The new Guarini Center for Community Memory in the O’Toole Library houses well-known items such as the congressional papers of retired New Jersey Congressman Frank J. Guarini H ’94. Less known are the 3,000 volumes contained in the Rare Books and Special Collections. Among the many treasures: the Dictionary of the English Language, the first known English dictionary authored by Samuel Johnson and published in 1755, and a more than 500-year old Bible printed 30 years after the first Gutenberg Bible.
How the Bible came to Saint Peter’s is still something of a mystery. David Hardgrove, M.L.S., associate librarian who oversees Rare Books and Special Collections, believes the Jesuits brought some of the items when they were exiled from Europe in the 18th century. The Bible and other rare items were discovered when the library began digitizing its records.
“To me, this is awesome,” said Hardgrove, who dons white gloves to carefully thumb through the pages of the Bible. “Having something this rare is fabulous beyond words.”
The new Center also provides dedicated space for special collections such as the personal collected works of Robert Giroux, the influential book editor and publisher who nurtured the careers of Flannery O’Connor and Jack Kerouac among others, and a set of theater arts titles donated by Roy Barnitt, Jr. ’54, a New York attorney and actor who appeared on Broadway and in films such as J.F.K. Hardgrove notes that both collections “provide a good snapshot of what Mr. Barnitt and Mr. Giroux collected and what their personal interests were.”
Another section is devoted to the collected literature of beloved faculty members like John C. Benson ’53, chairman of the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department and Donald J. Cannon, Ph.D., professor of history, as well as books authored by faculty and alumni. Here one can find The Poor Old Liberal Arts, by Rev. Robert Gannon, S.J., dean of the College, numerous titles by Will Durant and more recent works by Professor of English William Luhr, Ph.D., and Professor of Theology Eileen Flynn, Ph.D.
The Library would like to add more books authored by graduates to the collection. “It’s not a complete collection by any means,” said Hardgrove, who encourages alumni authors to notify the Library about forthcoming books as well as those that have been published anytime in the past. “We would love to have books published by our alumni be a part of this collection.”
If you are an alumni author and would like to add your work to the Faculty and Alumni Collection in the Guarini Center for Community Memory located in the O’Toole Library, please contact David Hardgrove at dhardgrove@spc.edu. The Library requests two copies of each published book, if possible.