662 The Perkins Cat

The Ohio State University Libraries used to have a departmental library at the Perkins Observatory in Delaware, OH. For 63 years the University had an arrangement with Ohio Wesleyan to maintain the Observatory and that ended in 1998. I believe HUDL (Heads of Undergraduate and Departmental Libraries) met there shortly before the astronomy collection was disbanded and moved to Ohio State. Perkins had a library cat named CAT. CAT was in charge of rodent control and really didn't care much for visitors, according to this story. There are a number of libraries that have cats, the most famous were Baker and Taylor, two Scottish Folds named for a book distributor. When I was the veterinary librarian, I had their poster on the bulletin board. There was even a documentary made about library cats, called Puss in Books.