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24
More than just dusty books, Spencer Library's Special Collection is a time machine that can take readers on a trip through history. From stone tablets to the latest sci fi, it's available to everyone.
Bill North, Lawrence graduate student, tries to identify the date and origin of a piece of paper for graduate assignment in the Spencer Research Library.
Mark Rowlands / KANSAN
By Ezra Wolfe
Kansas staff writer
Kansan staff writer
n a huge glassed-in room, surrounded by regal red carpeting, stand stacks upon stacks of the Spencer Research Library's special collection, mostly rare books, all available for use by the public.
On one shelf is a Roman tombstone,
on another is an English file of writings
like a great crumpled ball of newspaper, but they actually are many small pieces of paper string together on a string. Usually they were stored neatly, but this file was crumpled by a 17th-century chancellor of England who took it home to write a book.
In March, the library is exhibiting a small selection from its O'Hegary Collection, a 16,000-volume collection of books and manuscripts named after P.S. O'Hegary, the first head of the Irish Post Office and an ardent Irish nationalist and book collector.
A grant recently provided the library with funds to catalog the collection, so all of the books are now listed electronically. The special collection's books are not listed on the KU on-line catalog.
Besides the O'Hegarty collection, the library's holdings include various aspects of the English 18th century; writers such as Tennyson, Joyce, Yeats and Rilkue; post-World War II American Poetry, particularly anti-establishment poetry; science fiction and children's books.
Alexandra Mason, Spencer librarian, said the anti-establishment poetry collection started when the librarians, who have a strong interest in the French revolution, another of the library's specialities, noticed
Mark Rowlands / KANSAN
a sort of revolution going on locally during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Published in 1628, this French fencing manual titled "Academy of Fencing," diagrams foot positions and foil strokes with detailed ink drawings.
"We started seeing poetry floating around and lying on tables," said Mason. "It was mostly anti-Vietnam War. So we started picking it up and buying or soliciting gifts of similar things. You could say we found it blowing in the wind."
Mason said most of the anti-establishment poetry was mimeographed or published in small, inexpensively published books.
The science fiction collection also started in an unusual way. A graduating senior left the library $15 to buy science fiction books because he wasn't able to find any of those books in the library and wanted other students to have a chance to read science fiction. Mason said.
In 1970 Gunn started working on "Alterate Worlds," an illustrated history of science fiction. At that time he helped convince the library to buy a collection of science fiction from a collector in Phoenix.
James Gunn, professor of English and science fiction author, also helped get the collection started.
"Gunn started writing to publishers and writers, and we now receive hundreds of pounds of newly published books," Mason said.
"The collection was really indispensable to the production of my book," Gunn said.
The library also has other uses besides research.
Mason said that this week she was called by a Garden City high school teacher who was bringing a chess club to Lawrence for a tournament. The教师 asked Mason to show them some books. Mason chose one of the oldest illustrated books on Virgil, an ancient Roman poet, because many of the chess club members also were learning Latin. Mason also plans to show them a beautifully illustrated fencing manual.
Mason said the value of the books in the Spencer Research Library never was considered beyond the purchase price, so she had no information about how valuable the books were.
"The most valuable research book may have only cost 50 cents," Mason said.
The oldest item in the library is a cuneiform tablet dated back to 2112 B.C. A cuneiform is primitive writing chiseled into a stone tablet. The oldest printed material is a page from a Gutenberg bible, dated back to 1454.
"The connectedness of things is one of the most interesting parts," Mason said. "It's a big time machine."
...
Bucks for books—it's contest time
By Ezra Wolfe Kansan staff writer
By Ezra Wolfe
Collecting books can be almost as much fun as reading them. Those who are now collecting have a chance to be rewarded for their work.
The University of Kansas Libraries are holding their 37th annual Snyder book collecting contest with the sponsorship of Elizabeth Snyder. The Mount Oread Bookshop in the Kansas Union also sponsors the contest
The contest awards $200 and $100 to the first and second place winners in the graduate division and the undergraduate division. There is no faculty division. The
"The collections are judged on how well the collector meets the statement of purpose and how much energy and imagination goes into it," she said. "Collections don't need to be large or extensive or rare to win."
prizes are half cash and half gift certificates redeemable at the Mount Oread Bookshop.
The subject of the graduate winner's collection from last year was "Notes from underground anarchist and marginal small press." The undergraduate winner's subject was "Medieval and Renaissance music."
Rachel Miller, head of acquisitions for the library system, is a coordinator for the contest.
The contest was started by Snyder, who never attended KU, but who is an active member of the KU Alumni Association. Snyder has donated several of her collections to the KU libraries, including a collection of books written by Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Miney's and an H.L. Mencken collection.
Other topics included children's literature, Joseph Conrad, photography, and plant materials and their use in the environment.
Snyder started the collections with the intent of motivating young collectors and rewarding interest in books, Miller said.
Larry Hopkins, secretary of special collections, said he thought the collection contest was an
incentive for young collectors. Unsure about the quality of a collection?
"I encourage people to enter because the experience will be good," Snyder said. "In past years people who don't win get letters with comments on how to improve their collections."
Hopkins said he and Miller would be glad to talk to anyone about their collections before the contest.
The deadline for entry is April 2. Each entry should have at least 10 books in its bibliography and a statement of purpose and method in building the collection. Complete males are available at Watson Library.
People and places at the University of Kansas.
calendar
Theater and Dance
KU Performing Arts "Hansel and Gretel" performance by the KU Theatre for Young People continues
1 p.m., today, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday and at 2:30, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Crafton-Preyer Theatre,$3, Murphy Hall Box office
7:30 p.m., tomorrow. Swarthout Recital Hall, Free
Concerts
Spring concert: University singers; James Ralston, director
Swarthout Society Resident Artist: Edgar Meyer, Bass; Rita Sloan, piano 8 p.m., tomorrow, Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St., Free
C concert: University Symphony Orchestra-Brian Priestman, conductor
"Bleeding Chunks from the Masterworks," movements from well known symphonies 8 p.m., Thursday, *Liberty Hall*, $3 students, $6 public
Lectures and Seminars
Humanities Lecture
"Are rights enough? Social justice in our
do we rights enough? Social justice in our nation's third century," Rex Martin, professor of philosophy at the KU
8 p.m., Thursday, auditorium, Spencer Museum of Art
Environmental Colloquium
"Environmental Changes in the Communist Era of Czechoslovakia," presented by Leos Jelecek, research scholar at the Institute of Geography at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Prague and a Rockefeller Fellow at KU, 4 p.m., Friday, main conference room, Hall Center for the Humanities
Reading for Comprehension and Speed workshoop
3:30-5:30 p.m., today, last session of pre-reg
istered class
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