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Boston libraries and rare-book collections
July 11, 2007

On a recent Independence-Day jaunt in Boston, I was happily surprised to find two libraries listed in a very helpful little guidebook, Fodor's Boston's 25 Best, which offers essential things to do during a short stay. 

On its recommendation, I popped into the Boston Athenaeum, a proclaimed "library and cultural center for

Francisco de Goya's Los caprichos at the Boston Athenaeum

members and scholars." Only the first floor is open to the public. It's a beautiful building, and there is art and some exciting rare books on display, including a published pamphlet of Phillis Wheatley's first poem, Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," and a very old raised map, a failed precursor to Louis Braille's system for the blind. It's a good place for those looking to invest in a cultural institution—they even serve afternoon tea on Wednesdays for members and their guests—but I can't recommend it as a comfortable place to visit for nonmembers or at least those in jeans and shamelessly playing the tourist game (that was me, and the desk clerk who handed me a list of rules may well have been seeing a woman with 8 heads).

Don't get me wrong: I love rare books. I started my own baby collection, and my one investment is a deathbed edition (1892) of Whitman's Leaves of Grass. My favorite collection is in The British Library. They have the

Inside the Boston P.L.

Magna Carta and Shakespeare's First Folio! But, as Ellen Madigan notes of the place in our Student Affairs blog, "White gloves and pencils only was the rule."

I did get a welcoming, casual vibe from the equally beautiful Boston Public Library, another of Fodor's recommended visits, which boasts some of its own exciting collections (and a cafe and a courtyard).  I particularly enjoyed their miniature books exhibit—the exhibition's catalog is reviewed in our current issue—which includes a tiny book from Franklin D. Roosevelt's collection of miniatures and one that traveled to the moon and back.

Posted by Anna Katterjohn on July 11, 2007 | Comments (2)