home Resources and Services Donna Brunet’s Photographs on Display in Bookmark Café

Donna Brunet’s Photographs on Display in Bookmark Café

As part of the MU Libraries’ ongoing exhibition of local artists in the Bookmark Café, Donna Brunet, an MU alum, will be displaying her work during the months of October, November, and December.

Donna Brunet received an M.A. in history from the University of Missouri – Columbia, writing her thesis on Charles Valentine Riley, Missouri State Entomologist in the 1800s. During that time, she worked in the photograph collection at the State Historical Society of Missouri.

She taught approximately 60 individuals in Columbia how to identify butterflies as part of a research project on butterfly gardens for a Masters degree in Wildlife at MU. She began taking butterfly photos since she needed copyright-free images to provide to volunteers. Suddenly her life-time interests in insects and photography came together.

It is Brunet’s hope that individuals viewing her images are moved to look more closely at wildlife living in their yards and neighborhoods and that they are inspired to improve the habitat in their yards for insects.

For more information about Donna Brunet’s work, you may contact her at donna@insectpix.com or visit http://insectpix.com .

For more information about the exhibits at Bookmark Café, please contact Delores Fisher at FisherD@missouri.edu .

home Resources and Services EndNote and Reference Manager now free to MU Students

EndNote and Reference Manager now free to MU Students

MU Campus has signed a site license to provide EndNote and Reference Manager free to MU Students and at a discount for Faculty and Staff. For more information see http://doit.missouri.edu/software/sales/endnote.html .

The Library has created an introduction on EndNote at http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/guides/paperassistance/endnote.mht (requires Internet Explorer) or download the PowerPoint presentation here http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/guides/paperassistance/endnote.ppt

home Resources and Services Miniature Book Society’s Traveling Exhibit Now at Ellis Library

Miniature Book Society’s Traveling Exhibit Now at Ellis Library

IMLS logoThe Miniature Book Society’s Traveling Exhibit presents a wide variety of miniature books along with photographs of collectors, designers and publishers. It also features books entered into last season’s Annual MBS Competition, “Distinguished Books” from previous competitions and other outstanding examples of contemporary miniature book publishing. This exhibit has been brought to Ellis Library in an effort to introduce contemporary miniature books to Mid-Missouri.

In addition, a collection of miniature books from Ellis Library’s Special Collections department has been assembled to display in accompaniment with the Miniature Book Society’s Traveling Exhibit. Books on display are children’s books, reference materials, art books, classic literature, and religious materials. While miniature books have been published as small as ¼” x ¼”, our smallest text on display is Holy Bible: contains a portion of the New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which measures 1.13″ x 1.5″. Books measure from this size to just over the Library of Congress limit for miniature books, at 4″, with Robert Burns’ Tam o’Shanter measuring 4.3″ x 3.5″. Also noteworthy is Special Collections’ oldest volume in this exhibit, written by Emperor Justinian I in 1667, Imperatoris Ivstiniani Institvtionvm Libri IV. Publication dates range 337 years, from Emperor Justinian’s work to contemporary art works, published as recently as 2004.

For more information about miniature books, or a list of Special Collections titles on display, please visit: http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/exhibits/mini_index.htm, or call the Special Collections Reading Room at (573) 882-0076.

home Resources and Services MU Libraries Ensure Future Access to Electronic Journals

MU Libraries Ensure Future Access to Electronic Journals

Electronic access to journals is cost-effective and convenient, but as library collections become more electronic, the question of long-term future access to this material has arisen. MU Libraries has taken an important step to ensure that its users will always have access to its electronic journals by entering into an agreement with Portico, a not-for-profit service launched in 2005 that offers a permanent archive of electronic scholarly journals.

“Our relationship with Portico means that MU Libraries can continue to expand electronic access to information, which is increasingly the preferred format of our users, while also maintaining our traditional preservation function, which is vital to many researchers,” stated Jim Cogswell, Director of Libraries. “The libraries have dramatically increased online journal access for our users in the past year, and we now have subscriptions for over 8,000 Internet journals from the top science, medical, and social science publishers. The journals made available through Science Direct, Wiley InterScience, SpringerLink, and Sage will all be protected through the Portico service.”

Portico provides all libraries supporting the archive with campus-wide access to archived content when a publisher stops operation, ceases to publish a title, no longer offers back issues, or for some other reason the content is no longer available from the publisher or other source. To date, over 5,300 journals have been promised to the Portico archive, and over 175 libraries are participating in the archive. Portico is actively receiving content from publishers and is engaged in carefully converting this content to an archival format and depositing it into the Portico archive.

