About Drake
In the beginning the library was a little collection of books housed in a room open only a few hours per week, and was largely used by faculty for reference purposes. It also included a textbook collection and the school's laboratory equipment. As teacher training education became more sophisticated, so did the library.
In the last years of the 1890s, Jeanette Reynolds '73, who had been a secretary at the school, became the librarian. In 1899 she cataloged the collection according to the then new Dewey Decimal system. Affectionately remembered by alumni as "Jenny Wren," she laid the foundations of a modern library. The library she presided over was in the central part of the old Normal School building, and included such things as a "pen writing room," for writing with the fountain pens of that era - only pencils were allowed in the library proper!
