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The Tomorrow Librarian: Harold Billings' Legacy as Director of the University of Texas Libraries 1978-2003

Billings with new collection materials

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1. A Collection on Texas and the American West - plate image A plate from James Linforth Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley... (Liverpool, 1855), "One of the more elaborately and beautifully illustrated of western books. A large portion of the edition was water-damaged while in transit to New York." - Wright Howes U.S. The image depicts two hunter ducked behind a fallen bufallo and one hunter on horseback chasing two other buffallo. The landscape of the dessert and mountains are seen in the background.
2. A Collection on Texas and the American West
3. A Collection on Texas and the American West - Introduction page1 A Collection on Texas and the American West. On October 24th, 1975, the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System authorized the acquistion of a remarkable collection of materials dealing with Texas and the American West from the Jenkins Company of Austin. This collection of books, manuscripts, broadsides and maps formerly belonged to Edward Eberstadt & Sons, a famous New York bookseller. Assembled by Eberstadt over a period of seventy-five years, these materials represent part of the private stock of that firm--the finest copies and rarest titles set aside for the Eberstadt personal collection. In August of 1975, the Jenkins Company purchased the entire Eberstadt Collection of over 40,000 items dealing chiefly with American history, and in turn offered the items on Texas and the American West to the University of Texas.
4. A Collection on Texas and the American West - Introduction page 2 years and its present 4 million volume collection grew by over a million volumes during the past four years alone. The Mexican War items are being located in the Jenkins Garrett Library at the University of Texas at Arlington, and it is expected that duplicates of Austin holdings that turn up in the collection will be added to the Garret Library and to the fine Texas Collection in the John Peace Library of the University of Texas at San Antonio. Far from being parochial musuem pieces, these enormously valuable research materials help expand a national and international resource for the continuing study not just of a state and region but of the entire United States and this hemisphere in its constantly developing and evolving movement. By acquiring this collection The University of Texas meets a continuing obligation not only to the citizens of Texas and the Southwest for the improvement of its resources but to scholars worldwide whose concern is the history of the Americas. Harold Billings. Associate Director of General Libraries. The University of Texas at Austin.

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Collection Development While an advocate for technological innovation, Billings still simultaneously continued to build the print and research collections at UT Libraries. A literary scholar himself, Billings' love of research and books carried over into his many roles over his career at UTL. He worked closely with Harry Ransom, who routinely commissioned Billings to purchase new materials for the collections throughout the 1960s and 70s, and sustained a good relationship between the general libraries and the Ransom Center as both continued to build their collections.

One notable addition to the general libraries' collection occurred in 1975 when The University acquired the Collection on Texas and the American West. This collection, in Billings' words, "establishes UT Austin as the finest center for Texas research in existence." With thousands of manuscripts, volumes, and maps, it is surely a tremendous resource for researchers of one of the subjects and places dearest to Billings' heart.

Literature was also a passion of Billings' that nicely complemented his efforts to contribute to the libraries' ever growing collection of research materials. He corresponded with many authors both in his personal endeavors in scholarship and in the process of bringing their materials into the collection. Years of letters from poet Jonathan Williams, now held in the Billings Papers at the Ransom Center, represent one such relationship as they worked together on projects involving a shared favorite poet, Edward Dahlberg, and Williams considered the proper home for his own papers.

With various acquisitions, Billings saw the library expand all of its collecting areas over the course of his career, from the 1 millionth volume added during his time as a cataloger onward.