Library Staff in the 1937 Ceer Yearbook
1 2021-09-09T23:07:30+00:00 Rachel Karas 18684fea626f7d5d7f977e613f3d26fd8c2cc6b4 151 2 A yearbook page. At the top is a black and white photograph of seven people standing and posing for the camera. The caption below reads, "FIRST ROW: Gurley, Basford, Pope. SECOND ROW: Hill, Brown, Hogevoll, Northrop." The main text on the page reads, "'Silence' says the sign on the door. It is the library. Back behind the scenes of the 'play' that is the library is Miss Jeanne Sumner. Those on this page are your arduous auctioneers, who are closing hours auction off reserved books and such to the first bidders. We will little note nor long remember the books read here. But your library staff will ne'er forget the work they did here--for you." Across the bottom of the page are four black and white photographs of librarians posing with books and card catalogues. 1937 Ceer (LD891.C466 C4), Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives, Chapman University. plain 2021-09-21T17:04:07+00:00 Rachel Karas 18684fea626f7d5d7f977e613f3d26fd8c2cc6b4This page is referenced by:
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The Stauffer Memorial Library: Something more than merely this
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The first named library at what is now Chapman University was called the Vernon Stauffer Memorial Library from 1925 to 1954 and simply, from 1954 to 1967, the Chapman College Library. As the college moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and finally to Orange in 1954, the library was housed in various administration buildings, and started out very small. Its home on the Orange campus was in Memorial Hall.
Early issues of the Ceer, the Chapman yearbook, show that students had a sincere appreciation for the library and its staff. A page from the 1929 Ceer describes the Stauffer Library as "something more than merely" a place to study and a repository of books. The description of the library as a "thing of beauty" reveals that these early students, who attended what was then known as California Christian College, or "Cal Christian," recognized the value of the library.
Pages from the 1937 and 1938 issues of the Ceer show a sense of humor about the library, referring to librarians as "auctioneers," and as "Those great custodians of the Silence, those keepers of the Information." Although these captions poke gentle fun at librarian stereotypes, they do so in a light way that shows just how much the students valued what the library provided them.
Two Ceer pages from later years, two decades apart, in 1939 and 1959, show just how much Chapman students appreciated the library, as these issues of the Ceer were dedicated to librarians - Jeanne Sumner and Fanny Carlton, respectively.
According to the date on this photo, it shows Chapman students using the Chapman College Library on its very last day as the university library, February 15, 1967. The small library that had provided Chapman students a beautiful, supportive place to study, rich with resources, was ready to move into its own building.
