Historical Review

That the Syrian Protestant College owned a Library when it was established in 1866 is borne out by two resolutions taken by the Board of Managers on April 14 of that year to the effect that the Librarian arrange the books, prepare a catalogue, and report by-laws for the "regulation of a Library" at the next annual meeting; and that the Librarian be authorized to place in the Library Arabic books of the Jam'yyah Suriyyah deposited for safekeeping by Dr. [William M.] Thompson who had charge of them. In 1868-69, President of the Board of Trustees, the Honourable William A. Booth, sent $ 200 for the purchase of Arabic books and Dr. C. Van Dyck reported that his first acquisition was an English translation of the "Book of Songs" by Asfahani in ten volumes.

Furthermore, in 1869 the same Rev. William Booth donated $ 1000 for a fund "for publishing books.. greatly needed to enable the Faculty of the College to provide suitable books for the use of the Professors and students" which he proposed to name the Theodore Publishing Fund. And in 1872 the Faculty voted to place in the College Library a copy of all works published by the Theodore Fund.

In January 1871 President Daniel Bliss and Dr. John Wortabet appointed a committee to consider establishing a reading room, and it was arranged to have a table in Lewan Hall of College with files of newspapers and scientific journals. At the same time George E. Post (see al-Kulfiyah, Autumn Issue 1988, pp 3-6) reported the accession of a number of publications of the Egyptian Medical School and, in 1873, Dr. D.S. Dodge added 50 volumes of valuable books to the Library.

In the early 1870s the Faculty Minutes are filled with business relating to the publication of books under the Theodore Fund. "Individual professors report on books under way; they recommend books for publication they examine other books; they send books to Egypt, India and Turkey for sale in those countries; they discuss advertising, remunerate translators, and set prices, and they compensate authors and discuss copyrights,"

Thus when the College moved to its permanent home in the Main Building at the start of the 1873-74 academic year, it had a substantial nucleus for a library which was augmented regularly and generously as the list of donors illustrates. The chief treasure at that time, however, was an ancient Syriac manuscript of the New Testament, originally obtained for the library by Dr. Daniel Bliss. In 1876 it had been "examined by the Librarian [Prof. Isaac Hall] and found to be a most valuable Codex of the 9th C in which opinion he is confirmed by the judgement of one of the most eminent experts in Europe, the Custodian of the most ancient known Syriac Biblical Manuscripts." The Manuscript became known as the Beirut Codex and "the Gospels are of the Philistine or Hebrew version; the remainder is Peshita... In the Gospels portion, it corrects several unaccountable readings in the printed Editions, and supplies some missing portions. "

Prof. Harvey Porter, who had been with the College since 1870 and taught a wide range of subjects, was appointed College Librarian in 1880. He drew up Library by-laws which he modeled along the lines of the rules of American College libraries and was instrumental in establishing a library fund for the purchase year by year of books necessary for teachers and students to consult.

Up to that time, students and faculty also profited by having access to the library of the Presbyterian Mission Theological School which was located , in the building later named Morris K. Jessup Hall when purchased by the College in 1897. For a period of ten years af ter that date, the Theological School library was moved to the College Library and was administered by its staff.

From his early days as Librarian Dr. Porter worked towards establishing a library fund and appealed to the Board of Managers for assistance in realizing that objective. The first response he got was from Dr. Post who wrote on July 11, 1883, "I beg that you will accept the sum of £100 from me as the nucleus of a library fund to be invested and the interest applied to the Library..."

The Board of Managers gratefully accepted the gift and went further by requesting the Board of Trustees to permit them to transfer to the Library Fund from assets of the Theodore Publication Fund the sum of £360.

At its meeting on November 23, 1886, the Faculty appointed Dr. Bliss and Dr. Post as a committee to prepare plans and estimates "for a building to be erected at the expense of the Library Fund as an investment."