The MU Libraries serve a student body of 28,000 plus a faculty of 1,800, and have a collection of 3.2 million print volumes, 35,000 journal titles (in print or online) and 7.4 million microforms. With an annual budget of $12.5 million, the Libraries support the instruction, research, service, and economic development missions of the University of Missouri-Columbia. By acquiring scholarly resources, developing innovative services, and applying new information technologies, the MU Libraries fulfill their primary purpose: to serve users. MU Libraries Web site is at the following address:

http://mulibraries.missouri.edu.

home Resources and Services Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln Exhibit

Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln Exhibit

The University of Missouri-Columbia Libraries is proud to be one of 63 libraries nationwide selected by the American Library Association to host Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation.

Forever Free is a traveling panel exhibit that reexamines President Lincoln’s efforts toward the abolition of slavery during the Civil War. Organized by The Huntington’s John Rhodehamel, Norris Foundation Curator of American Historical Manuscripts, the exhibit consists of reproductions of rare historical documents from The Huntington’s collections and those of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, and draws on the latest scholarship in the field.

Please visit http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/about/events/foreverfree/ for more information.

home Resources and Services MU Libraries Receive Kemper Grant for $200,000 to Preserve Rare Books

MU Libraries Receive Kemper Grant for $200,000 to Preserve Rare Books

COLUMBIA, MO – The University of Missouri – Columbia Libraries house many old, rare, and unique books. Because of their age and rarity, these materials require special care. The William T. Kemper Foundation of Kansas City, MO has awarded a grant of $200,000 to help the MU Libraries establish a program to provide this special care.

“We are profoundly grateful to the Kemper Foundation for awarding this grant,” stated Jim Cogswell, Director of Libraries. “With this award, the MU Libraries will, for the first time, be able to provide proper care for our rare books and other artifacts.”

The grant, payable in equal installments over three years, will be used to fund necessary staffing and operational support for the initial phase of a new conservation program in the Libraries. Ultimately, the MU Libraries plan to create a comprehensive program that will provide for the preservation of endangered artifacts and the restoration of deteriorated materials to ensure continued access to these collections by future generations of scholars.

The Libraries plan to engage a consultant to oversee a needs assessment in the Rare Books and Special Collections department and to identify priority requirements within the department. In addition to paying for a consultant, the grant funds will be used to purchase equipment and supplies deemed necessary to protect and preserve the collections.

Grant funds will also be used to augment the recently-announced Friends of the Libraries Adopt-a-Book program. This program will allow individual donors to support the restoration or conservation of specific books in the MU Libraries collections. Funds from the Kemper Foundation grant will match donations made to the Adopt-a-Book program over the next three years. In this way, private donors will be encouraged to support the long-term conservation efforts of the Libraries.

For more information about rare books and special collections at the MU Libraries, visit
http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/. For further information about the Friends’ Adopt-A-Book Program, contact Gena Scott at scottgl@missouri.edu or (573) 882-4701.

The MU Libraries serve a student body of 28,000 plus a faculty of 1,800, with collections of 3.2 million print volumes, 35,000 journal titles (both in print and online), and 7.4 million microforms. With an annual budget of $12.5 million, the Libraries support the instruction, research, service and economic development missions of the University of Missouri-Columbia. By acquiring scholarly resources, developing innovative services, and applying new information technologies, the MU Libraries fulfill their primary purpose: to serve the information needs of users. MU Libraries’ website is at the following address: http://mulibraries.missouri.edu.

The William T. Kemper Foundation — Commerce Bank, Trustee was established in 1989, following Mr. Kemper’s death. The Foundation is dedicated to continuing Mr. Kemper’s lifelong interest in improving the human condition and quality of life. Its philanthropic areas of focus include education, health and human services, civic improvements and the arts.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives A Flora of North America by William P.C. Barton.

A Flora of North America by William P.C. Barton.

Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1823. 3 vols.
RARE RES QK112 .B28 1821
Gift of Kenneth and Mary Tisdel

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Ladyslipper orchid (Cypripedium humile)
William P.C. Barton (1786-1856) was a naval surgeon and professor of botany at the University of Pennsylvania. His Flora of North America is a catalogue of the flowering native plants of North America illustrated with hand-colored engravings

Barton's Flora is an important early American color plate book. Like many other illustrated works of science and natural history of this period, the rich illustrations of Barton’s Flora made the publication expensive to produce. To offset the cost, it was sold by subscription. Subscribers would have bought the book ready-made. Instead, they would have received installments of one or two sections at a time, and would have had their copies bound as the volumes were completed.

