home Events and Exhibits, Special Collections and Archives Preservation Week April 22-28, 2012

Preservation Week April 22-28, 2012

Preservation Week Logo

Today begins Preservation Week in libraries across the country.  One of our primary jobs at the Special Collections Department is to identify materials that need certain preservation measures.  One of the most basic measures is producing phase boxes for books with aged bindings.  A simple phase box, which can take as little as five minutes to produce, can protect books from all sorts of harm including:

  • Wear and tear – Rather than grasping the book when pulling it off the shelf, the box is grasped.
  • Fire damage – Books have been saved because they were preserved in a phase box, plus the box saves the book from soot damage.
  • Humidity damage – Phase boxes insulate the book.
  • Water damage – In cases of flooding or the sprinkler system going off, books have a better chance of staying dry in phase boxes.
Damaged Books
Damaged Books

The first step in the process is to select books that are in the most need of phase boxes.  The spine of the book might be split or tearing off, or the book has become too brittle, or one of the covers might be completely torn off at the hinge (near the spine).

Once a book has been selected, accurate measurements of the length, width, and depth of the book must be taken.  We use the metric system in the Special Collections Department.

After a group of twenty-eight books have been measured, we send those measurements to the Preservation Department at Ellis Library.  Librarians and student assistants then work together to produce the boxes, making sure to follow the old saying “measure twice and cut once”.  Once finished, the new boxes are sent back up to the Special Collections Department where we perform the final step of placing the rare books into their new enclosures.  The entire process for each batch of books takes about two to three weeks.

A row of Phase Boxes
A row of Phase Boxes

Confederate Currency

The Special Collections Department holds many treasures; most items are books and microforms. However, we do have some miscellanea specimens one would not expect to find in our collection. One such holding is our set of Confederate currency. These monetary notes of the Confederate States of America were given to the MU Libraries in 1912 by the U.S. Treasury department as a teaching tool. In all, there are 135 specimens.

Confederate currency was first issued at the beginning of the Civil War and used widely in the South as a legitimate means to purchase goods and services. Some currency was printed by the Confederate States of America as a whole, some by individual states, and some by private banks. The bills in our collection were all issued by the Confederate States of America. Due to various printers, confederate currency tended to vary from printing to printing and state to state. Bills issued by the C.S.A. were hand signed and individually numbered by the Treasurer and Register, however, the duty became taxing with the number of bills produced, so secretaries were hired to sign the bills in later printings. It was not uncommon for notes to be printed on a single side or cut unevenly. Ultimately, by the end of the war, Confederate currency was nearly worthless, in part due to forgery as well as the loss of confidence in the Confederacy.

The following image file numbers correspond to the reference book "Criswell's Currency Series Vol. 1", RARE-R HG526 .C7 1957

Criswell 402-7 large

Criswell-402-7-back-large

Criswell 75 front large

Blog criswell back large 75Criswell-376-large

Criswell-376-back-large

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Charles Dickens!

So Handsome!Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on this date in 1812. Dickens, one of the most famous and most belovPickwick Papers, 1837ed of all English novelists, created some of the most powerful characters in fiction. He is known all over the world, and, unlike most great authors, he was rock-star famous in his own time. He moved around a lot as a child and was forced to quit school at twelve years old to work in a factory. Those early memories, however, would later inspire settings both fantastic and real; characters both legendary and sympathetic.

Friends and family described Dickens as full of energy, almost frenetic, and he was able to focus this power into an amazing literary output. He began writing journalism at age 15, and by 24 he had finished the Pickwick Papers and was famous on both sides of the Atlantic.

When Dickens began writing A Christmas Carol, perhaps his most well known work in the U.S. today, he was 31 and already the author ofDickens-919 Sketches by Boz, The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, and American Notes.

Early in his career he adopted various pen names, the most popular of which, Boz became a nickname as well as a marketing tool. Boz knew how to play to the public and controlled not only his public appearances and persona, but also the illustrations that accompanied his work. From the beginning, Dickens worked very closely with illustrators and vetted every sketch before it went to press. In fact, more than one illustrator claimed later that they had been responsible for story elements, though the author denied this.

 

Dickens-1114The first of these pairings was with George Cruikshank, a popular cartoonist at the time. The author and illustrator became great friends, though their relationship soured due to many factors including Cruikshank’s growing obsession with the Temperance movement.

Seymour

Dickens started working with Robert Seymour when publishers hired him to provide the words for a series of engravings featuring cockney sporting life. Dickens argued successfully that the words should take precedence over the art. Seymour mimicked Cruikshank’s style for the occasion but was of a depressive sensibility and often in conflict with Dickens over the artwork. He had a nervous breakdown in 1830, and committed suicide upon completion of the second installment.


Perhaps the most popular collaborator, HablotDickens-212 Knight Browne worked with Dickens for over 23 years. He adopted the nickname Phiz to complement Dickens’ Boz.

