LHRT (Library History Round Table)

Keyes DeWitt Metcalf was acknowledged as one of the country's foremost librarians. Upon his retirement, Dr. Nathan M. Pusey, then the president of Harvard, praised him for having ''revitalized'' the university's libraries during his 17 years in charge. He was considered one of the 100 most important leaders in librarianship in the twentieth century by the journal American Libraries.

Metcalf was president of the American Library Association, 1942–1943.

In 1963 he was awarded American Library Association Honorary Membership, recognizing contributions "so outstanding that it is of lasting importance to the advancement of the whole field of library service." In 1966 the Association honored him with the Joseph W. Lippincott Award. In 1978 he was honored as Academic Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Education and career 

After his graduation from Oberlin in 1911 Keyes Metcalf enrolled in the first class at the new school of librarianship in the New York Public Library. Except for two periods when he was called back to Oberlin to serve as acting librarian of the college, he spent the next twenty-six years in the New York Public Library.

On his way to becoming chief of the Reference Department (now called The Research Libraries) in 1928, Keyes held assignments in most of the library's divisions where his ingenuity and enterprise left lasting marks. He was influential in organizing the vast book stacks in the library, in introducing the use of microphotography for scholarly purposes, and in forming an outstanding corps of librarians, an accomplishment of which he was justifiably proud. During these years in New York, two of Keyes's lasting interests began to evolve. One concerned the subtleties of building encyclopedic research library collections and ensuring their accessibility to scholars. The other was the provision of space for library purposes, both in new construction and in renovations.

Selected Publications

• Metcalf, K.D. (1988). My Harvard Library Years. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

• Metcalf, K.D. (1980). Random Recollections of an Anachronism or Seventy-Five Years of Library Work. New York: Readex Books.
• Metcalf, Keyes D., and Association of Research Libraries. 1970. Library Lighting. Washington: Association of Research Libraries.
• Metcalf, Keyes D., Association of Research Libraries, and Association of College and Research Libraries. 1965. Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
• Metcalf, Keyes D. 1955. Report on the Harvard University Library; a Study of Present and Prospective Problems. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Library.
• Metcalf, K. D., Metcalf, K. D., & Metcalfe, K. D. (1952). University libraries face the future. Library Quarterly, 22, 5-12.
• Metcalfe, Keyes D. "Cooperative development of research collections in the United States" American Documentation: 2 January 1951.
• Metcalf, Keyes D. 1948. The Farmington Plan. 

Sources

Bond, W. H. "Keyes DeWitt Metcalf." Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 95 (1983): 163–166. Print.

Bryant, Douglas W.  "Keyes DeWitt Metcalf."  American Antiquarian Society Proceedings.94 January 1, 1985.

Kaser, David (1993). Keyes D. Metcalf (1889–1983). In Robert Wedgeworth (Ed.), World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services (pp. 568–569). Chicago: American Library Association.

Keyes DeWitt Metcalf; Ran Harvard Libraries: [OBITUARY]. New York Times. Nov 08, 1983. 

Kniffel, Leonard, Sullivan, Peggy, & McCormick, Edith (1999). 100 of the most important leaders we had in the 20th century. American Libraries, 30, 38–47.

Miller, Alicia Metcalf. 1989. Library Genes & Other Considerations: A Remembrance of Keyes DeWitt Metcalf. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Libraries.

Wiegand, Wayne A. 1983. Leaders in American Academic Librarianship, 1925-1975. Pittsburgh, Pa., Chicago, Ill.: Beta Phi Mu; Distributed by American Library Association under special arrangement with Beta Phi Mu.

Wagner, Ralph D. A History of the Farmington Plan. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002.

Williams, Edwin E. 1969. The Metcalf Administration, 1937-1955, and Keyes D. Metcalf; a Bibliography of Published Writings. Cambridge: Harvard University Library.