In 1890 Dean Langdell wrote to President Eliot, "Now the library is believed to be larger, more complete, and in a better condition than any other law library in the country, with the possible exception of the national library at Washington. . . ."

Austin Hall Soon Too Small

At the time of the execution of Austin Hall the building was expected to furnish accommodation for 50 years, but according to the report of the Dean in 1891, it was already overcrowded. The reading room was enlarged, which relieved the situation for the moment, but the authorities realized that an additional building was necessary. In 1901 Dean Ames reported that the shelves of the library were full, and as a temporary expedient, a building abandoned by the Lawrence Scientific School and the cellar in Walter Hastings Hall were used as storage rooms for the overflow of books.

Finally, in 1907, the Dean announced the completion of the new building, Langdell Hall, and prophesied that, with Austin Hall, it "will, for a dozen years at least, give dignified, attractive, and ample accommodations for all the needs of the School."

The building of the new library was financed by money taken from the surplus of the School, the income of which it had been spending on its library, so that some of the opportunities to purchase important collections have necessarily been missed. At least four were embraced, however, between 1911 and 1914.

These collections are noted in "The Centennial History of the Harvard Law School" as of great importance. "In 1911," it says, "the library acquired the remarkable collection of Bar Association Proceedings which had been made by Francis Rawle, Esq., of Philadelphia, believed to be the only complete collection of State Bar Association Proceedings in existence. . . .

"In 1912 there came a sudden chance to buy the great international law library of the Marquis de Olivart. The catalogue of this collection is constantly referred to in recent treatises on the subject as the standard bibliography of international law.

In 1913 the Dunn collection of manuscripts and printed books of Common Law, "the last considerable collection of such material remaining in private hands," was purchased, placing the library "far beyond the possibility of rivalry" on the subject of English law.

A very large collection of South American material, gathered by "the librarian of a sister institution," was purchased in 1914.

In regard to number of volumes, the list of over 500 law libraries in the United States and Canada, published in 1912 by the "Law Library Journal", showed that the University Law School, with 150,000 volumes, contained three times as many as any other school library, and was approached only by the law library of Congress and the Supreme Court, with 145,000 volumes.

At present there are over 200,000 volumes in Langdell and Austin Halls. There are complete collections of American, English, Irish, Scotch, and English Colonial Reports, and an almost complete collection of the statutes of America and Great Britain from the earliest periods. There are also remarkable numbers of legislative reports, foreign law reports, books on international law, and compilations of statistics