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History
The following is extract from “The
Collectors Club Library” by Miklos Pinther.
The Beginning
In July of 1896, a group of prominent New York
philatelists got together to discuss the creation of a
club, a meeting that was later described as
“inspirational” by John N. Luff, one of the
participants. The idea was to bring together and create
a home for all philatelic interests in the City. An
organization committee was set up under the chairmanship
of John Walter Scott, members were recruited, funds were
secured, and by October a club house was acquired. The
formal opening took place on October 28, 1896, just
three months following that brainstorming session.
Shortly thereafter officers were elected with William
Herrick as the first President, and committees were
formed including a Literary Committee headed up by Hiram
E. Deats.
Incorporated in the charter of the Club
was the “maintenance of a reading room,” the cradle of a
library. It was set up on the second floor of the new
Club House which was located in an up-scale neighborhood
within a block of Madison Square, near the location of
the old Madison Square Garden. In short order, Deats and
his fellow committee members began to fill up the
shelves with books and pamphlets, periodicals and
catalogues, and various related standard reference
works. Some were donated by publishers and friends,
others were purchased or subscribed to. By the time John
W. Scott took over the librarianship in 1913, the Club
indeed had a useful Library of close to a thousand
volumes at the pleasure of its members. Scott also set
out to fully classify and catalogue the collection for
the first time, an effort that was picked up by
Professor J. Brace Chittenden.
It was under Chittenden’s tenure from
1921 to 1928 that the Club’s Library was most enriched
by some of the finest literary collections. These
included the personal library of Hofrath Victor
Suppantschitsch, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
Austria, many unique items from the library of John K.
Tiffany, philatelic literature from E. B. Sterling,
Theodore E. Steinway, and Señor Busch of Buenos Aires,
and the extensive collection of some 1,400 bound volumes
from Joseph S. Rich. Following Professor Chittenden’s
good work, it fell upon Harry M. Knowiser to organize
the now largely expanded Library. During the 1930s, he
revised and produced an extensive card catalogue that
served the readers for decades to come. The collection
by this time was generally recognized as not only the
richest philatelic library in the United States, but
arguably one of the finest in the world.
A Permanent Home
In October 1937, The Collectors Club purchased a
five-story building from the estate of Thomas B. Clark,
a collector of fine arts. It was specially designed for
him by the renowned architect Stanford White, a lovely
structure that became a New York City landmark in 1979.
Before moving in, internal remodeling was carried out
under the direction of Clarence Brazer, an architect who
was also a member of the Club. Some of the modifications
addressed the Library’s needs that included an enlarged
room, extra storage space, and special glass-door
shelving units.
The collection was separated into
several major divisions, which were shelved at different
locations throughout the building. Handbooks and
monographs were generally in the main reading room on
the second floor, although books on certain subjects
such as revenues were located elsewhere. Some serial
publications were also on the second floor as well as
later in the basement. Auction catalogues and stamp
catalogues were filed on the third floor, and later also
on the fourth floor. Unique and rare items were housed
separately, principally in the main reading room. As the
Library grew, and other functions, such as the editorial
office of The Collectors Club Philatelist, moved
out, these spaces were occupied by books and catalogues.
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In the ensuing years, volunteer
“librarians” strived to maintain an order to the
collection, sent out books (primarily periodicals) for
binding, catalogued new acquisitions, and generally
assisted users. They also struggled with a collection
that was uprooted and moved several times during the
forty years since its first home near Madison Square. In
fact, before the Club finally settled in its permanent
home at 22 East 35th Street, it was relocated half dozen
times. As might be expected, this shuffling caused loss
and damage to the holdings. There was also a constant
change in librarians, each of whom made some alterations
while seeking improvements. In most cases the librarians
were part-time volunteers assisted by a few additional
volunteers. Only on rare occasions did the Club actually
hire a person on a full-time basis. While some of the
volunteers were experts on philatelic literature, and
were on the top of their various professions, none were
trained, professional librarians. To be sure, committees
were formed periodically to study the plight or status
of the Library and to make recommendations. But
satisfactory solutions to the problems of a finite space
and an ever-growing collection were elusive. Cataloguing
and filing systems remained an “evolving” process, not
necessarily adhering to standard library practices.
During the past decade, Robert L.
Mitchell, Jr., a member for over fifty years whose
father was also a member, began a major modernization of
the holdings. No one in recent years was as familiar
with the Library as Bob Mitchell. He made several
assessments of the physical allocation of the
collection, created lists and filing labels for special
groups such as the auction catalogues, prepared
cataloguing and filing rules, and migrated the card
files into a quasi data-base software called Tracker,
used at one time by the American Philatelic Research
Library as well.
In 2001, the Club completed an extensive
renovation to the building which included structural
strengthening, major improvement to the main meeting
room, and relocation of the principal library holdings
to the lower floors. During this process over 1000 boxes
of library material was removed to storage, then brought
back and re-shelved. Needless to say, this was a
monumental effort for just a handful of volunteers.
While construction was a major disruption, it also
provided the Club with an excellent opportunity to take
a fresh look and reassess the way the holdings were
arranged, catalogued, and filed, to create a more
efficient “working” library where members could browse
and do research.
The mission of the Library
remains the vision of the Club’s founders: it fosters
philatelic scholarship by acquiring, organizing, and
disseminating philatelic information and knowledge to
members of the Club, the philatelic community at large,
and the general public.
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The library collection is so large that its physical
size was one of the key motivators for our renovation of the Clubhouse
in 2000.
