4 I THE LIBRARY AND PUBLICATIONS 



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77 



Creationism attracted attention again a few years ago with a lecture series 

 on science and religion and a recent speaker who asserted that no honest 

 scientist can possibly be religious. And numerous books about science and 

 religion continue to appear on the library shelves. 



The first year, the MBL Library began as a handful of books in the back 

 corner of the downstairs general laboratory room. By the second year, a 

 healthy collection of 343 volumes occupied the library corner. Over the next 

 years, Cornelia Clapp served as librarian for the slowly expanding collection 

 that moved from corner to corner in search of suflRcient space. During the 

 crisis of 1897, the trustees ordered Whitman to stop spending money. 

 Notwithstanding the injunction, he asked Clapp to continue ordering jour- 

 nals. The trustees then informed her that she could pay for them all herself. 

 With that in mind, Clapp nonetheless did order the volumes, which were, in 

 fact, paid for. Yet the uncertainty illustrates the tenuous basis of the MBL in 

 its earliest years and the scientists' commitment to maintaining that library 

 as a vital organ essential to the life of the MBL. 



In 1914 the MBL hired an official assistant to the librarian for the first 

 time, when the library moved into more substantial, fire-protected sur- 



The library stacks when 

 they were in Crane 217 

 before Lillie was built in 

 1924. MBL Archives. 



