College and Research Libraries By C O R I N N E M I L L E R S I M O N S The Lloyd Library and Museum— A Brief History of Its Founders and Its Resources Corinne Miller Simons is librarian and assistant to the director, the Lloyd Library and Museum, Cincinnati. MA N Y Y E A R S AGO Curtis Gates Lloyd wrote on the flyleaf of W o o d ' s Classbook of Botany this inscription: " T h i s volume is worthy of a prominent place in the Lloyd Library. I t is the original volume that was sent to me when I was a boy at Crittenden, Ken- tucky, by my brother, John U r i Lloyd, and was the means of interesting me in the study of botany. As a boy, I was always fond of natural history and used to spend my time chasing through the woods and I remember now my delight when I first began to study plants by means of this book." T h e period from this modest beginning until the founding and establishment of a great scientific library, known throughout the world, embraces a fascinating history which is typically American. I t is in reality the story of three brothers, J o h n U r i Lloyd, the eldest, Nelson Ashley Lloyd, and Curtis Gates Lloyd, scions of an old N e w England stock, but reared in Kentucky where their parents had set- tled in pioneer days. Equipped only with the general rudi- mentary education typical of the "little red school house" received from his par- ents, John U r i began his pharmaceutical career at the age of fourteen as an appren- tice to a pharmacist in Cincinnati and by taking courses at the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy and the Miami Medical Col- lege. Later his brother Nelson Ashley joined him and both had at first a meager existence. Fortunately John U r i soon made the acquaintance of D r . John King, then the leading authority on eclectic medicine, who introduced him to Eclectic Materia Medica. John U r i succeeded in developing various pharmaceutical prepa- rations and in improving old formulae and processes in the American Dispensatory which led to his appointment as chief chemist of the H . M . Merrell Company in Cincinnati. Finally Curtis Gates, too, arrived in Cincinnati and joined his broth- ers in their work, but his personal interests were mainly botanical. As a result he collected a large herbarium of his own, the nucleus of the Lloyd Museum, which contained not only specimens collected by him but also material received from botan- ists throughout the world. Early, how- ever, Curtis Gates was introduced to mycology, a field of botanical endeavor which captivated him for the rest of his life. Following these years of training and hardship the Lloyd brothers emerged as professional pharmacists and purchased eventually the M e r r i l l , T h o r p e and Lloyd JUNE, 1941 245 Pharmacy, known since 1886 as Lloyd Brothers Pharmacy, M a n u f a c t u r i n g Chemists of "Specific Medicines." Nel- son Ashley (1852-1925) took on more and more of the business responsibilities and concerned himself with numerous civic affairs whereas his brothers concentrated their respective interests on research in pharmacy and botany. Books Secured as Need Arose I n the beginning books were secured only as need arose. But as time went on gifts were received and careful buying of large periodical sets was begun. W i t h the growth and success of the firm the library developed under the w a t c h f u l eyes of J o h n U r i and Curtis Gates and the finan- cial support given it by all three brothers. J o h n U r i Lloyd (1849-1936) was a versatile and prolific author. A p a r t from the valuable contributions to the litera- ture of his profession, which number over four thousand titles of journal articles and books, he wrote eight novels, six of them on the local history and folklore of Ken- tucky. Perhaps he is best remembered for his Stringtown on the Pike and his esoteric novel Etidorpha. Like his brother Curtis Gates, he was elected to offices in various scientific societies and received many honors for his scientific achievements. Curtis Gates Lloyd (1859-1926) be- came widely known in botanical circles for his extensive and penetrating Mycolog- ical Writings and the development of his important mycological herbarium now de- posited in the U . S. Department of Agri- culture, Washington, D . C . H e travelled widely in Europe, Africa, Asia, and America in search of either fungi or rare books for the library. As a citizen, he is recognized for his numerous philanthropic activities in Kentucky and elsewhere. The Lloyd Library and Museum A t present the library contains over one hundred thousand books and sixty thou- sand pamphlets, among them many valu- able sets of scientific periodicals, first editions, and rarities. A few of these may deserve mention in this connection: the J u e t t n e r collection used in D r . Juettner's w r i t i n g of the history of Daniel Drake and His Followers; the collection of pharmacopoeias and commentaries on them from the vest-pocket edition of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1799 and the tiny vellum bound and brass clasped Pharmacopoeia of London of 1680 to the huge volumes of today; Johannes Zwel- fer's commentary of 1693; a Latin trans- lation of a Persian pharmacopoeia of 1681; a German one printed in Augsburg in 1581; and a D u t c h one of 1636. T h e oldest volume in the Library is Meseu's Vulgare della Consolatione de la Medi- sine Simplici Solutive, 1493, the first im- portant work in pharmacy. Numerous herbals record early botanical knowledge and methods of illustration. A unique book is D r . Josselyn's New England Rarities. T h e works of John Clayton and J o h n Frederick Gronovius are repre- sentative of early American botany. The Indian Doctor's Dispensatory by Peter Smith is extremely rare. A Japanese flora of twenty volumes, bound in yellow silk and hand-painted on silk paper is a treas- ure of Asiatic art. An interesting history is associated with D r . Schoepf's Materia Medica. A copy of it was borrowed from Erlangen, Germany, and copied in long- hand. Years later D r . Charles Rice found an original in an old bookstore in Italy and sent the volume to D r . J o h n U r i Lloyd. T h e works of J o n a t h a n Carver of the provincial troops of America and of Manassah Cutler as well as Barton's 246 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES Collections towards a Materia Medica ( 1 7 9 8 ) are also on the shelves. T h e li- brary has the first colored botanical plates ever brought to Ohio, originally given to Daniel Gano, an early settler of the Northwest T e r r i t o r y , by his gardner who had brought them from Germany in 1820. T h e original herbarium of John Riddell, the first botanist of the Cincinnati region, is part of the original museum. A letter of T h o m a s Jefferson and letters of John Burroughs, Daniel Gano, Rafinesque, and other famous personalities appear bound in the volumes presented to the library. New Classification Scheme Since the available systems of classifi- cation such as that of the Library of Congress and the Dewey Decimal System did not provide all the subdivisions needed, a special system was devised by Curtis Gates Lloyd in collaboration with W i l - liam Holden and Edith Wycoff, former librarians, which is now known as the Lloyd System of Classification. It is based on two alphabets, a black one of twenty- six divisions and additional subdivisions for botany, and a red one with similar divisions for chemistry and pharmacy. Over two hundred and fifty separate titles have so f a r been published by the Lloyd Library. T h e list begins in 1884 with the Drugs and Medicines of North America by John U r i and Curtis Gates Lloyd. Later bulletins were issued regu- larly for the publication of scientific con- tributions. T h e y included the fields of botany, entomology, mycology, and phar- macy whereas certain ones were used for the reproduction of rare works in phar- macy and materia medica. T h e remaining titles are largely bibliographical in char- acter, but as yet incomplete. As early as 1907 the Lloyd Library and Museum was incorporated by Curtis Gates Lloyd who later endowed it and left it almost his entire fortune. T h r o u g h his foresight the present staff is enabled to carry on the traditions by continued physi- cal improvements and extended purchases as well as the publication of its new quar- terly journal of biological science. T h i s journal is dedicated to the memory of the founders whose scientific legacy warrants the name Lloydia. JUNE, 1941 247