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1 small leaf (137 x 201 mm) written on wove paper, top and left edges straight, right and bottom cleanly torn (from another leaf?). Evidence of four folds which once created a small pocket-sized square (65 x 72 mm). Some even toning, in very good condition. "THE COLLEGE LIBRARY CONTAINS." So begins the 12-line list of books handwritten by John L. Sibley, Harvard College Librarian, to a reference request submitted by an unknown (Boston?) inquirer. The list was compiled on June 22, 1844 and provides holdings information for multi-volume sets of reports issued by Boston charitable institutions. Most of the College Library's sets appear to be incomplete (!) as is attested by the non-sequential volume numbers and/or dates of publication. Sample entries include: Boston Seaman's Aid Society Reports 1,2 4 to 12, 13 [-----] Port Society Repts 3d, 7th, 15th [-----] Seaman's Friend Society Jan 11, 1832, May 29, 1844, May 28, 1845 [-----] Lunatic Asylum July 1, 1842 and 1845 [-----] Mercantile Library Association Report 24 [-----] Infant School 1, 7 [-----] Fatherless and Widows Society Rep 24 [-----] Town and City Accounts & Expenditures 7th, 9th-22d, 24 to 33 [-----] Athenaeum [indeterminate] 1, 3 to 9, 11 to 16, 18, 19 & 2d of Sculpture. While unsigned, the handwriting on our manuscript leaf is identical to a 2-page letter from Sibley to Maria Weston Chapman (Feb. 2, 1844) regarding "the history of your antique books" (now Boston Public Library; see a reproduction of page 1 on our website which is provided for reference purposes only). A previous owner of our MS leaf has also written: "Autograph of John L. Sibley, Librarian of Harvard." Sibley (1804-1885) was Harvard's longest serving librarian, who in addition to his full-time duties in the College library, wrote and edited many works of permanent reference. He started working in the library as an undergraduate; by 1825 he was assistant librarian in the Harvard Divinity School. He was appointed Librarian of Harvard College in 1856, a post which post he held for twenty-one years, until 1877, when, owing to his age and the failure of his sight, he was retired from active work, and made librarian emeritus. "Owing to his persistent requests for all kinds of printed matter, and his earnest appeals for pecuniary aid, the number of volumes increased from 41,000 in 1841 to 164,000 volumes, and almost as many pamphlets, in 1877, and its permanent fund from $5,000 to $170,000 in the same period. [.] His last and greatest work, upon which he had spent nearly forty years of constant research and unremitting labor, is his Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University" (3 vols., 1873-1875), still indispensable. (SOURCE: Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography). SIBLEY MANUSCRIPTS ARE RARE ON THE MARKET: exactly zero have been traced by the editors of Rare Book Hub, which currently lists more than 14 million records in the Rare Book Transaction Database.
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