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CONTENTS |
Acquisition of the Collection |
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The Thomas Murray collection included not only stock from his bookstore, the Bleury Book Store in Montreal, but also a number of rare items he had accumulated as a private collector. As the collection came up for sale, the University Librarian, Neal Harlow, discussed the benefits of acquisition with Walter Koerner, a major benefactor of the Library and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Friends of the Library. In the spring of 1958, the collection was purchased for $60,000 (about $350 000 by contemporary standards), with a fair portion of the cost being recovered through the sale of duplicate items. The amount was payable with an initial installment of $5,000 within ten days of the sale agreement, $7,000 by December 31, 1958, and the balance in four equal installments from 1959 to 1962. The Friends of the Library understood that by purchasing such a collection, the library's resources would be advanced several stages. Dr. Samuel Rothstein, who was involved in the negotiations to purchase the collection, noted that "(t)his is the way to build up a distinguished collection....at one fell swoop (we) have something that...will bring the scholars to (us)." Perhaps Harlow best defined the significance of this acquisition in a letter written to Dr. W. Kaye Lamb, National Librarian, shortly after securing the collection. He stated that "(a)dded to the Howay-Reid libraries, the Carnegie French-Canadian materials, and other Canadian publications in English which have been acquired, we shall have some ground for serious graduate work."
Neal Harlow left for
Montreal on August 17, 1958 to prepare the collection for packing and
shipping. The collection filled three hundred boxes, each measuring
two cubic feet and weighing a total of ten tons. In Harlow's own words,
"(Murray's) insatiable desire to acquire books combined with a great
reluctance to part with them helps to explain the number of volumes
left in his estate." Upon arrival at UBC, the cartons of books were
stored in Room 851 of the North Wing of the Main Library. Processing
of this enormous collection was not completed until after the formation
of the Library's Special Collection Division in 1960.
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