Reflections from the Horae: Ohrstrom Library, 1991
Lisa Laughy June 3rd, 2009
Lisa Laughy – Archives Assistant
The following is an excerpt from an article found in the Alumni Horae Digital Archive, now available online. The Spring 1991 issue of the Alumni Horae celebrated the then newly completed and dedicated Ohrstrom Library. In her article, The Libraries of St. Paul’s School, Librarian Rosemarie Cassels-Brown wrote her reflections on the place Ohrstrom Library would fill in this ongoing history:
On a cold, sunny, but as yet snowless January day, just after the School returned from Christmas vacation, a colorful line of students and faculty, clad in parkas and heavy winter coats, stretched across from Sheldon to Ohrstrom. Piles of books were handed along, to be placed on the shelves in our new library. Conversations in the line were animated; the mood was one of celebration. . . . Although in terms of the number of books moved in this fashion it was a largely symbolic gesture, to those participating in the book brigade it meant: this is our library, . . .
I sometimes wonder, as I move through this extraordinary building or take visitors around, what those who dedicated so much of their time and energy to the library in the early years of the School would think if they could see our new Ohrstrom Library —a spacious building, full of light, where students and teachers can pursue serious research as well as read for pleasure; . . . I hope our predecessors might be persuaded that in spite of much that would be new or unfamiliar to them, we are still concerned to be “an effective agency in the literary culture of the [students].”
To read the full article click HERE to access the Alumni Horae Digital Archive, then under the “Browse” tab, in the “1990 – 1999″ folder, look for the “Spring 1991″ folder for The Libraries of St. Paul’s School article in that edition of the Alumni Horae.
Article Source:
Cassels-Brown, Rosemarie. “The Libraries of St. Paul’s School.” Alumni Horae
Spring 1991: 16. Alumni Horae Digital Archive. Ohrstrom Lib., St. Paul’s
School, Concord, NH. 2 June 2009 <http://archives.sps.edu/>.
