Libraries & Culture

Libraries & Culture 38.1 (2003) 81-82

Deacon Otis' Library. By Robert E. Jenkins. Norwich, Conn.: Otis Library, 2000. viii, 148 pp. $17.00.

Deacon Otis was Joseph Otis, and his library was in Norwich, Connecticut. Otis was born in this southeastern Connecticut town in 1768 and was a successful merchant in South Carolina and New York. During his time away from Norwich, Otis was active in his church and charity efforts, including the Seaman's Friend Society and the Sunday school movement. Otis retired to his hometown in 1838, and a few years before his death in 1854, Otis donated the first installment of what would eventually total almost eighteen thousand dollars for the construction of a library. A two-story Greek Revival building was built, the first floor of which would be a library for the citizens of Norwich and the second floor of which would be an office for the pastor of the nearby Second Congregational Church. The library was completed in 1849, and the first librarian was [End Page 81] hired the following year. The library loaned books on a subscription basis until 1891, when it became a free library. The library remained in the original building until the 1960s, when it was moved to a larger location. This was by no means Norwich's first library, but it was the town's first structure built specifically to house a library.

Deacon Otis' Library is based largely on the meeting notes and reports kept by the library's board of trustees. The author, Robert E. Jenkins, a newspaper writer and editor, explains in his preface that his history of the Otis Library was undertaken with time constraints and as a result is not a "traditional analytical historical narrative" (vii), being mostly a compilation of quotes from the library board records, newspaper articles, and other public documents. The author has presented a recitation of the actions of those involved in funding and governing the library. By relying solely on those records, the book presents the history of the Otis Library mainly through the perspective of the board and not the librarians, patrons, and general public. With that in mind, the book's main achievement is a detailed and mostly intriguing depiction of the month-to-month issues and concerns faced by a nineteenth-century library board of trustees.

Librarians may chafe, as this one did, at seeing the roles of both the librarian and library user relegated to minor bordering on invisible. The exception is that of Jonathan Trumbull, who served simultaneously as librarian and secretary of the library board and whose viewpoint is adequately represented both in the board's records and therefore in the book. The author specifically mentions that this particular librarian was of a high social standing, which is most likely the only reason a librarian was allowed to serve on the board. Trumbull's status as a member of the Norwich elite is a factor in his success at the time of his employment and the reason why today his voice is almost the only one representative of the librarians employed at Otis during the 120-year span covered in this book. It is through Trumbull's librarian reports that we learn of the library's efforts at improving certain areas of service, such as services to children and speakers of foreign languages. After Trumbull's tenure as librarian ends, the reports of the librarians once again diminish in visibility. As a public services librarian, I was, of course, more interested in the librarian reports than in the detailed retelling of the budgetary calisthenics exerted by the board. Nonetheless, the motives of both librarians and board members must be known for the full picture of library history to emerge. The voice that is almost entirely absent from this history is that of the library user. At a few points, Jenkins mentions letters from patrons that appeared in local newspapers in response to various library crises, but he does not quote in depth from them. The book would have benefited enormously from including more of this commentary from patrons...