Chance Encounters at Avery

James Grote Van Derpool

Avery Librarian

On page 21 we begin the first of a series of articles describing
^^Adventures in Acquisitions": an account of experiences connected
with recent additions to the Collections, Here, the Avery Librarian
has surveyed like experience in recent years at America's leading
arclntectiiral Library, which will be the setting of the December
jneeting of the Friends.

RECENTLY I have found myself indulging in a highly unprofes¬
sional form of speculation. That this should occur in the year
of the heaviest responsibilities that I have so far encountered, is in
itself somewhat odd. One hopes the term "escapism" can some¬
how be excluded from this discussion.

Briefly, I began to inquire in what way the great collections of
the world, whether in art, in books, rare furniture or other de¬
lightful things, would have been altered if the element of chance,
unwarranted enthusiasm of a moment or unexpected generosity
in unforeseen places, had been barred from the process of forming
a collection.

The fascinating, but certainly unscientific, procedures which re¬
sulted in the forming of the Imperial Austrian Collections are well
known. In our own country the inside history of the Gardner Col¬
lection in Boston is an exciting narrative. The Morgan, the Frick,
the Bache and other great American collections do not stem from a
coldly scientific, dispassionate approach to the problem. The
heart, as well as the mind, chance as well as controlled circum¬
stances, certainly entered into the achievements represented by
these great collections.

In a lesser way it strikes one that Avery Architectural Library
has not achieved its unique position in the world solely through
the use of the "little grey cells." Thinking over the history of the
collection, one is forced to admit that the deity who controls
chance circumstance has occasionally looked this way, sometimes
in an oddly amusing fashion. I still recall with embarrassment and
some perplexity how the beautiful Avery copy of one of the