538 JOHN LANGDON SIBLEY. 



ican Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge," patterned 

 from the then very popular London Penny Magazine. 



In 1841, on the removal of the College Library to Gore Hall, the 

 office of Assistant Librarian was revived, and Mr. Sibley was ap- 

 pointed to fill it. In 1856, he succeeded Dr. Harris as Librarian in 

 chief, and continued to discharge the duties of that office till 1877, 

 when he retired from active service, on account of age and infirmity, 

 retaining for the remainder of his life his official title with the prefix 

 of Emeritus. During his administration, and in great part through his 

 efforts and influence, the titles in the Catalogue of the Library, and the 

 funds available for the purchase of books, were fully quadrupled. 



Mr. Sibley edited ten successive Triennial Catalogues of the Col- 

 lege, commencing with 1842, and a comparison of the Catalogue of 

 1839 with that of 1881 will show what a vast amount of fruitful labor 

 was expended equally in improved method and in accuracy and ful- 

 ness of detail. From 1850 to 1870 he edited the Annual Catalogue, 

 and from 1870 to 1885 he prepared the annual Harvard Necrology, 

 in these services manifesting the thoroughness and minute fidelity 

 which with him were a matter of conscience fully as much as of habit. 



Mr. Sibley was remarkable equally for his rigid simplicity and close 

 economy in his own personal habits and expenses, and for the readiness 

 and breadth of his charity. He had given more than thirteen thou- 

 sand dollars to Phillips Exeter Academy, when the amount of these 

 gifts considerably exceeded his remaining property. He was a bene- 

 factor, to a considerable amount, of Bowdoin College, of the Society 

 for Preventing Cruelty to Animals, and of the Cambridge Hospital. 

 At the same time, his private charities were not few or small, yet 

 would undoubtedly have been larger, had he been aware of the extent 

 to which for the last twenty years of his life his property had in- 

 creased by the provident care and skilful investments of a friend, into 

 whose hands he put what remained to him after his last Exeter bene- 

 faction. His was the singular case of a man who supposed himself 

 possessed of less than half of the property which was actually his. 



Mr. Sibley's working power, though impaired by illness and by 

 partial loss of eyesight, continued until a few months before his death, 

 which occurred on the 9th of December, 1885. 



Besides articles in periodicals and contributions to the Proceedings 

 of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Mr. Sibley's publications 

 were, — 



1. A History of the Town of Union, 12mo, 1851, pp. xii. 540. 



2. Notices of the Triennial and Annual Catalogues of Harvard 



