National Affairs: Historian; Librarian

Last week President Roosevelt appointed the first Archivist of the U. S.* For this $10,000-a-year job, created by the last Congress, he followed the recommendation of the American Historical Association and chose Robert Digges Wimberly Connor, 56, American History professor at the University of North Carolina. A shy, heavyset, golfing, poker-playing pedagog, Professor Connor was Archivist of the State of North Carolina from 1913 to 1921, has spent years digging out old documents for the excellent collection in his University’s library. For his Government his job will be not to collect but to weed out surplus records from bureaus and departments. Ready for Archivist Connor next April will be Washington’s new $5,000,000 Archives Building where he will assemble material now stored in departmental files, in mouldy cellars, in firetrap shanties throughout the Capital. Archivist Connor will also be permitted to collect sound films which he may show in a projection room in the building. He will have an official seal, be chairman of a National Historical Publications Commission. But before he may burn or throw out a single piece of official paper he must get permission from Congress and the Government agency concerned. Second in size in the U. S. only to the Library of Congress is the New York Public Library, which has 3,675,000 volumes in its reference and circulating departments and attracts 4,000,000 visitors a year to its central building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Last week Dr. Edwin Hatfield Anderson, 73, announced his resignation after serving as its director for 21 years. He will be succeeded by Harry Miller Lydenberg who went to work for the library in 1896, one year after its creation by the consolidation of the Astor and Lenox Libraries and the Tilden Trust. For 20 years Mr. Lydenberg was chief reference librarian, becoming assistant director in 1928.

The Public Library has a $50,000,000 endowment and is subsidized by the City of New York to maintain 48 branch libraries. Its best collections are those on baseball, poultry, the theatre, Americana, Shakespeare, Milton, Bunyan and Isaak Walton. With 12,000 people in & out every day, its central building is probably the world’s busiest.

*Asked the correct pronunciation of the word, the President hazarded “ark-i-vist,” with the first “i” as in “hit.” He was right.