Interest in the University Library developed slowly in the Dodge period. In addition to teaching and being Dean, Professor Andrews served as Librarian from 1868 to 1880 and Professor Burnham from 1880 to 1892. The book collection was kept in a single room on the second floor of Alumni Hall. It numbered about 7,500 volumes in 1869, and 18,500 twenty years later. The establishment in the 1870’s of an endowment fund of $25,000, the income of which was for book purchases, brought about a steady increase on the shelves. James B. Colgate occasionally made gifts of luxurious art books and special sets. Dr. Dodge, who was something of a bibliophile, presented his library of some 3,500 volumes which was especially rich in art and theology. He had never spared expense in acquiring his treasures, many of which he valued for their fine colorful bindings as well as their contents. Despite his counsel to students to read the best English novels, the Library was seriously deficient in English and American literature. Few students, however, seem to have had a taste for leisure-time reading, nor did the fact that the Library was open only three hours a day and lacked an adequate catalog encourage them to acquire one. The opening of the James B. Colgate Library in 1891 was to create new opportunities for reading and study.