The building on Bliss Street known as the "Annex" was eventually put up which has since housed commercial establishments on the ground floor and, in its early years, quarters for the University's servants on the floor above. The income from this building went into the Library Fund until some time between the beginning of World War I and the year 1922.

In 1891 the physical expansion of the library dictated an increase in personnel and the position of Assistant Librarian was created with the appointment of Shukri Malouf, BA 1891, who remained in the post until he joined the School of Medicine in 1900. He was succeeded by Shukri Kassab until 1910. Both Maluf and Kassab were rewarded for their dedication, the first by being promoted to the rank of Adjunct Professor, and the second by being granted an Honorary MA degree.

In the early nineties, Dr. Porter devised a simple new system for cataloguing the library collection which was adequate until the collection really began to grow. When Dr. Charles Lyman Carhart succeeded him in 1910 he recatalogued the collection according to the Library of Congress system of classification. Dr. Carhart who was married to the daughter of Dr. George E. Post of the Medical Faculty remained in charge of the Library until 1912.

During their tenure, the Assistant Librarians Malouf and Kassab performed practically all the duties of the librarian while the University Librarian continued to shape library policy and represent the Library before the faculty. Stack privileges were granted to the students in 1907.

After Carhart's resignation in 1912 Dr. Porter returned as Acting Librarian with Mulhim Bitar, BA '08, who had been appointed the previous year, acting as his Assistant. Bitar held the post for 43 years, the longest term ever served by any staff member in the history of the Library.

In 1916 Dr. Porter was replaced by Prof. Harold H. Nelson who served as Acting Librarian throughout World War I under a loose arrangement which placed the work and responsibility of the Library in the hands of the Assistant Librarian. This was during a period when the Turkish Government maintained a strict censorship and Bitar devised ingenious ways of hiding suspicious books from the eyes of a supposed professor of Turkish language and history whose real task it was to censor books uncomplimentary to the Turkish regime.

In 1919, Mrs. Emma Nickoley, wife of Prof. Edward Nickoley, was appointed to succeed Carhart. She was the first of the College Librarians to have had any formal training in Library Science. She reorganized the library on a scientific basis and, with the assistance of Mulhim Bitar, recatalogued the collection according to the Dewey Decimal System of classification. She also proceeded to establish close links with the Library Committee which was first organized in 1903 as a selection and purchasing committee, and reactivated in 1920. In 1924 the Constitution of the Library was revised to increase to a great degree the Committee's duties, making it responsible for the overall administration of the Library.

As the recataloguing proceeded, Mrs. Nickoley made more space for the crowded library by transferring books on specialized subjects to the departmental libraries, though the branch libraries were not set up in their own right until a later date. The Medical Library was the first to become independent when it moved permanently to Van Dyck Hall in 1925, after having been shuttled back and forth between the main library and the medical department.

When the cataloguing was over, Mrs. Nickoley retired at the end of the 1924-25 academic year.

In 1924 Mulhim Bitar was promoted to permanent status in the University organization and at the same time became the first librarian of Arabic publications. It was he who organized the cataloguing in accordance with the Dewey Decimal System thus helping AUB to have the first library in the Arab World to adopt modern methods in recording and arranging its Arabic section. He remained with the Library until 1954.

In the summer of 1925 Mr. Jibran Bikhazi was appointed Assistant Librarian and retained the post until 1970. He was also made responsible for Circulation and later became cataloguer of both Arabic and Western language publications. In 1950 he became Head of Acquisitions for Arabic and Western materials, and later for Arabic only.

Mrs. Edith Laird, a Canadian, became the first University Librarian to have graduated from a school of Library Science. During her administration from 1926 until 1951 the Graduate Studies Program was started and the increasing number of departments and schools placed a heavy strain on the Library's resources. She was looked upon as the First Lady of the Library and was much loved and respected. In 1951 she stepped down voluntarily to make room for newer blood to take over the Jafet Library, but she continued to serve as Head Cataloguer of Western books.