H. K. Browne“No other illustrator ever created the true Dickens characters with the precise and correct quantum of exaggeration.”

– G.K. Chesterton on H.K. Browne

 

Charles Dickens changed the face of literary history, revolutionized popular fiction and fame, and left behind immortal masterworks that still resonate with a world of readers.

Dickens-1111Celebrate his 200th birthday by dropping by Special Collections in Ellis Library to read the stories as Dickens so meticulously intended. We have many of his greatest works, some beautifully bound, dating from the beginning of the author’s literary career. Experience what created this pop sensation first-hand!

 

Dickens @ MU Special Collections!

home Resources and Services Newspaper Archive Summit white paper suggests next steps for stakeholders

Newspaper Archive Summit white paper suggests next steps for stakeholders


A mandate to preserve — a white paper (PDF) — was produced for the Newspaper Archive Summit Network by Victoria McCargar, veteran journalist, archivist and digital curation consultant.

Read more at the Reynolds Journalism Institute blog: Newspaper Archive Summit white paper suggests next steps for stakeholders

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Descartes…L’Homme the Journey to Print

Descartes…L’Homme the Journey to Print

René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French thinker of the empiricist thinker. Descartes was born in la Haye, in Touraine. He was the son of a provincial governor, Joachim Descartes, and his wife Jeanne Brochard.  After a short career of practicing law he went to fight under Maurice of Nassau, in the rebellion against the Spanish. In 1619, he had a series of visions that compelled him to devote his life to science. Shortly thereafter, he moved to the protestant Dutch republic where his teachings and experiments would be more accepted. While there he corresponded and tutored a number of pupils that followed and studied his Cartesian teachings and his traité des passions, the study of emotions.

 

L'Homme cover with acid specklingThe copy in the collection is bound in calf skin, a common binding of the 17th and 18th centuries. The speckling technique used on it was created by sprinkling acid over the leather and then wiping it clean after a period of time. This technique has created problems in some specimens in today’s world as the acid continues to erode the boards. The printer of this text, Jacques Le Gras, was the original publisher. Shortly afterward, the text was moved to a different printing house and released in a larger run from the printers Charles Angot and Théodore Girard.

The book itself is best described in the Heirs of Hippocrates (1974) text, “This first French edition is the original text as composed by Descartes and is edited by his good friend, Claude Clerselier (1614-1684). This edition also contains the first printing of his treatise ‘De la formation du foetus,’ completed just before his death. The fine woodcuts in this edition were partly based on Descartes’ drawings from the manuscript and partly prepared by the co-editors, Louis de la Forge (1632-1666?) and Gerard van Gutschoven (fl. 1660) … Descartes was prepared to publish this book in 1633 but decided to withhold it when he learned of Galileo’s condemnation by the Church. As a result, the first edition was not published until 1662 [in Latin], twelve years after Descartes’ death … It is sometimes called the first book on physiology, and that could be argued, but there is no doubt that the Cartesian philosophy exerted a tremendous effect on the evolution of medicine.”

Eye with muscle purportedly drawn by DescartesDescartes decision to withhold this text from the public may have spared him from the kind of persecution Galileo endured upon the publication of his Dialogs, 1632. However, Descartes did not escape allegations that his beliefs were atheistic and pelagianistic, which is the idea that people, can avoid sin without God’s grace. These accusations started in the 1640s when the rector at the university at Utrecht began making these charges. These denunciations regarding his atheistic thoughts become more heated as scholars from Leiden, a university town, became involved.  At one point in the summer of 1647, Descartes returned to France for the second time in that decade, where he contemplated staying to escape these charges. He did return to the Dutch republic, but by the end of the decade he had traveled to Stockholm to tutor Christina of Sweden. The arrangement for tutoring her was extremely strenuous, she required sessions before dawn in the brisk air of the Swedish winter. By February 1650, he had fallen ill and ultimately died from pneumonia.

Image from L'Homme drawn by an illustrator other than Descartes.The journey to publish L’homme was led by Claude Clerselier, a staunch Catholic, who came into the ownership of Descartes’ papers via his brother-in-law, the French ambassador to Sweden. Clerselier edited this text and considerable correspondence, which helped shape Descartes’ image in the following years. The quality of the 1664 French edition made Clerselier the understood guardian of Descartes’ body of manuscripts. The book itself is interesting because Descartes’ essay is the smallest portion of the over four hundred page text. The accompanying essays, forwards and remarks make up the majority of the pages. Clerselier’s remarks include, among other things, a reasoning of the illustrations included, of which many were provided by Florentius Shuyl and Clerselier himself. One image of particular interest was drawn by Descartes. Clerselier kept the original drawing, an eye held by muscle, to prove it was Descartes work. However, there is a notable difference in the artistic styles between the eye and some of the other pieces, particularly in their background detail.  The additional contributions to the text include Louis de La Forge’s remarks that expand on the Descartes text and attempt to clarify the conceptual leaps Descartes makes in L’Homme.

