John Hay Library

This review is for the Curator and staff of the library — not for the lovely building, books, or offerings of the library:
We have a newspaper copy of a poetry book from the 1930’s. For years, we attempted to find another copy of the book with no success. We tried to find the poems online but too many of them were unique and one of a kind. We tried to have the book preserved but learned newspaper from the 1930’s was not high quality. We tried to have the book copied and reprinted but it meant cutting it open and paying a lot of money to scan and print it.
Our research led us to discover that two originals (one of which was described as pristine) of our beloved poetry book existed at Brown University in Rhode Island. Being in Boston, we were delighted. After numerous hopeful emails where Ann and the retiring library curator (Rosemary) promised to get back to me, they never did. We, of course, were to pay all costs.
Finally, on the verge of her retirement, Rosemary abruptly (and not very pleasantly) decided that they would not do the promised work for us. After wasted months of trying to get somebody to call or email me back, it was like a slap in the face.
There was one very helpful gentleman with whom I spoke who was as hopeful as I was in restoring (digitizing) our book. Unfortunately, the project was out of his hands and I had to work with the retiring lame duck.
Good news is, we went to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) instead to digitize this priceless gem of a poetry book. MIT was absolutely fabulous and had the same desire as we did to digitize this work of literary art. They were professional and reasonably priced and handled the project from start to finish flawlessly without even cutting our original book. MIT library and document services ROCKS!

While visiting Providence, I was doing something resembling a self-​guided Lovecraft tour. When he died, he left many of his manuscripts to the John Hay Library, and they hold the largest Lovecraft manuscript collection in the world. With a special request, a few forms to fill out, and the willingness to leave all your books and bags outside, they’ll let you access one of the 20+ boxes of manuscripts and sketches from the library at a time. I recommend looking up the special collections on their website, picking a box that looks interesting to you, calling ahead, and getting the box pulled out in advance.
Many of the manuscripts are hand written, and Lovecraft’s notorious frugality lead me to a delightful surprise. Most of the manuscripts are written on the back sides of correspondence, so we get to see glimpses into his life and friendships at the point in time which he wrote the stories. This place is well worth an afternoon of your time, and I will be back again next time I’m in town.

Once the main library for Brown University, this gorgeous building now houses its special collections. You can sit in the stately reading room and pore over everything from books that belonged to Thoreau to nineteenth-​century Parker Brothers board games to gay and lesbian pulp fiction. The staff is extremely helpful and surprisingly laid back about letting people handle and photograph the precious items in their care. One caveat, however: you can’t just walk in here and poke around with no purpose. To gain access to the collections, you must have a particular research interest. Even if you don’t have something in mind to explore, stop by the Hay to check out the latest exhibition in the lobby and soak in the atmosphere.