University of Virginia Library

2. PRESIDENT ALDERMAN

It can readily be seen that the years immediately following
the Rotunda fire were strikingly different from the
years which immediately preceded. That the first President
of the University dates from 1904 is a manifestation of the
change. The intensified administrative activities following
1895 made it increasingly evident that an organization with
dual authority was placing heavy strain on both the Board
of Visitors and the Faculty, and that some of the powers
entrusted to each body could be performed more effectively
if transferred to a single officer who would be in residence
and who would not be engaged in instruction. This did
not mean that either the Visitors or the Faculty had failed.
The current Board of Visitors was a distinguished and a
loyal body, and the Faculty had just given an unsurpassed
demonstration of vigor and wise leadership. That each body
was now willing to surrender some of its powers was not
proof of insolvency, but rather of a notable spirit of courageous
enterprise.

It was therefore under favorable auspices that Edwin
Anderson Alderman became the first President of the
University of Virginia. He had been a pioneer in educational
expansion, first in North Carolina and then in the
wider South. He had been President of the state-supported
University of North Carolina, and President of Tulane

University, an institution largely supported by private
endowments. The types of experience thus gained all
reached fruition in the extremely active first years of his
administration in Virginia. During those years the annual
appropriation from the State was doubled. As the result of
an intensive and exhausting campaign, an endowment fund
of over a million dollars augmented the financial resources
of the University. A “School” of Education was added to
the university organization, followed by extension lectures;
the University took over summer courses which since 1898
had been independently maintained as a School of Methods;
and it was made evident that the University was prepared
to cooperate fully in the educational programme of the
State.

These advances were along the lines of President Alderman's
earlier experiences. But the new spirit permeated all
parts of the University; and there were many besides the
President to whom credit should be given for the achievements
of this period. Armistead Churchill Gordon, Rector
from 1906 to 1918, handled with tact and wisdom the
delicate matter of the adjustments of the Board of Visitors
to the new form of administration. The Faculty, under the
leadership of Dean James Morris Page, who had been the
last Chairman of the Faculty, undertook the difficult task
of standardizing the college and graduate school requirements,
with such success that the University of Virginia
became the first southeastern institution to be elected a
member of the Association of American Universities. Graduate
courses were separated from college courses, and a
Department of Graduate Studies was organized in 1904
with Richard Heath Dabney as its first Dean. Visible signs
of growth appeared in the form of an half dozen new
buildings: Minor Hall for the Department of Law, Peabody
Hall for the Department of Education, additions to the
University Hospital, Madison Hall as a home for the Young

Men's Christian Association, and the President's house on
Carr's Hill and the Commons, both erected from architectural
designs prepared by Stanford White. There were
improvements in the grounds and in the commercial buildings
at “The Corner” and the Senff Gateway was erected
at the main entrance to the University.

As for the changes in the organization of the University,
the adjustments which followed the appointment of
President Alderman form, in scope, in methods, and in
effect, a highly instructive chapter in administration. For
illustration we limit ourselves to what is pertinent to this
historical sketch; namely, to the changes as they affected the
University Library.

Those changes were in the direction of simplification.
After 1906 no Library Committee of the Board of Visitors
was appointed; and after that same date the Library Committee
of the Faculty tended more and more to report
directly to the President, who was ex officio a member of
that committee, and not to the Faculty. The membership
of the Faculty Library Committee was gradually increased
until it came to be a body in size and also in function much
like the Faculty of the earlier years. The Librarian acted
as Secretary for the Faculty Library Committee, but he was
not a voting member. In the preparation of the annual
library budget and in the selection of a Librarian the
Faculty Committee acted as an advisory body. The decisions
rested with the President, though they were still subject to
review and formal approval by the Rector and Visitors.

The new President quickly revealed an interest in the
Library. In his early years as a Professor at the University
of North Carolina he had been charged with the responsibility
for the Library at that institution. He had then
expressed his conviction that there should be an evolution
of the College Library “from a mere array of books to a vital
force in the educational life of the institution.” This was

an expression in general terms. In a talk to students at the
University of Virginia on “books and reading” at one of
the College Hours which he instituted, he made it clear
that his primary concern was in the general cultural effect
of a Library rather than in the support of college courses or,
as yet at least, in research. In this respect his attitude would
seem to have been not unlike Thomas Jefferson's—though
President Alderman did not share the Founder's interest in
library techniques.

At any rate, the Library benefited from the general
university prosperity, just as it had in the 1850's—though
at neither time was the Library a chief object of concern.
There were moderate increases in the annual appropriations
for the purchase of books, and the acquisition of books
for general reading was encouraged. A first experiment,
during 1907–1909, to add evening hours of opening did not
attract sufficient readers to make its continuance appear
practical. But a later attempt, in 1914, was more successful.
In accord with the University's increased emphasis on
statewide services to education, Librarian Patton joined
with the Extension Division in introducing the circulation
of package libraries among schools; and, in contrast to
earlier attitudes, there was a definite tendency to liberalize
loans from the Library. As we have seen, salary advances
were indicative of increased appreciation of the importance
of the position of Librarian. Moreover, after Patton's
appointment, there was no reversion to a one person
Library Staff. The position of Assistant Librarian was continued
after 1903, the first regular appointee following
Patton's brief tenure of that office being Anna Seeley
Tuttle. Gradually other staff members were added, mainly
in order to take care of the extended hours of opening and
of the ever pressing problem of cataloguing. There was also
a new field of activity opened by the introduction into the
Summer Quarter in 1911 of a course in Library Methods,

given by Librarian Patton. In 1915 another course, taught
by the then Assistant Librarian, Mary Louise Dinwiddie,
was added, and such summer courses continued to be
offered for many years.

