Gerald Cloud has only been working in Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library for three weeks, but he’s already settled into a comfortable office on the sixth floor of Butler. Formerly a reference librarian at the University of California, San Diego, Cloud was hired by Columbia to create programs to study and raise awareness of the sizeable collection—one which few Columbia students know about.
Spectator: How did the RBML get its start?
Gerald Cloud: The department didn’t officially form until about 1930, but Columbia owned rare books and manuscript material long before that. Samuel Johnson, the first president of the University, and his son William were both book collectors,
What are some of your favorite books and manuscripts in the collection?
The literary manuscripts–particularly the collections of Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg’s work. We have, for example, letters that Kerouac wrote to both Ginsberg and Burroughs as early as the late ’40s—not too long after they had met at Columbia, when they were all still quite young.
