Perkins School for the Blind is among the oldest schools for the blind in the world. Its founding director Samuel Gridley Howe is generally credited with first establishing principals for teaching the deafblind which in large part continue to this day. Anne Sullivan was a graduate of the teaching program, and was famously sent to Helen Keller at the desperate request of her mother.
Among the many programs established and supported by Perkins is the Samuel P. Hayes Research Library. It is the third of the libraries at Perkins. The other two being a school library and the Massachusetts branch of the national Braille and Talking Book Library. The Research Library was founded in 1880 as the Blindiana Library by the school’s second director, Michael Anagnos. He had had been inspired seeing a collection on the subject gathered by Alexander Mell at the Vienna school for the blind.
Eventually the Library was renamed for the renowned social psychologist Samuel P. Hayes. The Library’s stated mission is “to maintain a comprehensive collection, both current and historical, on the non-medical aspects of visual impairment, blindness, deaf-blindness, and multiple disabilities which include visual impairment.”
It has succeeded. Today the Library has become the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of materials concerned with the nonmedical aspects of blindness and deafblindness in the English language. It also maintains a large collection of nonEnglish materials. All together it contains more than forty thousand books, pamphlets, journal articles, newspaper clippings, conference reports and websites in its collection. There may be as many as twenty thousand more uncataloged items under in its care, as well.
The archive contains much of the history of the school, which as already mentioned is among the foremost institutions concerned with the subject. Its collections concerning nineteenth and early twentieth century work with blindness both at the school and beyond is particularly noteworthy.
Among the less important but interesting items is an original letter written by Henry David Thoreau applying for a job at the school. Apparently he didn’t get it.
Other significant collections include most of the primary materials concerned with Laura Bridgman, the first deafblind person to be educated, as well as much primary material concerned with Helen Keller. It also contains materials on the global history of education of the blind. It includes many examples of printing and writing systems for the blind as well as the Bettye Krolick Collection on the history of music notation for the blind.
The library is open to the public. It serves as a research center for academics, writers and others seeking access to materials concerned with blindness, deafblindness and similar conditions.
Head Librarians
Sarah E. Lane 1880 – 1911
Laura M. Sawyer 1898 – 1925
Mary Esther Sawyer 1925 – 1949
Nelson Coon 1949 – 1960
Frank Lavine 1964 – 1965
Billie Jean Ovellette 1966 – 1968
Research Librarians
Kenneth A. Stuckey 1968 – 1998
June Tulikangas 1998 – 2000
Jan Seymour-Ford 2001 – present
(This brief introduction to the Samuel P. Hayes Research Library was compiled in honor of the school’s Research Librarian Jan Seymour-Ford on the occasion of her birthday.)
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