Temple University-Library Company of Philadelphia merger moves ahead to next steps

A merger of Temple University and the Library Company of Philadelphia has moved a step closer to completion with a vote last week by Library Company trustees.

The two groups have ended merger talks, which resulted in a proposed merger agreement, said Library Company director John C. Van Horne. Library Company trustees voted in favor of the merger last Thursday — the first of several official approvals required before the deal is sealed.

“We firmly believe that this new relationship will maintain, and indeed enhance, all that has made the Library Company the special institution it has been for almost three hundred years,” Library Company leaders wrote in an email this week to shareholders.

The note said that relationship will enhance the library’s “collections, professional staff, programs, physical plant, reputation in the scholarly community, ethos and identity — while at the same time providing access to the vast resources of a major research university,” including its libraries, academic departments, and support for functions like development, marketing and communications, and facilities.

The deal would end nearly three centuries of independence for the group, which was the first subscription library in the U.S. when it was founded in 1731. The institution on Locust Street just east of Broad has a collection of 500,000 rare books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, works of art, ephemera, and other objects focusing on the 17th through 19th centuries.

Since running deficits in some recent years, the Library Company has explored the possibility of partnerships or mergers with several organizations. Leaders said that the group would have to begin eating into its unrestricted endowment in order to survive, and even then, would not be able to survive more than a few years.

In order to remain independent and achieve stability, the group would have to raise about $23 million for endowment — “an incredibly steep hill to climb, and probably unrealistic,” Van Horne has said.

The proposed merger requires more backing before finalization.

Library Company’s shareholders must approve the deal, and a meeting of the shareholders is not likely before late November. Then Temple’s board would vote on the deal.

Approval by the Pennsylvania Attorney General and Orphans’ Court are also required.

The Library Company’s email this week to shareholders said that before the special meeting they would receive “information on the reasons the board took this momentous step and how it will secure the best possible future for the Library Company.”