ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

Acquisitions

•Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, recently acquired the Methodist research library of the Rev. William R. Phinney, a graduate of the Theological School and late Methodist pastor historian in the New York area. Phinney began to collect Wesleyana and Methodistica during World War II as a chaplain in the U.S. armed forces. The library of more than 2,000 volumes contains many 18th-century editions of works by the denomination’s English founders, John and Charles Wesley, first editions and rare pamphlets from the founding era in America, and a collection of Methodist commemorative busts, china and framed prints.

•The Harvard Law School Library recently acquired a copy of the first edition of the Tenor es noυelli by Sir Thomas Littleton, the first English law treatise and the first law book to be printed in England. The Tenores is a short, systematic account of English land law written to help Littleton’s son Richard with his studies at the Inner Temple. Printed in 1481, the book was issued to instant demand. More than 70 editions appeared before 1628, when Lord Coke called the Tenores “the most perfect and absolute work that was ever written in any human science.” New editions have continued through the 20th century. The printers, Johannes Lettou and William de Machlinia, were the first printers of law books in England, beginning operations only five years after the printing press was introduced there.

Two other Harvard libraries have acquired the cookbook collection of Grace Chu, recognized as the first teacher of Chinese cooking in the United States. The Schlesinger Library received nearly 300 English-language Chinese cookbooks and several videocassettes, and the Harvard-Yenching Library received some 100 Chinese-language cookbooks. Madame Chu has taught Chinese cooking at New York’s China Institute and elsewhere in the United States and abroad and is the author of The Pleasures of Chinese Cooking (1962) and Madame Chu’s Chinese Cooking School (1975).

•Pennsylvania State University, UniversityPark, has announced that the papers of Harrington Emerson (1853–1931), an early industrial engineer and efficiency expert, have been opened for research. The material covers Emerson’s career from 1895 to 1931 and provides information on his varied activities as an entrepreneur, consultant, publicist, efficiency advocate, and founder of professional societies. Included are 25 cubic feet of correspondence, publications, unpublished writings, industrial consulting reports, clippings and memorabilia.

•Pomona College, Claremont, California, hasacquired a large collection chronicling the history of the theater from the 17th century to modern times. The collection consists of more than 10,000 items, including books, pamphlets, plays, theatrical commentary, essays and playbills. The Second (1632) and Fourth (1685) Folios of Shakespeare’s plays are among important items, as well as a significant portion of the materials belonging to Edward Gordon Craig (1872–1966), a pioneer of modern theater set and costume design. Other items include hundreds of prints and engravings, costume designs used in London and Stratford theaters, several model stage sets, and a large number of holograph letters written by actors, theater managers and playwrights from the 17th to 19th centuries. Letters to and from leading 18th-century actor David Garrick and correspondence of Sir Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Gordon Craig are especially noteworthy. The collection was donated by Pomona alumnus Norman Philbrick, a distinguished theater educator, and his late wife, and will be housed at the Honnold Library of the Claremont Colleges.

•The St. Louis Mercantile Library Association recently acquired at auction two important 19th-century engineering works distinguished by their extreme rarity. American Locomotives by Emil Reuter, published in Philadelphia in 1849, is the earliest published U.S. work devoted exclusively to locomotive design and engineering, and contains highly detailed lithograph plates and a treatise on the “Theory of Steam.” Only two other copies are known. An Historical And Descriptive Account Of The Suspension Bridge Constructed Over The Menai Strait, published in London in 1828 and inscribed by author Alexander Provis, details the design and construction of the first major suspension bridge in the world. Engineered and built by Thomas Telford in Wales in 1825–26, the Menai Strait bridge established important principles of iron bridge design. Telford’s innovations were much admired by James B. Eads, designer of the famous Eads bridge spanning the Mississippi River at St. Louis.

•The University of California-Davis, Department of Special Collections, has acquired the business archives of the California Canners & Growers, considered in the 1960s to be the largest grower- owned cooperative of its type in the world. Formed in 1958 by a group of growers’ organizations seeking to gain greater control over the processing and marketing of their crops, by 1969 CCG was recognized as the most important supplier of private- label canned fruits in the country. The organization declined under political and legal battles brought about by the 1969 Food and Drug Administration ban on cyclamates as an artificial sweetener. The 2,000 linear feet of materials consist of administrative and financial records from the 25- year history of CCG, including documentation related to cyclamate legal proceedings and a grand jury investigation into alleged price-fixing.