Barton’s descriptions of plants include the current Latin name of each species, the names used by the botanists Carolus Linnaeus and Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, and common English names. His discussion also includes growing habits, ranges and habitat, and the history and usages of each plant.

Barton paid particular attention to native orchids, many of which are threatened today. In his description of the ladyslipper orchid (Cypripedium humile), he notes the plant’s fragility:

It is a favorite flower, from the circumstance of its continuing to bloom a long time. It does not, however, bear the soil or atmosphere of common gardens… I have repeatedly attempted to cultivate it, but have never had a plant to bloom a second season.

Although Barton wrote before the main era of westward expansion and thus focused on the eastern United States, he includes wildflowers that also inhabit the midwest. His illustrations of Rudbeckia purpurea, Coreopsis tinctoria, and Aquilegia canadensis may be familiar to Missourians as purple coneflower, golden tickseed, and columbine.

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Trillium (Trillium cernuum)

 

Barton put forward his Flora in order to promote an interest in botany among American scientists and the general public, and he expresses a certain measure of territorialism toward American natural history. In the preface to this book, Barton states that Americans have neglected the study of their own plants and left too much responsibility to European scientists. He cautions the American medical and scientific community against allowing too much of their “extensive domains” to be published by foreign scholars, and he wrote, “Can any American examine the splendid and useful work of the younger Michaux, on our forest trees, without a pang of mortifying regret that the author of such a work was not an American?”

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Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)

 

Barton’s attempts to make up for the failures of American naturalists may also have been personal. His uncle, Benjamin Smith Barton, was the most prominent American botanist of the previous generation, but he failed to publish the botanical samples Lewis and Clark brought back from their expedition, and even lost some of them. William Barton’s work was intended as a first step in the advancement of American scientific thought. Considering himself to be embarking on an extensive work of national importance, Barton dedicated the first volume to President James Monroe.

The illustrations for this volume were drawn from nature by Barton, engraved in the workshop of Cornelius Tiebout of Philadelphia, and colored by hand, “its execution being wholly accomplished by American artists.” Barton paid special attention to color; in one of the prefaces of the first volume, he provides color charts with real-world explanations of the terms he uses to describe plants. For example, if the reader did not understand what Barton meant by “duck green,” he or she could look at the neck of a mallard, the upper disk of yew leaves, or the mineral ceylanite to get an idea. Similarly, the term “venous blood red” denoted the color of blood, musk flower, or the mineral pyrope. This attempt at accuracy was important before the invention of color photography.

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Kelli Hansen

Kelli Hansen is head of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives Catherine the Great’s Promotion Charter

Catherine the Great’s Promotion Charter

by Alla Barabtarlo
June 2006

I. The Charter

Preserved in the Rare Book Collections is a very curious document – a beautiful two-hundred-and-sixteen year-old charter endorsed by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, that promotes Aleksandr Mukhanov, a young Russian nobleman, from regimental baggage-train driver to Lieutenant-Captain (Secund-Rotmistr) in the Horse-Mounted Guards.

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This unique document – likely acquired "somewhere in the 1920s" within a large and important collection of books and documents purchased for the University Library – is printed on parchment with a hand-painted border of cobalt blue. There is a monogram of Catherine the Great at the center of the top border, surrounded by double-headed crowned birds, banners, firearms and cold steel, armor, and bows and quivers.

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In each corner there is a helmet with a plume decorated with oriental ornaments and an allegorical figure of Minerva on the left hand side and one of Mars on the right. At the bottom of the border, in a medallion, one can see a military transport and two pairs of horses, surrounded by banners, cannon, cartridge pouches and drums.

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The text itself starts with a six-line ornamental initial. The document carries traces of the Russian Imperial wax seal.

Literal Translation of the Charter:

By the Grace of God, We, Catherine the Second, Empress and Autocratrix of All the Russians, &c, &c, &c.

Let it be known and recognized by all that as of the first day of the month of January, in the year of Our Lord one thousand-seven hundred-and-ninetieth, We have Most Graciously bestowed and conferred upon Aleksandr Mukhanov who had served Us as regiment baggage-train driver in the Horse-Mounted regiment of Our Guards, and in acknowledgement of the zeal and diligence with which he disposed of his duty in Our service, – the rank of Lieutenant-Captain in the self-same regiment; and whereas We bestow and confer this upon him, commanding all Our men to pay the said Mukhanov the honors and respect befitting the rank of Our Lieutenant-Captain in the Guards, are accordingly trustful that in this rank, most Graciously granted him by Us, he will deport himself in a manner that behooves a loyal Officer of the Guards. In testimony thereof We have signed this with Our own Hand and commanded that it be confirmed by Our State Seal.

