million; when this agreement became public in April 1979, there was strong public opposition to it in Boston but the National Portrait Gallery argued that the portraits were of national historic value and belonged in the Smithsonian. A campaign by prominent Bostonians to raise $5 million to keep the portraits in Massachusetts fell well short of its goal. The Athenæum refused to lower the $5 million price, which it called a significant discount from the portraits' market value. The City of Boston sued to forestall the sale, naming Massachusetts Attorney General Francis X. Bellotti (whose office the Commonwealth's constitution designates as "custodian of public property") in the suit, and this led to Bellotti to declare that the portraits could not be sold without his permission. In early 1980, the National Portrait Gallery and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts agreed to jointly purchase the portraits, which would then spend alternating three-year terms at each institution. Notable members Hannah Adams John Adams John Quincy Adams Louisa May Alcott Cyrus Alger Erastus Brigham Bigelow Nathaniel Bowditch Uriah Boyden Josiah Cooke, Jr. Charles Ammi Cutter Ralph Waldo Emerson Margaret Fuller Samuel Griswold Goodrich Augustus Addison Gould Nathaniel Hawthorne Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. John Jay Chapman John Fitzgerald Kennedy Edward M. Kennedy Amy Lowell Paul Moody Daniel Treadwell Francis Parkman Mission statement The mission of the Boston Athenaeum is to engage all who seek knowledge by making accessible the library's collections and spaces, thereby inspiring reflection, discourse, creative expression, and joy. Holdings The Athenaeum's holdings currently include over 600,000 volumes, and the collections' strengths focus on Boston and New England history, biography, British and American literature, as well as fine and decorative arts. The Boston Athenaeum's rare and circulating books, maps and manuscripts reflect the collecting interests of the Library as it has narrowed its focus from encyclopedic in the 19th century to an emphasis on the humanities and its large, historic collection of art includes paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, and decorative arts. Over 260 book funds, the oldest and largest of which was endowed by John Bromfield, Jr. in 1845, support the addition of more than 3,000 volumes per year to the collection. Printed Catalogs In addition to catalogs of special collections such as the catalog of the Washington Collection, the Athenaeum printed the following general-purpose catalogs of books in its collection before creating a card catalog in 1903: