Liber Brunensis

The Liber Brunensis for 1870 appeared in December 1869, superseding the Brown Paper, an annual newspaper published by the secret societies. Still a publication of the secret societies, the first Liber Brunensis was a pamphlet of fifty-eight pages which printed membership lists of the various organizations and included class lists. The Liber grew in size and was illustrated by drawings, cartoons, and caricatures. The 1890 volume included group photographs of publication boards, musical clubs and athletic teams. Individual photographs of seniors first appeared in the 1896 Liber. Since 1857 seniors had been accustomed to purchase large leather-bound class albums into which they inserted photographs of individual classmates as well as campus views and group photographs. Even when the Liber began to include photographs, the class albums continued their existence until 1907. In 1895 the Liber included lists of women students in a section headed “Co-Education.” The next year there were pictures of individual women graduates, and in 1897 lists of sorority members. From 1902 until 1907 the Liber contained class lists of women students and pages devoted to the sororities and other women’s organizations and teams. In 1908 the women’s pages disappeared, and in 1909 the Women’s College started its own annual, Brun Mael, which was published until 1970, after which the Liber Brunensis became the yearbook of the coeducational institution brought about by the merger of Brown and Pembroke. The Liber of 1919 was the last to be published by a senior board of editors, who were representatives of their fraternities. The next year there was a smaller board of editors, which included some members of the junior class. The Liber has continued to be published annually, except when prevented by wartime conditions in 1944. A combined 1944-1945 book was issued the following year.