News from 
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY  Communications and Publications
                      Stanhope Hall
                      Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264
                      TEL 609/258-3600  FAX 609/258-1301

                      Release: December 19, 1994 
                      Contact: Justin Harmon (609/258-5732)

12/19 Cotsen Collection Child Books

Princeton University Library Receives Cotsen 
Children's Collection of Books


PRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton University has received a gift of an 
extensive and very distinguished collection of children's books 
and related items, together with a pledge of $8 million to create 
facilities for them within Firestone Library and to endow related 
scholarly and outreach activities.

The collection, known as the Cotsen Children's Collection, is the 
gift of Lloyd E.  Cotsen, a member of the Class of 1950, and a 
charter trustee of the University. Cotsen is chairman and CEO of 
Neutrogena Corporation of Los Angeles. He began his career with 
the company in 1957 and developed the marketing strategy that has 
made the amber-colored, translucent bar of Neutrogena soap a 
successful product.

The gift provides funds for a leading-edge research library with 
exhibit areas, utilizing interactive techniques and new technology 
to make the Cotsen Children's Library accessible to both scholars 
and groups of visiting children. The Cotsen Library will have its 
own curator, who will oversee a wide range of activities, 
including visits by outside scholars, annual colloquia on 
children's literature, research publications, and publication of a 
multi-volume catalog.

"I want this to be a 'living' library," said Cotsen, "with a 
capacity for interaction with primary and secondary school 
children as a key part of its mission. I expect it to entertain 
and stimulate children to enter the world of books and reading. 
The broader mission of the library is the study of childhood --  
using these materials from many countries and different eras to 
describe the education, socialization, and development of children 
in different cultures. I am very pleased that this project has 
found such a receptive home in the library and in the research and 
school communities at Princeton."

Cotsen and his late wife, Jo Anne, began collecting books for 
their own children. Over a period of more than 35 years, the 
Cotsen Children's Collection developed into one of the great 
concentrations of primary source material (20,000 items), 
principally in the form of illustrated books, but including 
prints, drawings, manuscripts, games, puzzles, hornbooks, and 
toys, among a great many other objects. These range from the 
fifteenth to the twentieth centuries in a variety of languages 
from French and German to Farsi and Urdu.

Princeton University President Harold Shapiro said: "It is a 
particular pleasure for me to see the Cotsen Children's Library 
established at Princeton. This is another generous gift that 
reflects Lloyd's long-standing commitment to teaching and learning 
and to research. The collection itself is a superb scholarly 
resource, offering riches for our faculty and for generations of 
senior thesis writers. It is especially important in these 
challenging times to have the collection come to us both with a 
vision for its widespread use by children and scholars and with 
the endowment resources to engage in activities that will help us 
clarify the way societies relate to their young people. We are 
deeply grateful once again for Lloyd's support."

"The collection of well over twenty thousand (20,000) items," said 
rare books librarian William Joyce, "will support faculty and 
student research interest in the study of social and cultural 
history, understanding the process of how children learn (i.e., 
cognitive psychology), educational history, children's literature, 
and a variety of other research topics. For example, English 
Professor Ulrich Knoepflmacher, an authority on Victorian fairy 
tales and children's books in general, has noted enthusiastically 
that the Cotsen Collection complements other resources already at 
Princeton. These include the Sinclair Hamilton Collection in 
Graphic Arts, the editorial files of Mary Mapes Dodge while she 
was editor of St. Nicholas Magazine, and many other literary 
resources, especially of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."

Highlights of the Cotsen holdings include a unique privately 
printed first edition of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter 
Rabbit, inscribed as a Christmas present to Potter's cousin. The 
oldest items date from the 15th century: These include a Latin 
primer from 1486 consisting of hexameter couplets and moral one-
liners representing the practical advice of a father to his son -- 
"read books," "shun whores," etc. -- and a Latin translation of 
the ancient Hindu fables of "Bidpai" printed in 1489.

One of the collection's greatest strengths is its English books 
issued between 1700 and 1839, a key period in the development of 
children's literature. Two of the era's most important and 
innovative publishers are especially well represented: the Newbery 
dynasty (namesake of the annual children's book award) and its 
equally distinguished successor John Harris.

Cotsen has a long history of service and generosity to Princeton. 
Cotsen currently serves as a charter trustee and as a member of 
the Art and Archeology Department advisory council. His previous 
gifts to Princeton support the Cotsen Professorship in the 
Humanities (currently Classics Professor Edward Champlin); the 
Cotsen Family Faculty Fellowship, which honors outstanding 
teachers of undergraduates (currently History Professor Sean 
Wilentz); the Jo Anne and Noah Cotsen Junior Fellowships (held by 
graduate students working closely with the Faculty Fellows); and 
the Program in Ancient World Fellows. Cotsen has also given funds 
to create the President's Awards for Distinguished Teaching, 
presented annually to faculty members nominated by their peers for 
special achievement in teaching. 

-end-