Given in Saint Petersburg, in the year 1790, {on the 24th Day of December}

Signed

Catherine.

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On the lower line there is a signature, by a different hand: Lieutenant-Colonel {Saltykov} of the Guards Horse Mounted Regiment.

Almost everything in this document raises questions: Who was Mukhanov, and why was he so abruptly promoted from the lowest ranks to a position of high prestige? If the promotion was effective as of January 1st 1790, why was the order signed almost a year later, on Christmas Eve of 1790? What happened to Mukhanov later? How did the original document find its way to mid-Missouri? These are among the many baffling questions to which we may never have a definite answer, but a bit of detective work can cast some light upon the mysteries of the past.

II. Our hero – Mukhanov

Aleksandr Il'ich Mukhanov was born on January 8, 1766 into a noble family. He had six brothers and one sister. His father, Il’ia Mukhanov, was a Colonel in the Horse-Mounted Regiment, from which he retired in 1764, and he was personally known to the Empress. On the day of her ascension to the throne as a result of a coup – July 28th 1762 – Il'ia Mukhanov was among the officers in her convoy on the way to St. Petersburg.

When the future Empress felt cold, Il'ia Mukhanov gave her his officer's overcoat. She always remembered this gesture with gratitude.

According to the memoirs of Aleksandr Mukhanov's niece, five older brothers were educated at home, and the youngest one, Michael, at the Military School. All of them served at the same Life-Guards regiment. And as a contemporary anecdote has it, some pupils of the convent school for young noble ladies thought that all Life-Guards were named Mukhanov. Honesty, piety, and familial loyalty were among the young men's virtues, according to Mukhanov's niece.

Aleksandr Mukhanov joined the regiment in 1775, at the age of 9. It was customary in 18th-century Russia to enlist a boy of noble birth in a regiment as a soldier, so that when he came of age he would be ready to receive his first officer's commission and to begin his real service in a regiment

If we look at the list of his promotions, we can see that he was first promoted to a cornet in 1784, at the age of 18 . He was promoted again in 1792 to a captain (rotmistr), and on November 15, 1796, only nine days after Catherine's death, he became colonel and was decorated with the Order of St. Anne.

After Catherine's son Paul ascended to the throne, Mukhanov's career took a sharp upswing. In March of 1798, two month after his first son Paul was born, Mukhanov retired from the Guards and was given a civil rank of State Councilor (slightly higher than colonel), became a Knight Commander of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and on September 5th, was appointed Vice Governor of the city of Novgorod. He was advanced to an Actual State Councilor (corresponds to a Major General) and then appointed Governor of Kazan, the capital of an important province, on April 4, 1799. After Emperor Paul's assassination in 1801, Aleksandr Mukhanov was relieved of his governorship and brought before the Senate for trial on charges of cruelties committed while governor of Kazan. He was 35 years old.

But it was not the end of his career. On May 6, 1805, he was sent to the south of Russia to be a civil governor of Poltava, and in the following year he became a civil governor of Riazan. Later he returned to St. Petersburg, and received a rank of Stalmeister at the Imperial Court (Master of the Horse), which, according to the Russian Table of Ranks, corresponded to the rank of Lieutenant General. He spent the last years of his life in Moscow, where he died, and was buried in the cemetery of Novodevichii Convent on October 22, 1815.

III. A Christmas Gift

It can only be conjectured that at the end of 1789 Mukhanov was ready for the promotion to the rank of second-lieutenant, when something happened that impeded his rising through the ranks of the regiment.

These and other considerations lead to the supposition that the whole matter of the demotion and promotion of Aleksandr Mukhanov could be to a certain extent a domestic affair for Catherine, who could be moralistic but was more-or-less good-natured.

The older the Empress grew, the younger her lovers became. But in this case one can be reasonably certain that nothing remotely resembling a romance played any part in Mukhanov’s misfortune and subsequent recovery. For the simple reason that Catherine’s son, Emperor Paul, disliked his mother so much (after she had his royal father deposed and strangled), and hated her lovers with such vehemence, that once he had gained the throne himself, he repaid them in kind, trying to undo everything his mother did, and variously rewarding anyone who had previously had the courage, or simply the misfortune, ever to cross one of those powerful favorites. It was at this time that Paul started piling his favors upon Mukhanov almost the day after he had become the Emperor; thus, one might safely assume that Mukhanov, far from being intimate with Catherine, quite likely had stepped on a toe or two within her inner circle, and suffered the consequences – until the Empress took pity on him.

