100 Years 100 Voices.

Williams College, [2025].

A beautiful and richly illustrated celebratory catalogue, presenting selected items from the Chapin Library at Williams College, established with gifts from Alfred C. Chapin in 1923.

Chapin had been buying very good and interesting books from the best dealers for nearly a decade before the initial gift, and the collection has grown since, through purchase and donation. The Chapin Library had a dynamic founding librarian, Lucy Eugenia Osborne, and has always functioned as a teaching library for undergraduate instruction. This intention shines through in this anthology.

The collection ranges from European incunables and an Eliot Indian Bible (1663) to an Audubon Birds of America purchased from James Drake, from a miniature printing press owned by John Fast to a recent risograph artist book (and four copies of the 1855 Leaves of Grass). The short pieces about the books are by alumni (long gone and recent), past and present curators and librarians, faculty members, and others. The photographs, by Nicole Neenan, are nicely reproduced. This is an important publication, a concise and compelling testimony about why books and libraries are central to education.