Penrose Library Mission Statement | Quick Facts | Penrose Library History

Whitman College, located in Walla Walla, Washington, is a private, residential college that is committed to providing an excellent, well-rounded liberal arts and sciences undergraduate education. In support of this mission, Penrose Library provides broad resources and services, as well as an attractive and well-used building, to support teaching, learning, and research at the college.

The Library's mission is to serve "as a bridge between the Whitman College community—students, faculty, administration, and staff—and the information resources that promote teaching, research and learning in the spirit and mission of the College."

The Penrose Library collection includes books, periodicals, archives and special collections, VHS cassettes and DVDs, government documents, online databases, maps and microforms. The Library has over 450,000 catalogued items and over 19,000 unique journal titles. In additions to the numerous study carrels for individual use, there are eight group study rooms and large opens areas to accommodate a variety of social and learning needs. The Library provides desktops computers for student use, some with special software for students with disabilities, has fully-wired laptops available for check-out and also has Ethernet and wireless service for personal laptop computing. Copy machines, microform reader/printers (including on that will make digital scans of microform images) and a library fax machine are available.

Penrose Library, Quick Facts:

• Open and Full Service 24/7
• 450,000 cataloged items
• 19,000 unique journal titles
• Member of the Orbis Cascade Alliance, Oberlin Colleges, NITLE, and NAPCU
• Bibliographic Utilities
  • Catalog: Millennium, Innovative Interfaces Inc.
  • Electronic Reserves: Docutek ERes
  • OpenURL: Article Linker
  • Proxy Server: EZProxy
• United States and Washington State Government Documents
• Complete United States Congressional Serial Set
• American State Papers (1789 to 1838)
• The Whitman College and Northwest Archives
• Archival holdings:
  • Papers of early Northwest missionaries, settlers, and important Whitman alumni/ae
  • Records of the college and local organizations
• Special collections:
  • Early illustrated books
  • Northwest Americana
  • Stuart Napoleon Collection
  • Book arts
  • Highlights:
    • a medieval book of hours
    • a copy of The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)
    • some of the first books printed in the Northwest at the Lapwai Mission Press (1839-45)
    • a first edition of Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species (1859)




On a blustery fall evening in Walla Walla, Whitman College students work and study in the comfortable seating of the ethernet & wireless capable Allen Room of the Penrose Library.



Images of the Penrose Library




In a secluded corner of Penrose Library, Whitman College, two students recapture their childhood in a tree house while quietly pursuing academic goals.

In Penrose Library at Whitman College, students are equally at home with books & computers.

 

A Brief History of the Whitman College Library

Whitman College was originally chartered as a pre-collegiate, coeducational academy in 1859. It was founded by Rev. Cushing Eells to memorialize his missionary colleagues, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, who established a mission not far from the current city of Walla Walla in 1836 and were killed by a group of Indians in 1847. The first classes at Whitman were not held until 1866, when a site for the school was secured and its first building was constructed. But the school suffered from financial and leadership problems until 1882, when Whitman added a collegiate program that attracted new financial support and a new president, Alexander Jay Anderson, past president of the University of Washington .

The library began with college instruction in 1882 and consisted of a purchased copy of Webster's Dictionary and three donated “educational reports.” When Rev. Myron Eells, the son of Cushing Eells, inquired about the development of the college library and whether or not the college would be interested in some of his books, President Anderson replied, “Whitman College Library has now four books. Send yours.” Eells sent 10 books, 15 pamphlets, and $25. Later, in 1907, Eells's substantial special collections of missionary and Pacific Northwest history materials were bequeathed to the college.

Developing the library was a leading concern as the college sought support. Within ten years, the library had a $1,000 endowment, a serviceable collection of 3,700 bound volumes and 2,200 pamphlets, and it had been designated as a depository of public documents. During the first half of the twentieth century, administration of the library benefited from professional librarians who began applying emerging principles of librarianship to acquisitions, cataloging, and reference service.


“The Shack”

Reynolds Hall and Annex
But it was not until the latter half of twentieth century, when endowments and budgets were more substantial, that the library's 100,000-volume collection—the third largest for a college in the state—developed more evenly and had an appropriate, permanent facility. The library was initially located in Whitman's first building, then moved to its second building in 1883, and then relocated to the college's first stone structure, the Whitman Memorial Building, in 1900. There the library expanded, first onto a second floor in 1914 and then into a temporary annex, appropriately referred to as “The Shack,” in 1921. In 1934, library materials were culled from various locations around campus and placed in a reconfigured dormitory, Reynolds Hall. This building could not accommodate the increasing size or weight of the library and so another annex, a concrete block, was constructed in 1951.

Penrose Memorial Library, 1957

Stuart Wing of the Penrose Memorial Library, 1974

Finally, in 1957, the college built a three-level, fire-proof library building, the Penrose Memorial Library, named after the college's third president, Stephen B. L. Penrose, who had led the college for 40 years. In 1974, Penrose Library was expanded by sixty percent with the addition of the Stuart Memorial Wing, named after Mr. Elbridge H. Stuart, a former trustee and benefactor of the college. With the Stuart Wing came the Stuarts's unique collection of books, artifacts, and furniture associated with Napoleon Bonaparte and his time. In 2000, the library was completely remodeled and renovated. Today, Penrose Library houses a collection of some 450,000 catalogued items and provides functional and attractive facilities for library work.


Penrose Library in 2000

 

Barbaraella Frazier is a Reference & Information Literacy Librarian, Penrose Library, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington

Michael J. Paulus, Jr. is Archivist and Special Collections Librarian for the Whitman College and Northwest Archives, Penrose Library, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington