The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-04-13
Yale Dedicates
 Sterling Memorial
Impressive Exercises Held Saturday in New Haven as
 President Angell Accepts Keys

library committees, and professors, the curators, the graduates and other friends of Yale who have made this library what 1t Is have con- fidence that it's future will be worthy |of it's past; and the Yafe Library as- |sociates are determined that the con- tents of the building shall be as notable as the edifice is superb. A library is an instrument of learning and of power. It is an old instru- ment at Yale, as we have seen; but It's possibilities have been immensely increased by the princely provisions of the Sterling bequest. Here our faculties and students and the scholarly minded of the community in which we live will find facilities ever known. Here the faith of the founders and of all who love Yale will be justified. Once more Yale's largest and finest structure enshrines it's books"
 The library building was presented to the university by Mir Carver on behalf of the trustees of Mir Ster- ling's estate, who in his address also referred to the fact that Yale was created "out of handful of books"
 Nothing in it's life has persisted so tenaciously, through its two and a third centuries, as, fits library; and In the absence of some overwhelm- ing catastrophe to civilization itself, we may feel confident that this building will stand, through cen. turies to come, with no fear Of yielding to a greater rival" he said.
 "Mr Sterling was the last person who would have paraded the extent of his benefactions; but, in spite of his natural shrinking from any such publicity, l think 1t is fitting that, on this occasion, we should take note of what his munificence has thus far accomplished"
 From Mir Sterling's bequest, MT Carver said, Yale has received. for professorships. fellowships and scholarships $9.960,7 ,759.76: and for buildings. including the Sterling Memorial Library and the necessary
 maintenance funds, $19,172,331.45, d total of $29.133,091.21. The build- jngs include the Sterling Chemistry Laboratory. the Sterling Hall of Medicine, two wings of the Sterling Quadrangle for undergraduates, the Sterling Law buildings. and the Sterling Tower for the Sheffield Scientific school. the quadrangles for the Graduate school and the Divinity school.
 "In this neighborhood of out standing memorials to Q great bene- factor" Mx Carver said, "the library, which we dedicate to-day. is the su- preme memorial to one who devoted a long and untiring life to accumu- lating fortune for the benefit of his Alma Mater"
 Herbert Putnam, librarian of con- gress, in his address recommended that the libraries in the United States cooperate in strengthening their respective collections and urged, for this purpose, q "disarma- ment conference"
 "In the aggregate the resources of American libraries are now prodi- gious," Dr Putnam said. "The sums annually applied to their increment are now so considerable that, if ap- piled in cooperation, the aggregate resources would as regards printed books very shortly relieve an Ameri- can scholar of recourse to Europe. (The $400,00O that during single recent year went into the collections at Harvard exceeds the total annual expenditures for material of the I1a- tional libraries of England, France and Germany put togethero The collections of concern to the scholar are, however, very unevenly distrib- uted. There is no authority that can mobilize them in his service. Nor Is there as yet among our libraries any cooperation in purchase that would apply the current resources to perfecting the material as whole In the respects in which 1t Is still defective, instead of applying 1t In competition that is wasteful and in that would be needless if the libraries served him as a unit. } "The remedy lies only in volun- tary, organized cooperation. The libraries of our universities should takes the lead in 1t. The ability Is peculiarly theirs, the independence of legislative control, and the inter- est in the result to be secured. The loan of material which may over- come inconveniences of location Is already with them habit. which needs only to be enlarged and freed from hampering conditions: agree- ments in cooperative selection re- quire only the will and reasonable magnanirnity.
 "A magninimlty proceeding one stage further would have effects very notable indeed. It would con- sist in the mutual surrender. not merely of fields of acquisition. but of actual material, so that library al- ready strong in speciality shall be perfected. It would relieve many n library of fragmentary groups, an expense to maintain, yet too imper- feet for any service, and assign those groups where they would add to the general strength. Such an achievement would indeed notably advance our resources for research: and the concessions required would not, as against the relief, be serious. A disarmament conference. How fortunate if our universities could take the lead In it!''
 Concerning the Sterling Memorial Library, Dr Putnam said:
 "One import of 1t Is to me matter of the heartiest congratuIation: that not merely in its dominance, but In the accommodation 1t affords. 1t may serve to withstand the Iamentabie tendency in our universities to dee centraiize their libraries into depart- mental collections. No such decen- tralization can be successful, for 1t involves a partition of literatures physically impractIcable, inconsist- ant with their essential unitiea and