“The time for thinkers has come; the place for thinkers is now open,” said Virginia Harris at the September 27 dedication of the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity in Boston. The president of the library board of trustees welcomed some 500 dignitaries and guests—including Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and former Archivist of the United States Don Wilson—declaring the new $50-million library at 200 Massachusetts Avenue a place dedicated to “the quest for meaning.”
The library will offer scholars and the public new insights into the life of religious leader Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), founder of Christian Science, and will make many of Eddy’s papers and records available for the first time. The high-tech facility features a Research Room where documents are being archived digitally as well as in their original form, a Reference Room of books on religions and spirituality, a walk-through 30-foot stained-glass globe “Mapparium” showing the world as it looked 70 years ago, a Hall of Ideas programming space, and a Quest Gallery of interactive exhibits focusing on Eddy’s role as a spiritual seeker and author.
Claimed to be one of the largest collections by and about an American woman, the library occupies four stories and 81,000 renovated square feet in the Christian Science Publishing House, also the home of the Christian Science Monitor newspaper. The library opened to the public September 29–30 with an open house and festivities on the lawn and plaza of the Christian Science complex.
Posted October 7, 2002.