Harding College

The campus library: a major asset of an academic-religious institution

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The Library

One of the major assets of an academic-religious institution is its library. The Harding School of Bible and Religion has a growing, well-selected religious library including journals, facsimiles of the three major Biblical manuscripts, rare books and Bibles, a microfilm reader, and other valuable materials.

The library is housed in the air-conditioned School of Bible and Religion building with the classrooms, making it easily accessible to the students. A special substantial fund is allocated from year to year for the acquisition of well-selected religious books which will strengthen continually the library resources for the students.

In addition to the library of the School, students have access to the valuable private library of 11,000 volumes of Dr. W. B. West, Jr., Dean of the School.  Students also have access to the Memphis public libraries, including the special reference and research Cossitt Library, which is part of the Memphis public library system, the library of Southwestern at Memphis, and the library of Memphis State University, and can borrow books from the 50,000 volume collection of the Harding College Library in Searcy, Arkansas.

—Harding College School of Bible and Religion General Information Bulletin 1958-1959 (Memphis: Harding College School of Bible and Religion, 1958) 10.

At this early point, no librarian is listed in the bulletin.

The campus library: several hundred good books…and more on the way

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Library

We have secured several hundred good books for our library, and have arranged to secure others. We have a good supply of standard reference works. We have dictionaries, lexicons, encyclopaedias, histories, etc. Many good [p. 13] books have been donated by brethren and friends, and others are solicited. The reading table is supplied with current periodicals, such as the Literary Digest, Review of Reviews, Current Literature, The Pathfinder, Human Life, Normal Instructor and many others. The Christian papers are also supplied.

—Thorp Springs Christian College Announcement 1911-1912 (Thorp Springs: Thorp Springs Christian College, 1911): 12-13.

The campus library: enrich the curriculum by providing materials and wisely guiding their use

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Beaumont Memorial Library

The new library is air-conditioned and equipped with the most modern heating and lighting facilities. It will accommodate about one-third of the student body at one time.

A graduate reading room, accommodating 100 students, provides an ideal study arrangement for the advanced student. A sound-proof typing room is also provided for the convenience of students. [p. 20]

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The Library

The primary purpose of the college library is the enrichment of the curriculum by the provision of materials related to course offerings and by guidance in the wise use of such materials.

Library holdings include more than 62,500 volumes, 375 periodicals, eight daily newspapers and hundreds of pamphlets. In addition to printed materials an excellent collection of recordings, consisting of more than 800 records in music and speech, is catalogued and available for student listening. A collection of music scores has also been initiated.

Adjacent to the graduate reading room is housed the Brewer Collection, the excellent collection of the late G. C. Brewer.

The library staff, in cooperation with the various departments, offers and unusually complete program of training in the facilities and use of the library. This instruction is offered through appropriate classes to freshmen, while continuous individual instruction is given as the need arises.

The Student Handbook and the Faulty-Staff Handbook may be consulted for the detailed statement on library policies and regulations. [p. 25]

—Harding College Bulletin, Annual Catalog Number, Announcement for 1961-62. 37.3 (August 1961): 20, 25.

The faculty list includes Annie May Alston (M.A., University of Chicago) as Librarian and Winnie Elizabeth Bell (M.A. in L.S., George Peabody College) as Assistant Librarian.  Corinne Burke (B.A., [Harding?]) served as Library Assistant (pp. 8, 16).

McGarvey C. Ice, Harding College 1929

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Rendering printed texts generally, and photographic images in particular, into a digital form provides wide access to all sorts of wonderful things.  Colleges and universities, including my employer, undertake these projects with institutional publications like yearbooks, campus programs and other documents.  Not only are these ventures a service to the alumni, they are a great boon to genealogists.

One example is how I know that my grandfather spent some time in the late 1920’s at Harding College, then in Morrilton, Arkansas.  Graduating high school a year early, he then spent two years at Christian Normal Institute in Grayson, Kentucky and completed what would be today an associates’ degree in 1928.  I know he took courses at Harding and at Cedarville College in Ohio.  By the early 1930’s he was teaching high school science and coaching basketball in Vinton, Ohio.  Later he would pursue graduate study at The Ohio State University, National College of Audiometry and others.  But Harding intrigued me, and seeking to learn more, I discovered that Brackett Library at Harding University has scanned many bulletins and yearbooks, plus oral histories and more, dating back to the early days in Morrilton.

I find in the 1929 Petit Jean that McGarvey C. Ice took more than a few courses at Harding.  It appears that he graduated with a B.A. in Science in 1929.

MC Ice Harding College 1929

Look for him here, fourth row, center:

Harding College Senior Class 1929

If a Harding yearbook was among his effects I do not recall seeing it, and thought that he only took a few courses at Harding one summer.  Seeing these, though, it appears to me that he spent more time at Harding than I previously knew.  A new discovery opens more doors, raises more questions, suggests new avenues and horizons.