When the Library was moved to the Jafet Memorial building in 1951-52 it comprised 73,000 volumes and David Wilder was appointed Head Librarian. He supervised the transfer of the Library's collections, records and catalogues to the new building then started the reorganization of the Library's administration. When he was replaced by Christopher Legge in 1954 the Library was functioning in a modern, up-to-date and smooth manner. Mr. Legge continued his predecessor's work and encouraged cultural activities to take place under the auspices of the Library. He started the Student Library Music Committee which organized open air concerts outside the building, and helped popularize art exhibits which went on for many years.

By the time Francis Kent took over as Head Librarian in 1957 the need for expansion was becoming evident. Apart from the need for building and collection expansion, Kent projected the establishment of a school of Librarianship. One of his main goals was also to reestablish on Library premises a Middle East Center containing books, government documents and statistics and other material relating to Arab Studies and such sections as economics, education, political studies, public administration and sociology as relate specifically to the Near East so as to attract foreign scholars to AUB and to act as a point of departure for more advanced graduate studies.

In 1959 the building was enlarged to accommodate 700 readers and about 400,000 volumes. Kent placed the total collection of all libraries in February 1971 at 330,000 volumes and 4,700 current periodicals "Some 20,000 volumes are now being added annually," he wrote in February 1971. Francis Kent retired in 1973 and was succeeded by Ritchie Thomas Associate Librarian from 1967 until 1973 - as University Librarian until 1975. Yusuf Khuri, BA '54, MA '66, PhD '70, was put in charge of the Library in 1975, then appointed Acting University Librarian in 1976 and finally, in 1977, he was the first Arab to be appointed University Librarian. His dream was to enlarge the Library so that it would not only be adequate in all fields but also second to none in Middle Eastern Affairs. In 1967 he had started to edit and supervise alWatha'eq al 'Arabyyah which were published under the name of the Jafet Library and which were compilations - about 800 pages per year - of documents related to the Arab World. He also indexed manuscripts by title, author, number of pages, type of paper and type of script as well as by size, colophone, end and citation and dedicated his work, entitled al-Makhtootat al'Arabyyah alMawjoodah fi alJami'ah alAmerikyyah, to his Professor Nabih Fares whom he remembers for the praise which has become his motto, "well done, good and faithful servant."

After Khuri's resignation in 1981 Mrs. Helen Bikhazi was appointed Acting Librarian until 1983 when Mr. Samuel Fustukjian became University Librarian from 1 February until 31 December of that same year. She returned as Acting Librarian from January 1984 until October 1984. Miss Leila Freije, who had been with the University Library since 1952, succeeded Mrs. Bikhazi as Acting Librarian until September 1987, when the latter was appointed University Librarian and still holds the post to date.

From a collection of 2000 volumes and a staff of one the Library has grown to about half a million volumes and a staff of seventy , seven of whom are professional librarians. To write about them all and do their services justice would take volumes.

The most important library in Lebanon, it was one of the founding members of the Lebanese Library Association in the persons of Jibran Bikhazi and Fawzi Abu Haidar, and still has members on the Executive Board. It has served as a guide and a pilot for other university libraries in the country and has rendered innumerable services in the field of training with summer institutes that continued into the mid-seventies, and with donations of discarded books. It has set an example in librarianship in the country, established solid standards and coordinated as a central agency for all libraries. After the havoc wreaked during the fourteen years of war, it has become a depository for the country and authors often resort to it for the only remaining copy of their works and, in some cases, their theses.

Its special collections of archives, manuscripts, private papers, photographs, posters, AUB memorabilia, etc... are priceless, and many of the items are unique. It also has a growing audio-visual section with a wide spectrum of microforms in all formats covering all possible topics.

Two major challenges now face the AUB libraries and a highly motivated staff is working to realize their implementation. The first is the rehabilitation and remodeling of Jafet Library to provide a significant increase in reading space and stacks, the second is the automation of all Libraries which process has already been started at the Medical Library.

The physical expansion is now under way and so long as the dreams are alive all is well at the AUB Library.