IN FOCUS: Woodstock Library - The "Secret" is Getting Out

Amid rows of reference works and periodicals inside the Woodstock Theological Center Library sit two bronze busts that illustrate the character of this collection. One is of John Courtney Murray, the other of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - towering Jesuit figures of 20th century Catholic thought. This is a place steeped in the intellectual tradition of the Society of Jesus, but far more is hidden from view.

"In many ways, this library has been one of Woodstock's best kept secrets," author and Woodstock friend Patricia Maloney Markan wrote a decade and a half ago in these pages.

More recently, the depth of its collections took even the library's current director by surprise when he began work there two and a half years ago. "I was just blown away by what we have back here," said Leon Hooper, S.J., a theologian and Woodstock senior fellow who will also begin serving this summer as book editor of the journal Theological Studies.

Still in many ways a secret, but becoming less so, the Woodstock Library is considered one of the leading Catholic libraries in North America. With more than 190,000 volumes and 750 current periodicals, it is especially strong in the areas of biblical studies, spirituality, church history, liturgy, the Jesuits, and Christian social thought.

One of the library's distinctive features is its collection of rare volumes. The 17,500 titles include first editions of such classic works as Diderot's Dictionnaire (see sidebar on page 10). There is also an impressive collection of Judaica (in addition to the "Jesuitica") including an illuminated 1790 Jewish marriage document and an early 19th-century Torah.

These texts are kept among the library's special collections, in a non-descript storage room.

"It isn't much to look at," said Paul Osmanski, who handles and technical services for the library, as he allowed a visitor into the small room. "It is valuable, though. That's why we keep it locked." The rare works are hidden away, but available for perusal by legitimate scholars.

The Woodstock Library is much older than the Woodstock Theological Center. It was founded in 1869 as a library for young men studying for the Jesuit priesthood at Woodstock College in Maryland.

Today it is ensconced in the basement of Georgetown University's Lauinger Library and remains owned by the Maryland and New York Provinces of the Society of Jesus. For a long time, however, it had a "pilgrim existence," as Markan wrote in the Woodstock Report in May 1990.

"Though it originated and remained for 100 years at Woodstock College outside Baltimore, it traveled with the College, 17 trailer truck-loads, with nary a book lost in transit, to its second location in New York City in 1969. There it settled on Morningside Heights and entered into a collaborative relationship with the libraries of Union Theological Seminary and the Jewish Theological School.

"But within five years the College was closed because of the shrinking number of candidates for Jesuit priesthood. And so the library made another journey, again without losing a book, this time to Georgetown University ."

The pilgrim existence ended in 1989, when the Woodstock Library's home in Lauinger Library became permanent. As part of its generous operating support, Georgetown University provides the space as well a budget of $151,000 for acquisitions. It employs the staff, including library assistants Sharon Russell and Susan Karp, in addition to Osmanski and Father Hooper.

At Lauinger, the Woodstock Library operates as a "distinct library within a library," in Father Hooper's words.

It is also an unmistakably Jesuit enterprise - its collections of Jesuit spirituality, history, educational philosophy and documentation are considered unparalleled in the United States. These include a revision and commentary of 50 selected letters of St. Ignatius Loyola. All 50 letters, written to fellow Jesuits, are available on the Web.

The Woodstock Library has evolved along with the Society of Jesus, and with theology.

"It's less of an archival collection than it was 20 years ago," said Father Hooper, referring to the library's expanding collections of contemporary works in such areas as mystical theology and pluralism.

The people using the library are not simply the few in search of the rare and archival. They are students and scholars alike, from places like The Catholic University of America and the Washington Theological Consortium, often looking for current works in their fields of interest. The library recently became a member of the consortium, which is ecumenical.

The library is also developing together with Woodstock itself, acquiring books and periodicals that dovetail with the center's studies of globalization, church leadership, and other concerns. These research needs will only grow as Georgetown University advances in its plan to establish a graduate theology program.

One of the pressing tasks is to digitalize the library's catalogue of special collections, including the most theologically and historically significant titles from the 15^th through 19th centuries. The general collection, some reference works, and most periodicals have already been digitalized, which means the catalogues could be viewed on the Web.

With more visitors and viewers, the "secret" of the Woodstock Library is getting out.

"I'm not a trained librarian," said Father Hooper, who succeeded Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J., as library director in September 2003. "I'm a researcher, and therefore a user - and I do want this place to be used."

Editor's note: In a coming issue, the Woodstock Report takes a look into the diaries of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., parts of which have been transcribed by Woodstock fellow Nicole Schmitz-Moormann and are housed at Woodstock.

Woodstock Library Special Collections

Among the Woodstock Library's 17,500 rare volumes are:

. A first edition of The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola (1548); the Library of Congress has the only other copy in the United States.

. A complete set of the four, best known 16th and 17th century Polyglot Bibles, in which columns of text are printed in different languages.

. The first-ever printing of a map of the moon (above), in a 1656 book by the Italian Jesuit Riccioli.

. Two "block books" (so called because the printing was done from wooden blocks) from the early days of the Society of Jesus in China (1670 and 1700).

. A first edition of Pseudo-Martyr, the first book published by John Donne (1610).

. A first edition of the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith