Radcliffe College tends to keep its glories hidden.

This attitude, perhaps deriving from the modesty which preserved the college during years of Harvard hostility to educating women, has left any number of current female undergraduates wondering both what Radcliffe does for them and what its existence does for women's education in general. Responses to the first query seem debatable, but the latter question does have answers buried under Radcliffe's apparent coyness.

One of Radcliffe's major contributions to the world of learning is the "Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library for the History of Women," a major research institution as low-key and invisible to the average undergraduate as its century-old mother sometimes is.

The Schlesinger Library is, simply, this country's best collection of documents on the history of American women. Smith College's Sophia Smith collection is the only comparable library, but it does not approach the Schlesinger in either size or variety. Much of the material rejected by conventional book collections because it seemed concerned only with minor facets of social history is now housed at Schlesinger.

Over the years the library has quietly increased its collection with a strong sense of purpose unrewarded by large numbers of library users. With the recent advent of women's studies' relative respectability, the Schlesinger has finally come into its own.

Patricia King, director of the Schlesinger, says records of library usage have not been kept until recently; the growth of the library's popularity, however, is indicated by the increase in visits from 3200 in 1976-77 to 3900 in 1977-78.

King says the library was rarely used until the rise of the women's movement in the late 1960 s. At present, 80 to 85 per cent of the visitors are women, although King, herself a social historian, notes an increase in use by male social history researchers.

There are about 400 document collections in the red brick building in Radcliffe Yard. It is difficult to give an exact number because of the nature of the collections, which range in size from half a file box to 188 linear feet and in subject from a very extensive collection of etiquette and cook books to the letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Betty Friedan.

Like so much else at Radcliffe, the Schlesinger snuck into existence without anybody at Harvard really noticing. In 1943, Maud Wood Park '98, a former women's suffrage advocate and the first president of the League of Women's Voters, gave her collection of documents from the suffrage movement to Radcliffe to form the basis of a women's rights collection.

By 1949, others had added to the new collection, and Radcliffe president Wilbur K. Jordan appointed Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., father of the present historian and then a well known Harvard history professor, to direct the library's advisory board.

Unlike many institutions, which are named in honor of their founders or endowers, the library was named in 1965 for the history professor. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. later said his mother was responsible for convincing the elder Schlesinger of the importance of women's history. Fittingly, the library also bears her name.

The library was not named for its endower because it has no endowment of its own. Radcliffe supports Schlesinger its projects, and a 13 person staff at a cost of approximately $300,000 a year.

King believes the reason this unusual institution was founded without any difficulties is that Harvard didn't know about it, probably." The library originated in a single locked room in Longfellow Hall. Its collection continued to grow, and eventually moved to Byerly Hall. The Schlesinger ended up in its present building in 1967 when the Radcliffe Libary moved to the newly-built Hilles.

King remarks that at the time, the library staff thought they had plenty of "growth space." However, the current building is filling up much more quickly than had been anticipated.

She says space has become a factor in deciding whether to solicit and accept new collections. "Now that we're well enough known that people come to us with material, we have to be more selective than we used to be. We're acutely aware of space problems, and often have to direct the collections elsewhere," she comments. However, she adds, the library has not become crowded enough to necessitate another building.