The Pratt & MedChi

When Dr. William Osler became President of the Faculty in 1896-97, one of his missions was to completely update the pitiful books, pamphlets and periodical publications that made up the library. 

The Pratt, as it's known, was located on Cathedral Street between West Franklin and West Mulberry Streets, just around the corner from Dr. Osler's residence on West Franklin Street. 

The original branch of the Pratt had opened in 1886, and by 1894, it had one of the largest collections in the country. However, the growing collection meant that a new building was necessary and by 1931, the library's staff, services and 400,000 volumes had moved to temporary quarters at Redwood Street and Hopkins Plaza while the original building was demolished and a new building was constructed on the original site. 

One unique feature of the newly built main library was the huge windows, akin to those at a large department store, for showing off the books held in the library's collection. Unusually, it featured an open, light-filled main hall.

Backing up a few decades to 1896, Dr. Osler needed a trained librarian to manage the Faculty's peripatetic collection of books, which had both grown and shrunk over the previous half-century, and so he consulted his friend, Bernard C. Steiner, the head of the Enoch Pratt Free Library for a recommendation.

Within two weeks of her interview with Dr. Osler on behalf of the Library Committee, Miss Marcia Crocker Noyes had accepted the position of librarian at a salary of $300 per year, and moved into an apartment in the Faculty’s building at Hamilton Terrace.

At that time, librarians were expected to be on call 24/7. A physician could ring and request a book. The librarian would search the card catalogue and pull the book from the shelves. The physician would arrive shortly thereafter, consult the book, and hurry back to his ailing patient.

While Miss Noyes knew how to catalogue and how libraries worked, she knew nothing about medicine. She said that she trained herself for the job by just doing it. She was more than willing to learn, and Dr. Osler was a good and patient teacher. 

MedChi's association with the Pratt continues to this day, and over the decades, some of our board members have also served on the Pratt's board.