New England athenaea

Today's New York Times has an article on historic membership libraries:

As if tailor-made for a weekend getaway, a series of historic athenaeums lines up along a virtual Athenaeum Alley in New England. Open for visits are athenaeums in Newport and Providence, R.I.; in Boston and Salem, Mass.; and in Portsmouth, N.H.

Visiting these bookish sanctuaries, which are housed in historic buildings in a number of architectural styles, provides an opportunity to touch remnants of American history. Many of the same books, newspapers, maps and documents that were read in colonial times can be viewed, admired and (with some limitations to nonmembers) handled.

Visitors to the Redwood Library and Athenaeum in Newport, the oldest lending library in America, can survey at close range the 755 titles in the library’s Original Collection. This is a selection of books that 46 educated Newport residents collectively purchased from England in 1748; they built the library to house the collection.

Posted by David on March 7, 2008 12:05 PM