The Playful Antiquarian

A visit to the Children’s Library at the Boston Athenaeum

April 26th, 2004

Saturday morning, I joined the Connecticut Chapter of the American Book Collectors of Children’s Literature (ABCs) and the Ticknor Society for a tour of the Boston Athenaeum and its collection of children’s books. Although this excursion got off to a rough start–the guard and circulation desk staff did not have this tour group on their schedule and I was the first to arrive–in the end, I was happy that I decided to participate.

The Athenaeum was founded in 1805 by the Anthology Society and has resided at 10 1/2 Beacon Street since the 1840s. A renovation project was completed in 2002, and as part of the renovations, a children’s library was added. It is an amazing space, with comfortable reading nooks, a built-in goldfish aquarium, and huge picture windows looking onto the Granary Burying Ground (eerily fitting, considering that Mother Goose’s grave is there). And there are shelves and shelves of books of all types. The books made me very nostalgic. While the children’s library has many new books, there are also many older books in the circulating collection. These books reminded me of the books that I borrowed from local libraries as a child, the well-read and well-loved copies of illustrated classics–except many of these books had been owned and read by some of the most well-known people in Boston society.

I found much inspiration in my visit to the Athenaeum. The space and the books were inspiring, of course, but the people working there were equally as inspiring. The children’s librarian was patient and very helpful. She distributed information on the Beatrix Potter Society and copies of an article that she had written about association copies in the children’s library collections. She also handed out signed copies of a broadside by Vera B. Williams. (My copy is on my desk at the moment with a bunch of other things that need to be framed).

Although there were many murmurs of excitement about the books on display and the handouts, the one thing that most of the book collectors on the tour wanted was a checklist or bibliography of rare children’s books at the Athenaeum. The librarian only had an old printout of children’s books in the rare book collection. I was very surprised to learn that a bibliography did not exist already. This could be an interesting research project, if only I had the time and support to do it.

Entry Filed under: Field Trips