Bond Named to Head Houghton Collection

William H. Bond, lecturer on Bibliography and Curator of Manuscripts, is the new Librarian of the Houghton Library of rare books and manuscripts.

Bond has served as Acting Librarian since the death in October of William A. Jackson, Houghton's first Librarian. He intends to follow "exactly the same lines" as his predecessor, he said yesterday.

Jackson helped plan the Library and was largely responsible for its development as a center for research in history and literature since its founding in 1942.

Pre-1640 Books

Houghton Library has "existing strengths in many fields," Bond said yesterday, including New England authors and one of the largest collections of English books printed before 1640 in the country. It is the University's policy to concentrate on developing these strengths, he added.

As a graduate student at Harvard, Bond catalogued the private collection of Arthur A. Houghton Jr. '29 who donated both the present building and the Keats collection for which the Library is most famous. He received a Ph.D. in English Philology from Harvard in 1941.

Bond sees his major responsibility as "developing and conserving the collection--making sure that in 900 years nothing will have been lost." Houghton Library pioneered in developing methods of preserving rare books, and the stacks are kept at constant temperature and humidity.

Crowded Reading Room

Bond commented on the growing importance of the Library to the undergraduate community, as more and more students use the collection for primary source material. Bond noted with pleasure that "our reading room is more crowded all the time."