The Orrington Lunt Library

The Orrington Lunt Library, designed like most libraries to last all time, was prominently placed facing Sheridan Road at a slight angle. The wooden building, faced with buff Bedford limestone and roofed with red Conosera tile, was an adaptation of a popular Italian Renaissance style designed by Chicago architect William A. Otis. The structure, measuring 73 by 162 feet, consisted of three sections: a main central square section of three stories fronted with a semi-circular porticio supported by Ionic columns, and two attached wings, each two stories high. The main floor contained a reading room, book stack, librarian's office, and a room for catalogers. The basement had a room housing government publications, work rooms, and seminar rooms. The second floor, reached by an open, carved oak staircase, included an assembly room with seating for the entire student body of 500, "art" rooms, and classrooms. The third story of the central portion was occupied by the University Guild, an association of faculty wives, alumnae, and friends of the university. Fitted with gas fixtures, electricity, and candle scones, the building was heated with steam. Throughly modern additions included a book lift and a speaking tube which connected the floors. Friezes by Ida Burgess, noted for her exhibits at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, decorated the library and Guild room. The North Shore News reported on October 5, 1894, that "the interior of the building is calculated to draw admiration of all visiting librarians ... its convenience is not surpassed by any library in the country," and that it was "one of the finest, if not the finest college library in the West."

Two impressive dedication ceremonies were held September 26, 1894. In the afternoon numerous speeches and invocations echoed through the building's assembly room. Because of an overflow audience, students were barred from the ceremony--although, as the Tripod pointed out, ironically enough, donor Orrington Lunt's speech was addressed to them. That evening, President Henry Wade Rogers presided at yet another convocation at the First Methodist Church. Dr. Justin Winsor, librarian of Harvard University, gave the principal address, a 6,000 word discussion of the relation of modern libraries to advanced scholarship, later printed in its entirety in the November issue of the Library Journal. President Charles Kendall Adams of the University of Wisconsin and President Franklin W. Fisk of the Chicago Theological Seminary also participated in the ceremonies, which closed with an enthusiastic rendering of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus."

The following day the Orrington Lunt Library officially opened its doors. It would serve as the main library on the Evanston campus for the next 38 years.

Lunt had reading-room space for 120, more than double that which had been available in University Hall, and adequate shelving for the collection of 29,000 volumes and 19,000 government publications. The reading-room shelves held a reference collection of 500 volumes, 900 volumes of heavily used periodicals, and 600 books on reserve for classes. The library received 180 periodicals and newspapers, circulation stood at 7,500, and annual accessions totaled 2,000, 1,000 of which were government publications.

For the first 4 years Ambrose, the only salaried staff member, maintained a 44-hour weekly schedule, assisted by one paid student employee 2 hours a day and a small amount of additional assistance from student volunteers who, unfortunately, always seemed to disappear just when they were most needed, Ambrose complained.

The staff gradually increased, adding a first assistant in 1898, and a reading-rooom assistant in 1901. By 1908 the staff totaled eight. The student population grew from 500 to 2,900. Hours when the library was open increased to 66 per week in 1901.

Ambrose was the first librarian to purchase book selectively in anticipation of curriculum needs, the first to provide reference service, and the first to start classifying the collection. Among her other innovations were the utilization of the typewriter, Library of Congress catalog cards, and a standardized statistical records-keeping procedure. By 1902 the library was organized in five departments--Executive and Order, Circulating, Reference, Catalog, and Shelf. In 1904 Ambrose had a telephone installed. By 1907 Ambrose had organized monthly staff meetings and introduced participatory management techniques.

It is of interest that Ambrose initiated a relation between the library and the Northwestern Bindery, a small enterprise in Evanston, which lasted for 43 years until owner George Stosskoph retired. After Stosskoph sold his business to Ernest Hertzberg, he did volunteer work in the university library until his death at the age of 81 in 1955.

Gifts were small by present-day standards: for example, two of the largest were a 487-volume collection of religion, philosophy, and history donated in 1896 by the widow of the Reverend R. W. Patterson, a local minister; and 2,500 volumes of German literature presented to the library in 1897 by several Chicagoans of German extraction. To encourage additional gifts, Ambrose began the practice of listing every donor in her annual report to the president.

In 1908, in protest of what she considered an abysmally low salary of $1,200, Ambrose resigned. While it is true that her replacement, a male, was appointed at a salary of $2,000, he was the possessor of a Ph.D.

After leaving Northwestern, Ambrose worked on a New Orleans newspaper and, for 2 years (1912 and 1913), as librarian and curator of the New Orleans School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at Tulane University; after which she worked as a free-lance translator and writer until her death in 1927.

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