Category: Rare Books

Card Catalog Conversion Project Completed

One of the enjoyable experiences in my career at various institutions has been encountering treasures of uncataloged materials. This situation has certainly been true of archival collections where every American institution has a large inventory of hidden collections. However, it is quite unique to discover such a large quantity of print material either uncataloged or only discoverable via a card catalog. Such was the case in Special Collections when I arrived in 2016.

Most Universities had tackled this problem in the 1960’s and 1970’s using external grant funding to perform a retrospective conversion of their analog card catalogs. When I arrived at Harvard in 1987, for example, they had just completed their conversion of the Harvard Libraries card catalog. It was an enormous, lengthy process because they oversee 100 libraries. I should say a national controversy arose after the project’s completion about what to do with the card catalog itself. Faculty demanded it be retained and it was moved into the subterranean tunnels, which were used during the winter months for easy movement from one building to the next.

Although my career has mainly focused on the management of archival collections, I know a great rare book library when I see one. My exposure at Harvard and Berkeley have given me both an understanding and an appreciation of those collections. UO has a great rare book collection. It is one of the largest collections on the West Coast, in the company of the Huntington, UC Berkeley, UCLA and Stanford.

We have been blessed by the hard work of UO librarians who came before us. It’s not easy to convince a book collector to donate their personal library. It often takes years of sensitive negotiations and a commitment to build a personal relationship with the donor. You must demonstrate that your institution is worthy of the donation. In that respect, UO has been quite fortunate to have had librarians with those very talents and expertise.

Special Collections was formally created in 1947 as a library department to acquire manuscript, book, and photograph collections under the leadership of Curator of Special Collection, Martin Schmitt. He was the recipient of the 1972 Society of American Archivists Waldo Gifford Leland Prize for the Catalogue of Manuscripts in the University of Oregon Library. This volume is still considered one of the most comprehensive and detailed catalogs of literary and historical manuscripts ever published. Schmitt found an ardent partner in Edward Kemp, Acquisitions Librarian, to acquire manuscript and book collections from individuals around the world. Kemp’s work, Manuscript Solicitation for Libraries, Special Collections, Museums, and Archives (1978) laid out the first systematic approach to acquiring rare books and manuscripts for institutional collections. Kenneth Duckett, the renowned manuscripts librarian and then director of SCUA, wrote an award-winning work titled, Modern Manuscripts: A Practical Manual for their Management, Care and Use (1975). These were required readings in my own graduate study at Simmons College.

I am continually impressed by the scope and substance of the UO collection. We have the fourth largest Medieval and Renaissance collection of hand-written books on the West Coast with over 115 titles, the earliest dating to the 12th Century. We have over 100 Incunabula, books printed 1440 – 1501. Given there are only 28,395 incunabula known to exist in the world, it is quite amazing to find so many in Eugene.

It is also truly wonderful to discover what treasures we have. Many months ago, when rummaging through the rare books temporarily stored in a sub-basement of the Library, I stumbled upon a first edition of Newton’s foundational work on Calculus (1711). This past month, I received a rare book dealer’s catalog focused on Emblem Books, which were quite the rave in the late Medieval–early Renaissance period. Now that our books are fully cataloged, I discovered we had most of what was on his list for sale. This has been true of modern titles as well: we hold examples of almost every hand-press in Europe and America.

In 2019, we received funding from the State Library’s LSTA grant program to perform a retrospective conversion of our rare book card catalog. We hired the vendor, BackStage, to perform the conversion. We also asked BackStage to create barcodes and labels for all the volumes. The work is now wrapping up this month, August 2020. The project has produced MARC records entered into OCLC, which are now downloaded to our local consortium online catalog. Here are some stats:

  1. Rare book titles created from the cards: 4,655 titles
  2. Rare serial titles created from the cards: 683 titles
  3. Zines cataloged: 766 records, all reclassed in LC classification
  4. Utopian titles cataloged: 790 records
  5. Labels and barcodes created: 11,000 barcodes, 22,000 labels
  6. Other work completed:

–Searching of cards for records already created (de-duping): 3,500 cards

–Authority work for titles printed before 1755

Total NEW Records: 6,895 now in the online catalog

There is still much work to be done. All of the labels (and related barcodes) were placed on acid-free flags and have to be placed in the volumes. All of the volumes are now assigned call numbers in the Library of Congress classification system (not Dewey). A huge shifting project will commence in the stacks as we never had a single, unified classification system applied to the books. Once that work is completed, we will perform a shelf inventory to see if anything is missing or wasn’t included in the project. The serials will need fuller cataloging to identify volume and issue numbers and dates. We will likely uncover more titles that need original cataloging or enhancements to the new records.

