Frederick H. Cossitt Library

George Seymour Godard was the first librarian of the Frederick H. Cossitt Library and one of its most active founders and board members. From this, his first library job, he went on in 1900 to become the well-known Librarian of the State of Connecticut. It was in his first librarian’s position at the Cossitt Library that he gained experience for the more challenging post he was soon to accept. There he first began to perform the caliber of public service which brought him such popularity and renown at both the state and national level.  

Godard was born in North Granby in 1867 and developed a love for libraries and books at an early age when his father took him to Hartford and introduced him to Charles J. Hoadley, the State Librarian. In 1889, even though he was still working towards his bachelor's degree and Wesleyan University, Godard was chosen to be on the Cossitt Library’s first board of directors and to serve as its first librarian. The early account and accession books, which are currently held in the library safe, show both his diligent labor in filling the library with a wide selection of important literature, and his efforts to expand the cultural environment of North Granby. He consulted librarians and book dealers across New England; employed “scientific” cataloging techniques he had learned at college; searched around the region for complete sets of periodicals to which he was subscribing, including three professional educator’s publications for Granby schoolteachers; had printed a double-entry catalogue so readers could “send for” more books from home; kept detailed statistics of numbers of readers, circulation of readers, and types of books most read; and badgered the board of directors and the architect about everything from designing an inviting reading room to building horse stalls so readers could stay longer in stormy weather.

After Godard received his A.B. from Wesleyan in 1892 and B.D. from Yale in 1895, he accepted an invitation from Charles Hoadley to became Assistant and then Acting State Librarian in 1898. Upon Hoadley’s death in 1900, Godard became State Librarian and found himself doing what no one had yet done for the state: cataloging the books in the library. Godard was responsible for procuring and protecting many of the state’s historical treasures, achieving notoriety among professional librarians and legislators he lobbied for funds as “Preservation Godard”; for initiating the practice of making photostat copies with the most up-to-date equipment of documents, especially for people who would then donate the original to the State Library; for initiating the practice of making photostat copies of bills and hearings for members of the legislature; for acquiring the Trumbull Papers, an enormous set of materials on colonial and revolutionary Connecticut, from the Massachusetts Historical Society; for supervising the design of the new State Library Building (1910); and for generally making the entire library accessible to the people of the community. Godard’s work earned him accolades from professionals all over the nation, and presidencies of the National Association of State Librarians and the American Association of Law Libraries, among other posts. Today the State Library in Hartford stands as a symbol of George Godard’s massive vision, as the Cossitt Library stands as a symbol of his professional beginnings. 

Frederick H. Cossitt Library, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed January 4th 2021. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/132354284.

Frederick H. Cossitt Library, Wikipedia. Accessed January 22nd 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_H._Cossitt_Library.