Treasure Room in College Library

In the new addition to the College Library, on the second floor, and adjoining the general reading-room, is a large room which will be known as the Treasure Room. Here will eventually be collected all the rare books and many of the manuscripts of the Library,--everything which, on account of its rarity or value, has to be kept under lock and key and ought to be used under proper supervision. The room not yet being occupied for this purpose, there will be exhibited here for the next three weeks, a collection of memories of John Harvard and his contemporaries. This collection includes portraits, autographs, and books, beside early maps and views of London and Cambridge, and modern views of places connected with Harvard's memory. There is also placed here, a collection of books duplicating, so far as possible, those which Harvard bequeathed to the infant College and which were burnt in the fire of 1764. The collection is by no means complete, but it is sufficiently extensive to give a good idea of the character of the library owned by the young Puritan clergyman. In looking at these books, which are now old and dilapidated, it must be borne in mind that the greater part of them were recently published works in Harvard's time, and that his library, while containing a good many classics and older works, was, on the whole, an up-to-date library, comprising for the most part contemporary authors.

The room will be open during the next three weeks from 2 to 5.30 o'clock, and may be entered by students from the general reading-room, and by other persons, on application at the delivery desk, through the staircase in the bookstack.

When the books which it is intended to places in this room are finally installed, it will not be possible to regard the room as an exhibition room, except perhaps on certain days and at certain hours. At other times, its quiet must be protected, so that it may fulfill its purpose as a reading-room for those who have occasion to consult the books shelved there.