Cornell University Medical College, Samuel J. Wood Library, Office of the Librarian (Erich Meyerhoff) Records

The Cornell University Medical College appears to have had some kind of library from the opening in 1900 of its first building on First Avenue and 28th Street.

The Cornell University Medical College Announcement for that year describes the new structure as having "a Library of Pathology and Bacteriology" on the fourth floor. No mention of the library is made again until 1911/1912 when that year's Announcement states "the Library contains nearly 7,000 bound volumes and a large number of reprints and monographs.” Also, for the first time, the 1911/12 Announcement lists a Librarian among the staff, Dr. Elise Strang L'Esperance, who was also an Instructor in Pathology; she remained Librarian until 1917/18.

Still, lt appears that by the end of the First World War the Cornell University Medical College Library was less a general medical library than an overgrown departmental one. This is confirmed by reminiscences of Dr. Eugene DuBois. Writing in the October 1952 Alumni Quarterly, he states that until 1920 Cornell University Medical College had "only departmental libraries. The largest was Dr. Ewing's in the Department of Pathology; the best was Dr. Graham Lusk's private collection. There was no place in the 28th Street building where the student or research worker could consult the literature."

This situation began to change in 1920 when Josephine Genung Nichols was hired as the College's first true medical librarian. She faced a huge task. The Cornell University Medical College Library Committee reported that same year "attendance of students in the Library still averages only five or six a day and they consult almost nothing except textbooks.” (Medical Faculty Minutes, v.4, p. 312).

In contrast, the Committee noted, the library of the College of Physicians and Surgeons was open longer hours than Cornell "and is much used by the students. Their attendance is sometimes as high as three hundred a day." (Ibid).

Although not trained as a medical librarian, Mrs. Nichols made great improvements with the slim resources at hand. By 1930, the library boasted 12,000 volumes of bound periodicals, 5,000 monographs, and reprints as well as a new reading room. The move to the new Medical Center building in 1932 gave the Library more space including a spacious reading room on the second floor of the Medical College building, and stacks that could accommodate 100,000 volumes.

After her retirement in 1952, Nichols was succeeded by Anna Frances Burke. During Burke's tenure, the Library underwent its first major expansion. A gift of $1.6 million from the Samuel J. and Evelyn L. Wood Foundation in 1959 enabled the College to construct the Samuel J. Wood Library and Research Building. Opening in 1962, the building provided the library with additional study space and larger staff quarters in a modern setting; it also enabled lt to absorb the Lydia Anderson Library of the School of Nursing.

Upon Ms. Burke's retirement in 1963, no new librarian was appointed; Emiko Akiyama, who had been at the School of Nursing Library, was named Acting Librarian.

A librarian was finally named in 1970 when Erich Meyerhoff succeeded to the post. Meyerhoff (who was made Assistant Dean for Information Resources in 1977) was a prominent medical librarian who rapidly brought the Wood Library into the forefront of American medical libraries. During his sixteen year, administration a full range of computer systems was installed, the Medical Archives was founded (1972), and the Audio-Visual Department was greatly expanded.

At his retirement in 1986, Meyerhoff had left the library well-prepared for its next expansion into the Lasdon Biomedical Research Building. He was succeeded by Robert Braude who became the first Loeb Librarian of CUMC, an endowed chair made possible through the generosity of Frances and John L. Loeb.