The Harvard College Library and Its Users, 1762-1764: Reassessing the Relevance of Colonial American College Libraries

Did colonial college libraries, in fact, 'be' and not 'mean,' that is, were they little used and largely irrelevant to the colleges' educational mission? Previous discussions of library use have been based almost exclusively upon indirect evidence, such as which books were available for borrowing, library regulations, anecdotal accounts, and records of private libraries owned by faculty and students, which presumably provided what college libraries did not. Surprisingly, the one extant set of pre-Revolutionary college library loan records-those for the Harvard College Library covering the period from August 1762 to January 1764 and continuing largely unbroken from 1766 to 1897-have remained virtually unnoticed and unstudied. This essay analyzes a small subset-for the academic years 1762-63 and 1763-64, immediately preceding the devastating fire that destroyed more than 80 percent of the library—recording 1,164 loans to students, faculty, and outside borrowers. The data paint an exceptionally detailed picture of library use, affording us a much deeper understanding of what the Harvard College Library meant to its clientele.