Thomas Hollis is much on our collective mind these days. Houghton Library has recently published “From the Great Desire of Promoting Learning”: Thomas Hollis’s Gifts to the Harvard College Library by William H. Bond, Librarian of Houghton Library from 1965 until 1982. Bond’s checklist documents Hollis’s donations and illuminates his goal in spreading the political philosophy of liberty. Bond’s work demonstrates for the first time the full extent of Hollis’s campaign to influence the students in New England. This book is distributed for Houghton Library by Harvard University Press and is also a special Issue of the Harvard Library Bulletin.
Hollis’s similar gifts to other libraries is the subject of the 93rd Winship Lecture to be delivered on April 6, 2010, at 5:30 p.m. in the Edison and Newman Room. Dr. Urs Leu, Director of the Rare Book Department, Zentralbibliothek Zurich will speak on “The Hollis Collections in Switzerland.” In his talk, Dr. Leu discusses Hollis’s donations to various Swiss libraries (Berne, Basel, Geneva and Zurich), and shows the motivations behind Hollis’s choice of books and recipients.