (his seventieth birthday), a tribute marking his retirement appeared in the Providence Journal.
Born in Maine the son of a Swedish cabinet-maker and a graduate of Colby College, Koopman’s first ten years as a librarian were spent in cataloging positions at the Astor Library in New York and the university libraries of Cornell (1883), Columbia (1884), Rutgers (1885), and Vermont (1886–92). In Burlington he distinguished himself by compiling the catalog the library of George Perkins Marsh, diplomat and philologist, who gave his collection to the University of Vermont. Koopman then achieved a Harvard M.A. and took the position at Brown.
In later years he was an outspoken enemy of banning books—although in those days they were banning authors like Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac and Boccaccio—how our ideas of scandalous material have changed!
The man who wrote the tribute was William E. Foster, who will be the subject of another issue. Koopman and Foster had been colleagues for decades, and both retired in 1930.
The tribute is here faithfully transcribed from page 12 of the July 1, 1930 issue of the Providence Journal.
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The Retirement of Dr. Koopman
A Tribute from William E. Foster, Librarian Emeritus of the Providence Public Library
It is a long and influential term of service that Dr. Harry Lyman Koopman has just brought to a close in his retirement from the position of Librarian of Brown University. He now becomes Librarian Emeritus.
It is a distinguished record of service which Dr. Koopman leaves behind him, retiring as he does, at the University’s specified limit of 70 years of age, and after 37 years of service in this position. He has seen the Brown University Library expand from a collection of 80,000 volumes in 1893 (the year in which he took charge), to its present total of about 425,000 volumes. This latter figure includes not merely the central, or main, library (housed in the John Hay Library building), but all the various department libraries included in the entire “Brown University Library” system.
But it is much more than an increase in numbers that Dr. Koopman’s efforts have brought about. The period in question has been, very definitely, one of enrichment as well as enlargement. This is perhaps most strikingly shown in the “Special Collections” which have conferred so great a distinction on the Brown University Library. There are eleven of these; and, without enumerating them all, mention may well be made at this time of the extraordinarily rare and valuable McLellan Collection on Abraham Lincoln, the Hoffman Napoleon Collection, housed in a specially fitted room; the Chambers Dante Collection, and the Wheaton Collection on International Law. There was one collection which the Brown University already possessed when Dr. Koopman took charge in 1893, and only one. This was the Harris Collection of American Poetry; and even this collection owes to Dr. Koopman’s efforts an additional aid, which has enormously increased its value, and especially its comprehensiveness. It was in 1914 that Dr. Koopman succeeded in inducing the Library of Congress to turn over, from time to time, to the Brown University Library (for inclusion in this poetry collection), one copy of every copyrighted volume of American poetry. In these sixteen years, upwards of 16,000 volumes have been received from this source. It will be easily seen how much this factor of increase has meant, in placing this important collection in a position where it has no rival.
Under Dr. Koopman’s policy of generously cooperating with the various departments, the “department libraries” at Brown University have multiplied until now there are 20 of them. One of them, that of the Department of Economics, now has a total of about 16,000 volumes. In connection with the modern methods of university study, the department library is of essential importance.
In 1908, Dr. Koopman was made a member of the faculty of Brown University, as Professor of Bibliography. He at once developed some very successful measures for introducing each undergraduate not only to the resources of the Library, but also to the methods of most effectively using any given library.
In all these years, Dr. Koopman has found one of his chief sources of pleasure in the training of library assistants, and the subsequent careers of some of these young men are decidedly noteworthy. Among them is Joseph L. Wheeler the head of the Public Library of Baltimore, and one of the most effectively active of present-day library leaders. There are also Clarence S. Brigham, who occupies one of them most responsible library positions in the United States, as Librarian of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester; and also Herbert O. Brigham, who has for many years been at the head of the Rhode Island State Library.
As might be expected from Dr. Koopman’s wide sympathies, the other libraries of Providence, and indeed of Rhode Island, have felt the beneficent results of his efforts. He served as President of the Rhode Island Library Association from 1904 to 1907. In a wider field, he served as President of the American Library Institute in 1928–29. He holds degres from Harvard University and Colby College, one of the latter being the degree of Litt.D., conferred in 1908.
There is a field of knowledge and research which is not indeed identical with the field of library management and yet closely related. This is the fascinating field of Printing, and, by his studies of many years, Dr. Koopman has so broadened and deepened his knowledge of the subject that he has become a recognized authority in the field. He has for years been a valued member of the Boston Society of Printers, and his communications to the various journals devoted to printing have been noteworthy and of permanent value.
From the first, Dr. Koopman has been active with his pen, as well as his voice. He has nearly a dozen volumes to his credit; and several of these are volumes of poetry, for which he has an unusual gift. There are, however, two books in particular, which, written in prose, not only show graces of style, but are pretty certain to gain the interested attention of the intelligent reader. These are “The Mastery of Books,” published in 1896, and “The Book Lover and His Books,” published in 1917. These same graces of style are very much in evidence in some of the editorial articles which, in these last few years, Dr. Koopman has contributed to the pages of the Providence Journal. It may perhaps serve to “take off the edge,” so to speak, of the regret caused by his retirement from his library post, that he will still speak to us in the pages of a newspaper. It has been announced that at Dr. Koopman’s completion of his service at the Library, he will join the regular staff of the Providence Journal.
Through the pages of the Journal Dr. Koopman’s friends (and they are legion), may still feel that they are listening to his voice. Long may he continue, in the enjoyment of unimpaired health and strength, to devote himself to these congenital pursuits.
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Of the books Foster mentions, The Book Lover and His Books will be of most interest to JRBS members. It is available to read freely online (Google Books), and copies of this handsome book are relatively inexpensive.
Rick Ring, President
The John Russell Bartlett Society
Celebrating our 37th year of promoting book culture
http://www.jrbs.org/
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