The Burndy Library on the History of Science and Technology at the Huntington Library
Remarkably, Louis Pasteur’s personal library made its way to California thanks to Bern Dibner, a philanthropist with a passion for the history of science and boundless esteem for Louis Pasteur.
One of America’s foremost collectors of scientific publications related to the history of science and technology, Dr. Dibner (1897-1988) was a self-made businessman. He spent much of his fortune in acquiring groundbreaking publications. His collection of 67,000 rare books became the Burndy Library. Since 2006, the Burndy Library has been part of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens of San Marino, California.
It was from Alain Brieux, a well-known Parisian antiquarian book dealer that Dr. Dibner purchased the pièce de resistance of his collection: the Pasteur library. Acquired in great part from the widow of Pasteur’s grandson, Louis-Pasteur Vallery-Radot, the library contains many of Pasteur’s annotated manuscripts, all of his major works, a prize he won as a 20-year-old student, a guestbook and several photographs. Also included were a few notebooks containing Pasteur’s notations on fermentation, silkworms and the work of Joseph Lister, the surgeon who applied Pasteur’s discoveries to the operating room. It is the most significant collection of Pasteur papers in the United States and, in all likelihood, the largest outside of France. Dr. Dibner was particularly proud of this collection because he revered Louis Pasteur, considering him to be mankind’s greatest benefactor.
Location: San Marino, California
Acknowledgment: Brent Dibner, Jimmy Druhlon, Bert Hansen, Daniel Lewis, and Philip Weimerskirch. Image courtesy of the Huntington Library. |
