Kenneth A. Lohf Colleaingfor Columbia                   5

already written to me and had given a number of his manuscripts to
the Library, we began negotiations posthaste that happily resulted
in the large treasure trove being added to our Merton Collection."

Another group of Columbia authors whose books and manu¬
scripts the Library acquired was the "Beats." "They all either went
to Columbia College, as Allen Ginsberg (94) and Jack Kerouac (92)
did, or lived in the Morningside Heights area," Ken explained.
"The student riots in 1968 marked the genesis of the Library's
interest in this group of Columbia authors. Ginsberg's poem
'Howl' was a student icon, and he was often on the campus to speak
or to give readings of his poems, and at one point he and Kerouac's
biographer, Ann Charters, found my office on the eighth floor of
Butler, high above the riot's turmoil, a convenient refuge for a meet¬
ing and interview. It was at one of these meetings that Allen and I
began to talk about the depositing of his papers and library with us.
For the sake of protection and future use of his literary archive,
Allen readily agreed. Our brief talk and the rapid meeting of minds,
seconded by Professors Barzun, Trilling, and Van Doren, resulted in
the formation of the 'Beat' collection, now grown to be the most
significant such literary archive of the movement in existence."

I was intrigued by the impressive and rapid growth in the collec¬
tions and pursued that topic in our interview. ' 'Ken, it seems you've
been quite innovative in acquiring works in the realm of 'popular
culture.' I note in the catalogue Paul R. Palmer's gift of a collection
of 1,300 movie stills from the silent screen era to the present (76).
Then, there is the manuscript and inscribed first edition of the first
Ellery Queen novel, The Roman Hat Mystery (81), the gift of
Richard and Douglas Dannay and Patricia Lee Caldwell. I saw these
in a large exhibition of Columbia's mystery writer's material. Still
another recent exhibition featured Nancy Saxon's gift of numerous
delightful drawings by her late husband Charles for New Yorker cov¬
ers and cartoons (101)." "Not only do these collections of popular
culture mirror the social conventions of our age, but they also stim¬
ulate student interest," Ken explained. "But as an example of large
attendance, certainly not confined to students nor related to popu-