Beverly Robinson Betts (August 3, 1827 – May 21, 1899) was an American reverend and librarian, who served as the first "professional" librarian of the Columbia University Libraries.[1]
Betts was born in New York City on August 3, 1827 to William Betts, a law professor and trustee at Columbia University. Beverley Betts himself graduated from Columbia College in 1846, and from the General Theological Seminary in 1850. The same year he was ordained a deacon, and served as rector of various churches in Long Island and New York City from 1851 to 1865,[2] when he appointed head librarian of the Columbia Libraries following faculty complaints about the library's management under William Alfred Jones.[3][4] As librarian, Betts replaced its badly outdated catalog, and accepted 7,000 volumes from the personal collections of alumnus Stephen Whitney Felix, which included a Shakespeare First Folio, an illuminated book of hours, and "several important U.S. literary manuscripts."[4] However, he did little to expand the library's collections, under his ideal "of forming a library of moderate extent indeed, but of the highest character,"[5] leading librarian Kenneth J. Brough to criticize him as "incompetent and lazy".[6] Following complaints by political science professor John Burgess, the university board of trustees reorganized the library, and President Frederick Barnard replaced him in 1883 with the more progressive Melvil Dewey.[4] He died on May 21, 1899.[2]
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