author
Harry Lyman Koopman
1860–1937
A longtime Brown University librarian, he paired a life in books with a love of poetry, bibliography, and literary history. His writing reflects both a scholar’s curiosity and a reader’s delight in the world of books.
1 Audiobook
The Booklover and His Books
by Harry Lyman Koopman
About the author
Born in Freeport, Maine, on July 1, 1860, he graduated from Colby College in 1880. After a short period of teaching, he worked in several major academic libraries, including the Astor Library, Cornell, and Harvard, before earning an M.A. from Harvard in 1893.
That same year he became librarian of Brown University, a position he held until 1930. Brown’s library history and exhibition materials credit him with helping shape important collections there, and Maine library records also remember him as a poet and nonfiction writer as well as a librarian.
His books include works on reading, collecting, and literary culture, such as The Mastery of Books and The Booklover and His Books. He died on December 28, 1937, leaving behind the image of a reader-scholar deeply devoted to libraries and the pleasures of books.