Guard Staves Off Crashers

Elevator operators have their ups and downs, but Leo Shean, night watchman at Lamont for the last year and a half, has had a never-ending struggle to protect the library from the curious. It's been a real challenge.

"A half dozen students came in tuxedoes one morning at 1 a.m. and said they were invited to a 'private' opening; I didn't let them in," Shean revealed as he ended his final stint last night. "The only outsider that's gotten past me during construction was a small gray kitten, but I've had some pretty close calls."

There was the time two nattily dressed fellows with cameras showed up early in the evening with a letter "written" and "signed" by President Conant authorizing them to look over Lamont. "I had to check with a half-dozen people before it was proved a fraud," Shean explained.

"You fellows sure went to a lot of trouble," he claims. "I can't figure out why so many were so eager to beat this morning's opening." Over 100 assorted people have at one time or another tried to make it past the front door in the last few months.

"A couple of students showed me a telegram supposedly from Senator Saltonstall. It identified them as members of a special committee to compare Lamont with the Congressional Library in Washington." Shean states simply that "they didn't make it."

But it wasn't just students that bothered Lamont's watchdog. A very distinguished professor, cane under his arm and camel's hair coat over a business suit, showed up at 11:30 one night. He explained that he was so busy in the day-time that he hadn't had a chance to look over the library until just then.

"Nobody got in, buddy--but nobody," says Shean to make a long story short