Our users can now discover and access the majority of our printed holdings through the Library’s online catalog. We expect to see a significant increase in the use of the collection. Now that library staff can more easily discover what we have, with the assistance of UO graduate students, we will turn our attention to create topical and genre pathways to showcase the strengths in the collection: LibGuides will break out the collection by topics rather than only by provenance; Blog entries will continue to focus on new acquisitions and pertinent, current topics found in the collection; and we will strengthen the analysis of themes and important events using our online exhibit platform, SpotLight.

This milestone doesn’t mean we will stop collecting. We have some fundamental gaps in the rare book collection, especially for underrepresented populations, for example: women in the book trade, works by and about African Americans, works published in Mexico and Spain, works in Hebrew, to name a few.

I want to express high praise and sincere thanks to the many library colleagues who helped make this project possible and such a success. This is a monumental achievement and we are very fortunate to have such talented colleagues.

David de Lorenzo, Director, SCUA

New Acquisition: Narrating the Black Experience: Cane

Photo of binding of Cane by Jean Toomer, illustrated by Martin Puryear. Recent acquisition of University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives.

Jean Toomer was a masterful historiographer and writer of black history and culture.  His seminal publication, Cane, embodied his devotion to narrating the black experience and to applying a critical eye to past history of oppression and prejudice in order to preserve and crystallize history as it was, before its true reality is erased by the present.  Essayist and contributor (afterword) to Cane, Prof. Leon Litwack (UC Berkeley) comments on Jean Toomer, Cane, and twentieth century racism, writing,

“In coming to grips with the present, Jean Toomer insisted on confronting the past and exploring the heritage of slavery to its very roots in ways that would avoid both condescension and romanticization.  Looking about him, he sensed an agrarian folk culture deeply rooted in the slave experience.  There was still time, he thought, to explore that culture, indeed the very soul and spirit of the black South, before urbanization and industrialization rendered it unrecognizable.”

The novel Cane received high praise and acclaim following its publishing, however such acclaim was not reflected in the number of books sold.  Jean Toomer himself laid latent for some time after its publishing and only resurfaced years later as a burgeoning interest in black history and culture in the 1960’s emerged.  Cane remains a work of unique and paramount stature and is elusive in its form, for it is many things – a novel, work of poetry, a drama, an illustrated work.  It takes place in rural Georgia, urban Washington, D.C., among other places.  The beauty of the work lies in its multifaceted nature, speaking to the reader in a variety of forms.

Photo of page from Cane by Jean Toomer, illustrated by Martin Puryear, containing photographs of author, Jean Toomer, and illustrator, Martin Puryear. Recent acquisition of University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives.

Cane is augmented by the work of Martin Puryear, a prominent American sculptor.  Martin Puryear was enamored by Cane, read during his initial years residing in the South and teaching at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.  Puryear’s contributions to Cane include woodcuts as accompanying illustrations; there are seven larger images portraying women featured within the novel, and three smaller images resembling the enigmatic arcs Jean Toomer utilized to divide sections within the work in the first edition.

While this remains Jean Toomer’s most conspicuous work, it is important to note Toomer’s other literary endeavors, including autobiographies and other fiction, drama, poetry, and essays.  He published one other work, Essentials, in 1931, a collection of aphorisms.  The breadth of black history and culture portrayed in Cane begs examination and continued study today.  The complementary pairing of Jean Toomer’s illuminative text and Martin Puryear’s woodcut illustrations creates for the reader an experience incomparable and truly distinctive.

Photo of illustration from Cane by Jean Toomer, illustrated by Martin Puryear. Recent acquisition of University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives.

The book was produced by The Arion Press, considered the nation’s leading publisher of fine-press books. Founded in San Francisco in 1974 by Andrew Hoyem, it has published 116 limited-edition books, most printed by letterpress, often illustrated with original prints by notable artists. This edition of Cane was limited to 400 numbered copies (ours is No. 343) with each copy signed by the artist, Martin Puryear. The text type is Times New Roman Bold with long descenders, composed in Monotype; the display type is Lucian Bold, composed by hand. The text paper is Biblio, mould-made in Germany; the print paper is Kitakata, handmade in Japan. The text was printed on a Miller TW cylinder press; the woodblocks were printed on a Vandercook Universal III proofing press. The book was designed by Andrew Hoyem and is the 59th publication of the Arion Press.

Written by Alexandra Mueller, Special Projects Archivist

New Acquisition: Moses Alshekh

Photo of binding of Sefer sh’elot u-teshuvot by R. Moses Alshekh, acquired by University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives

Moses Alshekh, also known as Moshe Alshich, born in the early 1500’s in the city of Adrianople, gained immense influence and respect as a rabbi and scholar.  In his service to the Jewish faith, R. Alshekh mastered the teachings of the Torah and delivered sermons incomparable and elevated (Miller, n.d.).  In addition to his mastery of the Torah, R. Alshekh immersed himself in the study of the Talmud, the book of Jewish laws, and the study of principles of halakhah, the guide of “day-to-day” living for Jews (Posner, n.d.).  As a youth, study in yeshivas under Rabbis Joseph (Yosef) Taitazik and Joseph (Yosef) Caro in the city of Salonika cultivated in R. Alshekh the wisdom and stature of a sage in the interpretation of halakhah and Jewish law (encyclopedia.com, 2020; Miller, n.d.).

