COLUMBIA
LIBRARY
COLUMNS
 

Foreword
 

T
 

I/" ]f ^ HE present issue of the Columbia Library Columns is
devoted to American architectural topics. This is a
most suitable assignment, since the Columbia Univer¬
sity library system includes the country's greatest collection of
architectural books, the Avery Memorial Architectural Library.
Two of the three articles deal with notable acquisitions for the
Avery Library of documentary material by or related to two
19th century architects, both connected with New York and
both men of considerable importance to the development of
American architecture: Isaiah Rogers (i 800-1869) and Alex¬
ander Jackson Davis (1803-1892). It is, of course, not the tech¬
nicalities of their building activities that these articles are con¬
cerned with, but with the men themselves and with the milieu
around them. It has often been said (although the definitions are
still in dispute) that architecture is more than building: it is not
only houses and churches, but also architects and their clients; it
is cities; it is almost everything that shapes man's self-made en¬
vironment, from his first cave-shelter to the glittering metal
towers of Sixth Avenue. Architects indeed have frequently
claimed that they constitute at least the world's second-oldest
profession, and a profession of far more universal concern than
the oldest. This claim, incidentally, poses a special challenge for
architectural librarians who want to maintain what in library
terminology is called "complete coverage." It proves to be an
ever-expanding task.
 

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