Professor Macksey's Library

    In July of this year there were many obituaries for Professor Richard A. Macksey who taught for over six decades at Johns Hopkins University. Apparently he was a legendary and inspirational teacher. Clearly he was a great collector of books. His library of approximately 70,000 of them is pictured above.






Sources:
"Richard Macksey, Johns Hopkins Professor With Capacious Mind and Library, Dies at 87, " Matt Schudel, Washington Post, July 26, 2019.
"Dr. Macksey (pronounced “Maxie”) was a wide-ranging scholar and polymath whose expertise extended from ancient and modern literature — in at least six languages — to medical history, biophysics, critical theory and film. He had joint appointments in Johns Hopkins’s School of Arts and Sciences and the medical school, where he helped design a curriculum that included writing and the humanities."
"He also was a founder of what is now the Maryland Film Festival in Baltimore and volunteered to work in the night shift at a free book exchange. He seemed to subsist on three hours of sleep and pipe tobacco."
"Dr. Richard A. Macksey, A Legendary Johns Hopkins University Professor, Polymath and Noted Bibliophile, Dies," Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun, July 25, 2019.
"At home, the center of Dr. Macksey’s life was his library, which came about after he and his wife decided to convert the garage of their 1921 Guilford home into a library measuring 16 feet by 28 feet, and whose walls contained shelves that rose 15 feet to the ceiling. In spite of the massive size of the room, which had a Palladian window and a heat pump to protect the books from humid Baltimore summer, his library of an estimated 70,000 books spilled onto tables and rose in piles from the floor, making it the largest private library in the state."
"Richard Macksey, 'A One-of-a-Kind Intellectual Giant' Dies," Rachel Wallace, HUB, July 23, 2019.
"When Hopkins Alums Think of the Humanities, They Think of Richard Macksey," HUB, July 23, 2019.  This is a profile of Professor Macksey that appeared originally in the Johns Hopkins Gazette on June 21, 1999.  The picture of Macksey is from this article.
"Farewell Richard Macksey, Legendary Polymath and 'The Jewel in the Hopkins Crown,(1931-2019)" Cynthia Haven. From "The Book Haven", her blog at Stanford.

[Once again, no links are provided because of the likely instability of many of them and because some sources may be behind a firewall. If you google, them you can verify the sources.]

Post Script:
This bad news for Hopkins is offset to a great degree by this good news:
"Bloomberg Gives $1.8 BILLION to Johns Hopkins for Student Aid," Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times, Nov. 18, 2019