As R. Alshekh entered his young adulthood, he transitioned to a life in Safed of Erez, Israel, where he began to solidify his presence in the Jewish faith as an authority of Jewish law and teachings.  In addition to gaining prominence as a rabbi, skilled deliverer of sermons, and scholar of halakhah, R. Alshekh engaged in “exegesis” of the Bible, providing critical analysis and interpretation of biblical books.  His work in exegesis of the Bible proved comprehensive and revered, becoming the subject of multiple publications, while alive and posthumously, as well as topics of numerous sermons by popular request (encyclopedia.com, 2020).  R. Alshekh received official ordainment as a rabbi by the mentor of his youth, R. Joseph (Yosef) Caro, while in Safed.  Years later, R. Alshekh had the bounty of ordaining his own fellow scholar of halakhah, Hayyim Vital, as rabbi, whom he had studied closely with for many years (encyclopedia.com, 2020).

During his time in Safed, R. Alshekh immersed himself in the affairs and vitality of the Jewish community of Safed and supported the interests of the community through means of outreach in travel and treatise.  Following a long life of service to the Jewish faith, R. Alshekh passed away in 1593.  R. Alshekh leaves a rich legacy to the understanding and interpretation of numerous biblical books, a subject of his critical attention, and also of scholarly devotion to halakhah.  While R. Alshekh lived to see the publication of some of his work, his posthumous publications were largely overseen by his son Hayyim Alshekh (encyclopedia.com, 2020).

University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) acquired Sefer sh’elot u-teshuvot by R. Moses Alshekh, published in Venice posthumously in 1605.  This form of rabbinical publication is comprised of “questions and answers,” a collection of responsa to inquiries of the Talmud, the Bible, the Mishnah, and other philosophical queries (Bacher & Lauterbach, n.d.).  The publication may be accessed for use in the Library Catalog.

Photo of title page of Sefer sh’elot u-teshuvot by R. Moses Alshekh, acquired by University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives

Sources

Alshekh, Moses. (2020). Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved July 21, 2020, from https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/alshekh-moses

Bacher, W., & Lauterbach, J. Z. (n.d.). She’elot u-teshubot (“questions and answers,” or interpellations and decisions”). JewishEncylopedia. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13525-she-elot-u-teshubot

Miller, M. (n.d.). Rabbi Moshe Alshich. Kabbalah Online. https://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380688/jewish/Rabbi-Moshe-Alshich.htm

Posner, M. (n.d.). What is halakhah (halachah)? Jewish law. Chabad.org. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4165687/jewish/What-Is-Halakhah-Halachah-Jewish-Law.htm

Written by Alexandra Mueller, Special Projects Archivist

New Acquisition: Albrecht Dürer

Photo of title page of Della simmetria de i corpi humani, libri quattro by Albrecht Dürer, translated by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci; working copy of Giovanni Antonio Barca

Albrecht Dürer exemplified a mastery and uniqueness in his contribution to Italian art in the 15th and 16th centuries.  Though Dürer excelled in varied mediums and forms of art, wood cutting emerged as his most deft and accomplished medium.  Dürer’s proficiency in wood cutting flourished during his youth apprenticeship under artist Michael Wolgemut of Nuremberg, Germany.  His carefully cultivated interest in art deviated from a long family lineage of working goldsmiths, though historically a deviation that proved largely influential in Italian art theory.  Dürer’s most ingenious contributions were his keen analysis of the complexity of human proportions, and the application of mathematical and geometrical principles to reflect the human form in art.  Inherent to Dürer’s artistic work of the human form was a philosophy of realism, starkly opposing the prevailing leaning towards idealism and perfection held by many of his contemporaries.

University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) recently acquired Della simmetria de i corpi humani, libri quattro by Albrecht Dürer and translated by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci.  The work is subdivided into five parts, the first four of which are attributed to Dürer, and the fifth an addition by translator Gallucci, a collection of writings by Italian poets on topics related to human form in art.  The first two books by Dürer portray technique for accurately representing the bodily proportions of humans in a variety of sizes, shapes, and ages.  Dürer’s third book continues his exploration of mathematical principles and the direct relationship to human proportions.  Building significantly on the mathematical principles and artistic explorations of books one, two, and three, Dürer’s fourth book invaluably links geometry and the human form in movement.