• The University of Houston Libraries, Texas, have recently received the Basile J. Luyet Memorial Library from the American Foundation for Biological Research, Rockville, Maryland. A pioneer in the science of cryobiology, the late Father Luyet’s teaching career at St. Louis University spanned 25 years. In 1956 he undertook the development of a laboratory devoted to biophysical studies on freezing and freeze-related phenomena, assembling and fostering a non-profit group at the Foundation’s offices in Madison, Wisconsin. A second laboratory was opened at Rockville in 1966. The first president of the Society of Cryobiology, formed in 1966, Luyet was the founding editor and publisher of the journal Biodynamica as well as one of its principal contributors. The Luyet Memorial Library consists of 3,600 monograph and serial titles, Luyet’s laboratory notebooks from 1930 to 1971, and 4,000 research photomicrographs.

•The University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has acquired the papers of Michael Ellis, an active theater producer and director. The collection covers the years 1937 through 1985 and includes correspondence, production records, financial records, play scripts, scrapbooks and memorabilia. Ellis produced 16 plays in New York City and has been a performer, stage manager, and owner-director of the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania.

• York University, North York, Ontario, has acquired a private collection of jazz and blues recordings dating from the inception of long-playing records in the 1950s to the early 1970s. Included in the collection of some 2,500 ten- and twelve-inch albums are scarce recordings by numerous mainstream jazz, dixieland, big band and blues artists. A performer and title list is in preparation.

Grants

• The Cornell University Libraries, Ithaca, New York, have received a grant of $187,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to provide information and training in the conservation of books and other library materials. Cornell’s team of conservators will conduct workshops on conservation for regional librarians, provide on-site consultation at other institutions, and establish an information clearinghouse on library preservation and conservation. The funds will also be used to train conservation interns and help support the salaries of three new staff members assisting conservation officer John Dean.

• Johns Hopkins University’s Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Baltimore, has been awarded a Title II-C grant from the U.S. Department of Education to begin cataloging its microfilm copy of a Yale University collection of German Baroque literature. The $40,350 one-year grant will be used to catalog the collection of more than 2,300 titles according to modern standards. It will eventually be accessible on RLIN.

• The New York State Library, Division of Library Development, Albany, has received a $141,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the state’s Conservation/ Preservation program established in 1984. The first statewide program in the country, it now has 11 members including both private and public universities. The two-year grant will support work now in progress.

• Northern Illinois University, De Kalb, has been awarded an $81,240 grant under the Library Services and Construction Act as part of the Serials of Illinois Libraries Online (SILO) unified listing program for serials. SILO, which is supported by the Illinois State Library in conjunction with OCLC, now has 276 participating libraries and a database of more than 90,000 titles. The present grant follows a $150,000 grant awarded last year.

• Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, has been awarded a two-year grant of $151,440 by the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, an international organization originally established to publish a pictorial dictionary of classical mythology. In 13 years the extensive files of catalog cards and photographs of the 35-nation project have become important in their own right as a unique source of primary information about the classical world. The U.S. Center at Rutgers has been using its own archive of more than 7,000 records in a pilot project of developing a computer index for classical iconography.

• Stanford University’s Hoover Institution Archives, California, has received an initial Title II-C grant of $257,916 for the preservation of its extensive newspaper and poster collection. Subsequent funding for the three-year program is to be announced at a later date. Among the largest collections of international political posters in the United States, the more than 68,000 items include illustrated wall placards, official proclamations, and other propaganda displays. Each item will be flattened and encapsulated, with special laboratory treatments scheduled for those that require additional attention. All posters will be recorded on color slides and cataloged and indexed on RLIN. The newspaper collection will be microfilmed and cataloged on a national online system.

News Notes

•The Baker & Taylor Company and the State Education Commission of the People’s Republic of China have signed a multi-year contract for the sale of books to colleges and universities throughout that country. Most of the books are expected to be scholarly, scientific and technical titles. The contract continues and expands an initial agreement signed several years ago. Baker & Taylor exhibited more than 1,500 U.S. titles at the Beijing Book Fair in September.

•The University of California-Davis recently selected a copy of Charles Estienne’s L’Agricultureet Maison Rustique, published in Paris in 1570 and bound with Jean de Glamorgan’s La Chasse du Loup, as the Libraries’ two millionth volume. These classic French works on agriculture and rural life contain chapters on grape-growing, winemaking, horticulture, distillation, animal husbandry and hunting. The volume was presented in honor of Maynard A. Amerine, professor emeritus of viticulture and enology, by a group of California vintners and alumni of the university.

•The University of Georgia, Athens, has established a rare book and manuscript library in honor of Felix Hargrett, an alumnus who has given the university thousands of books including many rare titles. The new library contains the university’s rare book, Georgiana and manuscript collections. Hargrett, a retired insurance executive, has donated more than 12,000 printed items, including six incunabula, and more than 10,000 manuscripts since 1953. A large collection of materials from the Confederacy is of particular interest.