Phillips Library (Salem, Massachusetts)

Phillips Library

Plummer Hall in 2005
Country United States
Type Special library
Established 1992 (1992)
Location Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°31′21″N 70°53′30″W / 42.522389°N 70.891556°W / 42.522389; -70.891556Coordinates: 42°31′21″N 70°53′30″W / 42.522389°N 70.891556°W / 42.522389; -70.891556
Collection
Items collected books, journals, newspapers, magazines, ephemera, maps, and manuscripts
Other information
Director Sidney E. Berger
Staff 8
Website http://pem.org/library
Phillips Library
General information
Architectural style Italianate
Location 132 Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts
Country United States
Construction started Daland House: 1851; Plummer Hall: 1856
Completed Daland House: 1852; Plummer Hall: 1856
Renovated 1998; 2012
Owner Peabody Essex Museum
Design and construction
Architect Daland House: Gridley James Fox Bryant (original), William Devereux Dennis (renovation); Plummer Hall: Enoch Fuller
Architecture firm Schwartz/Silver Architects (2012 renovation)
Plummer Hall and Daland House c. 1906

The Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum is a rare books and special collections library located in the Essex Institute Historic District of Salem, Massachusetts. It "is made up of the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem and Essex Institute, which merged in 1992. Both had libraries named for members of the Phillips family."[1][2] The Phillips Library reading room is located in Plummer Hall on Essex Street, with offices in the connected John Tucker Daland House.[3]

Plummer Hall was originally built for the Salem Athenaeum in 1857. The Athenaeum provided for space for the Essex Institute and several other groups, and sold the building to the Essex Institute in 1907.[4] The reading room underwent restoration in 1998.[5] Both buildings closed in November 2011 for an extensive renovation. The Phillips Library Reading Room reopened in August 2013 at its temporary location at 1 Second Street, Peabody, MA. [6][7]

Collections

"The library, with its gold-leaf pillars, and busts of Nathaniel Bowditch and George Peabody, is best known for holding the original 1692 Salem witchcraft trials papers, and early works by Nathaniel Hawthorne."[8] Collection subjects include art and architecture, Essex County, maritime history, natural history, New England, voyages and travels, Asia, Oceania, and Native American culture.[9] Some featured collections include the C. E. Fraser Clark Collection of Hawthorniana, the Frederick Townsend Ward Collection of Western-language materials on Imperial China, and the Herbert Offen Research Collection.[10][11]

References

  1. ↑ Boston Globe, May 24, 1998
  2. ↑ Prior to 1992, the Essex Institute operated the "James Duncan Phillips Library" cf. Boston Globe, Oct 11, 1988
  3. ↑ http://www.pem.org/library/information
  4. ↑ Ashton, Joseph (1917). The Salem Athenaeum 1810-1910. The Berkeley Press. pp. 24–31.
  5. ↑ Boston Globe, May 24, 1998
  6. ↑ Phillips Library at PEM. Retrieved 05 April 2012.
  7. ↑ Michael Kelley. Phillips Library... to Make Holdings Available Online. Library Journal. 27 September 2011. Retrieved 05 April 2012.
  8. ↑ Boston Globe, Mar 28, 2004
  9. ↑ Subject Strengths. Retrieved 05 April 2012.
  10. ↑ Featured Collections. Retrieved 05 April 2012.
  11. ↑ Offen Collection. Retrieved 05 April 2012.

Further reading

Salem - 1820
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