The copy of Della simmetria de i corpi humani, libri quattro by Albrecht Dürer and translated by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci acquired by SCUA is the Italian first edition and first issue published in 1591.  The ownership of the book adds an interesting peculiarity and invaluableness to its condition; the specific copy, possessed by Giovanni Antonio Barca, contains annotations by the owner in his own preparation to publish on the subject.  Barca drew from and manipulated the theories and work of Dürer, yet Barca did not include direct attribution to Dürer for intellectual contribution to his work.  The influence, however, is undeniable.

-Written by Alexandra Mueller, Special Projects Archivist

New Acquisition: Ashendene Press Publications

Photo of The Song of Songs which is Solomon’s of the Ashendene Press, illuminated by Florence Kate Kingsford, 1902, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10268Ashendene_1000.jpg

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, burgeoning revolutionaries in book production, including William Morris, Sir Emery Walker, Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson, and C. H. St. John Hornby, perceived a degradation and lack of painstaking care and integrity in printing (Oxenbridge Press, n.d.).  The sour taste of commercialistic practices led early visionary William Morris to implement bygone principles of veracity in the selection of materials and the application of quality techniques to produce beautiful books.  William Morris set stone for a revitalization of book printing as one of the first prominent figures to emerge in the private press movement at the turn of the twentieth century.  The private press allowed for detail and design to flourish, with an emphasis on typography, illumination, and binding practices, and several private presses responsible for producing distinguished historical typographies (Roylance, 1991).

William Morris’s Kelmscott Press of 1891 proved revolutionary; it served as a catalyst for the development of the prestigious related private presses of the Doves Press and the Ashendene Press (William Doyle Galleries, 2020).  Morris and the Kelmscott Press prized the art of book printing, from procuring the finest materials, to creating intricate, decorative illuminations, to binding volumes precisely by hand (Roylance, 1991).  The Kelmscott Press utilized the uniquely created Golden, Troy, and Chaucer typefaces in their publications.  The Golden typeface was a Roman iteration, while Troy and Chaucer had roots in Gothic form (Peddie, 1915).  Morris worked closely in partnership with Sir Emery Walker, a masterful typographer, in his creation of Golden.  As the private press movement evolved, and Morris passed away, Walker joined forces with Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson to form the Doves Press.  Cobden-Sanderson and Walker paired complementarily – Walker produced typefaces and other stylistic elements, and Cobden-Sanderson spearheaded the task of binding volumes.  The Doves typeface appears with great notoriety in the printing of the Doves Bible, and whose form spawned from the Roman leanings of Nicolas Jenson, a shared influence to the Kelmscott Golden (Potter, 1938).

The Ashendene Press surfaced on the eve of the twentieth century, developed in 1894 by C. H. St. John Hornby who was a close follower and admirer of Morris (Roylance, 1991).  Walker, once again a seemingly omnipresent and influential force in the purview of the private press, developed for Hornby a typeface so characteristic and inherent to the image of Ashendene that forever defined their publications.  The Subiaco typeface stemmed from the Roman influences of Sweynheym and Pannartz, and is considered the shining element of the Ashendene Press’ folio printing of Dante.  The Dante also claims elaborate illustrations collaboratively created by renowned artist C. M. Gere and woodcutter W. H. Hooper (Potter, 1938).  Other remarkable folios produced by the Ashendene Press include Boccacio, Malory, Thucydides, and Spenser (William Doyle Galleries, 2020).

C. H. St. John Hornby operated the Ashendene Press for forty years, spanning from 1894 to 1935, with its home in Chelsea, England. Hornby and the Ashendene Press produced approximately sixty volumes during its tenure prior to the disbandment of the press after World War I (Roylance, 1991).

University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) holds several volumes published by the Ashendene Press, and has recently acquired two more titles.  The two recent acquisitions are The Faire Queene by Edmund Spenser and Spenser’s Minor Poems by Edmund Spenser.  Other holdings include Dante and Thucydides publications, among others, and may be accessed in the Library catalog under Ashendene Press.

Sources

Oxenbridge Press. (n.d.). A brief history of the Private Press Movement. Oxenbridge Press. https://oxenbridgepress.co.uk/a-brief-history-of-the-private-press-movement/

Peddie, R. A. (1915). The history and practice of the art of printing. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 63(3242), 142-147. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41341892

Potter, G. L. (1938). An appreciation of Sir Emery Walker. The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 8(3), 400-414. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4302484

Roylance, D. (1991). The art of the English book from William Morris to Eric Gill. The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 52(3), 367-383. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26404310

William Doyle Galleries. (2020). Art of the printed book. Doyle. https://doyle.com/specialists/edward-ripley-duggan/stories/art-printed-book

-Written by Alexandra Mueller, Special Projects Archivist