The 1380th meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences was held on Thursday, October 23, 2007 at the Rittenberg Lounge in Mather Hall of Trinity College, Hartford. Some thirty members and their guests attended the lecture at 4.30 and some 15 stayed for dinner. The Secretary of the Academy, Margot Kohorn, welcomed the audience on behalf of the President, Ernest Kohorn who was indisposed.

Professor Jonathan Elukin, the Vice President of the Academy for Trinity College introduced the speaker for the evening, Dr. Jeffrey Kaimowitz, the Head Librarian of the Watkinson Library and the Curator of the Enders Ornithology Collection at Trinity College. The talk was entitled "Reflections on Thirty Years at the Watkinson Library: Rare Books and the Liberal Arts". Dr. Kaimowitz began by tracing the history of the Watkinson Library. The Library was founded by David Watkinson, a wealthy Hartford merchant who had emigrated from England. He had no children bur was invested in education. He died in 1857 leaving $100,000 to establish a "library of reference" and research. The Library opened in 1866 in the Wadsworth Athenaeum, with Dr. James Trumbull as the first librarian. Trumbull was a noted bibliographer of Americana and a leading scholar of American Indian languages. Mark Twain described him as "probably the richest man in America in the matter of knowledge." In 1952, because of financial pressures, the library, with its 13,000 volumes moved to Trinity College. There are now 200,000 volumes. Although the ultimate authority lies with the Trustees of Trinity College, the library remains open to the public and serves the needs of all researchers. It has recently been renovated. It is a true research library with primary sources and biographies to back them up. Dr. Kaimowitz then treated the audience to a feast of slides illustrating the library's collection including the 1493 Nuremberg manuscript, Erasmus' first book, (he was the first person to support himself by publishing,) the first edition of the Federalist papers, the manuscript of the Pequot Massacre, the Treaty with the Indians at Casco Bay, the Cherokee Bible in the native American language, the first edition of The Standard of Pronunciation by Noah Webster, (the first Secretary of CAAS!), the papers of the Indian Charity School, (which later became Dartmouth College,) and many many more treasures. No wonder Dr Kaimowitz describes librarians as "intellectual tourists!"