In the courses on Library Methods there was consideration
of the classification and cataloguing of books. We have
observed in the previous history of the University of Virginia
Library that the forward steps in the realization of
librarianship as professional in character had for the most
part been linked with emphasis on classification or cataloguing.
That realization faintly emerged when in 1825 and
1828 Librarians Kean and Wertenbaker were in turn called
upon to catalogue, i.e., to list, the books according to the
Bacon-Jefferson classification. It came into the open in 1857
when Librarian Holcombe was enjoined to compile author
and subject lists by a cataloguing method devised by Professor
Gildersleeve and modified by the Board of Visitors.
Holcombe completed an author list. Since no subject list
was then or later achieved, it is not clear how far it would
have followed the Bacon-Jefferson division of subjects. But
by the shelving arrangements maintained during the terms
of William Wertenbaker as Librarian, and followed by his
pupil, Frederick Page, the Bacon-Jefferson system prevailed,
at least in modified form, until the Rotunda fire. Shortly
before the fire, two actions of significance were taken. One
was the adoption of the card form in cataloguing. The other
was the temporary employment of an “educated librarian”
to begin a card catalogue, thus reversing the previous
insistence that the work be done by the Librarian. In the
confusion after the fire, the Bacon-Jefferson classification,
like the old soldier in the General's ballad, seems not to
have died, but just faded away. The same system's contemporary
demise at the Library of Congress had been caused
not by destruction of the books but quite otherwise—by the
difficulty of applying its meagre and inelastic coverage of

the expanded fields of learning to a library collection grown
to a million volumes. Out of expert study of those million
volumes there came into being a new Library of Congress
classification. This, however, was being quietly developed
at that Library, with apparently little thought at first that
it would be adopted for other collections. Meantime
another system, the Dewey Decimal Classification, had
become popularly known, particularly among public libraries,
and it was this system that then came into use at the
University of Virginia.

Thus began, under Librarian Patton and in connection
with the second university collection, the most ambitious
attempt at cataloguing that had yet been made. The magnitude
of the task was still inadequately realized, and the
first applications of the Dewey Decimal Classification were
necessarily of the trial and error variety. Yet commendable
progress was made by Miss Tuttle, by Katherine Crenshaw
Ricks, who succeeded her for the session of 1911–1912, and
by Mary Louise Dinwiddie, who was appointed an Assistant
in 1911 and Assistant Librarian in 1912, and who continued
in the latter office until her retirement in 1950, thereby
achieving the Library's record to date for an unbroken term
of service. A first attempt in this new cataloguing effort was
to shelve the books in the order of their classification and
to compile a shelf list—an arrangement, that is, of single
card entries in the order of the books as shelved. This was
a slow process; and to expedite matters it was decided to
rearrange this shelf list as an author catalogue. The reward
came in an increased use of the books, the annual records of
circulation reaching totals never before attained.

Further specialization in the library routines developed
from the increase in circulation and from the extension of
the hours of opening. Lilie Estelle Dinwiddie, who had
followed her sister by becoming an Assistant in 1912, from
1914 was placed in charge of circulation. By 1919, when

she resigned to marry Professor Richard Lee Morton of the
College of William and Mary, she had attractively demonstrated
the value of emphasis on the quality of the circulation
services. Later in this period, the Assistant Librarian,
Mary Louise Dinwiddie, gave attention to starting more
systematic procedures in the ordering of books and in the
recording of periodicals.

An event notable for libraries had occurred in 1901
when the Library of Congress, under the inspiring leadership
of Herbert Putnam, announced its willingness to
distribute printed library cards. In 1909 the Faculty
Library Committee approved the purchase and use of
these at the University of Virginia. Previous to this, the
Faculty as a whole had given an example of the cooperation
that was later to be emphasized as a dominant policy of this
Library, when it considered at length, in 1904, the making
of an application for a depository set of the Library of
Congress cards. The decision was that the influence of the
University should be directed towards the location of a
Virginia depository set at the State Library at Richmond.

It has been noted that a few weeks before the Rotunda
fire, Librarian Page had prepared for the Alumni Bulletin
a brief history of the University Library. This was one of
several contributions by him of articles on the University.
The role of the Librarian as author was emphasized by his
successor. Throughout his administration Librarian Patton
maintained a steady output of articles and books. In recognition
he was appointed one of the Editors of the Alumni
Bulletin. Beginning in 1913 he compiled a Bulletin of the
University of Virginia Library. Until funds for printing
failed in 1923, fourteen numbers of this Bulletin had been
issued. There were also separate library publications,
including a pamphlet on the Byrd collection and a small
library handbook, both of which appeared in 1914.

The title of this little handbook, The Library: An

Invitation, is significant of the emphasis, during those active
years, on President Alderman's conception of a library's
services. Unfortunately, however, that rapid progress was
not to be maintained. Two years prior to the appearance
of the handbook, the health of the new President had been
endangered by the strain of those first strenuous years, and
late in 1912 he was forced to go to Saranac Lake, New
York, for long months of treatment. It was the spring of
1914 before he was able to leave Saranac, and then it was
for a leisurely trip with Mrs. Alderman to Switzerland. But
that trip was fated not to be leisurely. Instead it ended in
a hurried and adventurous departure from Europe in the
midst of the confused beginning of the first world war.