This exceptional text was purchased in the spring of 2010 by University of Missouri Ellis Library Special Collections and Rare Books, through a donation by Mr. Richard Toft.

 

Bibliographic Information:

L’homme

A Paris: Chez Iacques Le Gras, au Palais, à l’entrée de la Gallerie des Prisonniers, MDCLXIV, [1664]

QP29 .D44 1664

 

Russian Maps Digital Exhibit!!!!

Russian Map Banner

 

Mapping the Past: Rare Russian Maps from Special Collections has been created as a digital highlight of books and maps on the website of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.  This virtual exhibit describes the cartographic trade and the exploration of the Russian empire from the 16th through the 18th centuries. The display was originally mounted as a physical exhibit in the Ellis Library colonnade at the University of Missouri in April 2011.

 

home Resources and Services Rescuing digital content: Notes from the Newspaper Archive Summit

Rescuing digital content: Notes from the Newspaper Archive Summit


On April 10-12 scholars, journalists, newspaper publishers, librarians, digital archivists and digital newspaper vendors gathered at RJI for for “The Newspaper Archive Summit: Rescuing orphaned and digital content.”

Read more at the Reynolds Journalism Institute blog: Rescuing digital content: Notes from the Newspaper Archive Summit

home Events and Exhibits, Special Collections and Archives John Miles Foley’s Lord Library Donation Lecture

John Miles Foley’s Lord Library Donation Lecture

University of Missouri Professor John Miles Foley, director for The Center for Studies in Oral Tradition, presented a talk entitled, “Albert Lord and the Study of Oral Tradition,” on Thursday, February 10th, 2011. Below is a full length version of Professor Foley’s Lord Library Donation Lecture.

[flv:/blogs/specialcollections/wp-content/uploads/FLVdirectory/foley_lecture_edited.flv /blogs/specialcollections/wp-content/uploads/FLVdirectory/posterframe/foley_lecture_screencap.png 480 368]

Albert & Mary Lord Collection

Albert Bates Lord and Mary Louise Lord’s private libraries were donated by the generous Lord family to the University of Missouri Libraries in 2010. A University of Missouri Classics and English Professor, John Miles Foley and former student of Albert Lord, was able to secure the collection for the use in University Libraries. On Thursday February 10, 2011 there was a reception and talk by John Miles Foley about Lord and his library. In continued celebration of the Lord collection we thought we should share some images, with our blog readers.

Albert Lord documented oral tradition world-wide; he was specifically interested in oral performance and composition. Due to his B.A. in Classics from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature he was well suited for a career exploring oral tradition. He specialized in recording Serbian heroic poems, but also studied Homeric epics, Beowulf and Gilgamesh.  Lord accumulated a large and unique library while professor at Harvard College.  Additionally, he chaired and helped found the Department of Mythology and Folklore at Harvard from its inception through 1983, when he retired.

Mary Louise Lord, an academic herself, was a professor of Classics for many years at Connecticut College. She also contributed to her husband’s work through editing and helping him reflect on his work. Her part of the library represents her professional interests, contributing many classic works. Specifically of significance is part of Heinemann Publishing’s classic literature texts. They are pictured to the right and provide either Latin/English or Greek/English texts. She helped publish The Singer Resumes the Tale, one of Albert Lord’s books published posthumously.

One of the books is a signed copy of, Heinrich Schliemann’s, “Ithaka Der Peloponnes und Troja.” On the left is the title page with an inscription, which could be translated as:  “To the lover of the arts Mr. Erik Barren (or Henry Warren?) as a memorial. 1874. Schliemann.” Schliemann, an archeologist of the 19th century, is credited with the archeological dig that unearthed ancient Troy. He submitted this work, written in Greek, to the University of Rostock in hopes of attaining a doctoral degree. He was

granted a Ph.D. based on this work, in 1869. Albanian Shepard Costume Additional interesting items from the donation include an Albanian shepherd’s costume that is from the 20th century, two Sviralas, Croatian reed-type instruments, and Lord’s typewriter. This collection is currently being cataloged and processed. After, these important steps the items will be housed in MU Libraries. You can find a listing of all the books through the MERLIN catalog through:   Lord Collection University Of Missouri Columbia Libraries

A trip to Special Collections!

Students Reading

This past semester, Rare Books and Special Collections librarians and staff held over 20 instruction sessions with students from the University of Missouri and beyond. We’ve compiled a list of subjects that were covered by our materials last semester. We think you’ll see that Rare Books and Special Collections has something for all research interests!

  • Charles Schulz alternative literature
  • History of Book Cataloging
  • Women’s life in the Middle Ages
  • Men’s life in the Middle Ages
  • Slavery in the British West Indies
  • Greek Mythology
  • Shakespeare and Jews
  • Beetle Bailey Overview

Perhaps Rare Books and Special Collections could offer your Spring 2011 course a session! Send us an e-mail SpecialCollections(at)missouri.edu!