In the case of Aleksandr Mukhanov it looks as if he was punished by a firm but benevolent, almost motherly hand, and when he showed (perhaps) genuine regret, or demonstrated extraordinary courage on the battlefield (maybe), he was generously rewarded: promoted not to the next higher rank, but over two ranks, and evidently received a year-worth salary of a Lieutenant-Captain in back pay to boot! Above all it was a nice Christmas gift: there was a blank at the end of the charter, filled in longhand when it was signed: December the 24th.


Postscript

This was the end of the document, but not of the story. Our hero's great-grandson Bakhmetiev served as the last Russian ambassador in the United States, and after the Bolshevik coup never returned home. He married an American, Mamie Beale, and one hopes they lived long and happily. Curiously enough, another person related to our university – David Francis – was at the same time the very last American ambassador to the Russian Empire.

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Kelli Hansen

Kelli Hansen is head of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.

home Resources and Services, Special Collections and Archives De Historia Stirpium by Leonhart Fuchs

De Historia Stirpium by Leonhart Fuchs

Kelli Hansen
Nov. 2004
Photos: Andrew Hansen

Fuchs, Leonhart. De historia stirpivm commentarii insignes… Basileae, In officina Isingriniana, 1542. RARE RES QK41 .F7

The Division of Special Collections hs-iris-largehouses some of the most valuable and significant resources in the holdings of MU Libraries. The materials in the collections range in time period from antiquity to the present and include medieval manuscript pages, examples of early printing, fine press books, and important scientific works from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, among many other things. These books are not only wonderful treasures; they also greatly enrich the educational and research experiences of the University's students, faculty, and staff.hs-fuchs-large

One book in particular exemplifies the abundance of information available to scholars in Special Collections resources. This book, De Historia Stirpium comentarii insignes (or Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants), was a gift from the Friends of the Library in 1963. It was published by a German physician and medical professor named Leonhart Fuchs in 1542. De Historia Stirpium is part of a long tradition of herbals, or books that describe plants and their medicinal uses. Before the sixteenth century, most herbals were based on folk traditions and Greek and Roman texts, not on scientific or artistic observation. Leonhart Fuchs broke with tradition by becoming interested in illustrating plants as they looked in nature instead of using conventional (and often bizarrely inaccurate) representations. 

hs-artists-largeFuchs hired three professional artists to help him with this undertaking: Albrecht Meyer, who drew the plants from life; Heinrich Füllmaurer, who transferred the line drawings to woodblocks; and Vitus Rudolph Speckle, who cut the blocks and printed the woodcut illustrations. The beautiful, densely illustrated book that resulted from their efforts contains some of the finest pictures of plants in the sixteenth century, many hand-colored under Fuchs’ supervision for the greatest accuracy. De Historia Stirpium is notable among early scientific books for its inclusion of the artists’ names and portraits in the back of the book.

Fuchs’ interest in realistic representations accorded with the Renaissance ideal of naturalism, but it also served a practical purpose – he wanted his book to be a reference for his medical students and fellow doctors. While the images were cutting-edge for their time, Fuchs was not as revolutionary in the text, and his descriptions of each plant’s medicinal properties still draw largely on the writings of Greek and Roman authors such as Dioscorides, Galen and Pliny. Even so, Fuchs did encourage his own students to cultivate and study medicinal plants firsthand. Surviving copies of De Historia Stirpium often contain pressed plant samples, stains, and marginal notes that point to extensive use, and the copy belonging to Special Collections is no exception. In this way, De Historia Stirpium can give modern scholars insight into the ways early physicians studied and administered herbal medicines.

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De Historia Stirpium was more than a lavishly illustrated compendium of remedies. The book also introduced many Europeans to the unfamiliar fruits, vegetables and plants being imported from the Americas. De Historia Stirpium contains the first description and illustration of over 100 species of plants, including pumpkins, squash, chili peppers, and maize, although some species are misidentified. It is thought that some of these plants were drawn from specimens or seeds Fuchs acquired and grew in his own garden.

hs-cover-largeDe Historia Stirpium is one of the most valuable books in Special Collections, and it is also one of the most significant scholarly resources. This single book can be studied for its relationship to other herbals, artistic collaboration, scientific illustration, publishing history, the history of botany, and the history of medicine. In the same way, the materials housed in the Division of Special Collections allow students and scholars to explore a wide range of research topics by a variety of methods, from delving into rare historical and scientific texts to studying original examples of the book arts. Special Collections materials, including books like De Historia Stirpium, are not only treasures; they are also important resources open to use by all researchers.

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Kelli Hansen

Kelli Hansen is head of the Special Collections and Rare Books department.