How did you get
started in rare books?
When I was a graduate student in art history, I worked as a
curatorial assistant on an exhibition called The Art of the Book, 1000-1650, at the University of Missouri's
Museum of Art and Archaeology. We planned
to show materials from the museum's collections, but we also made arrangements
to borrow from the special collections at the university libraries. I was sent to special collections, a place I
had never visited before, to scout items from the catalog that might be
suitable for the exhibition.
The first piece I looked at was a fragment of Bede in
Insular script from the ninth century. Even though I had just come from the
vaults of a museum, I felt completely awed by this experience of being one-on-one
with the oldest manuscript I'd ever encountered. My MA work focused on medieval manuscripts
and early printing, so from a research perspective, I felt like I had stumbled
into a treasure trove.
Over the course of that project, it dawned on me that libraries
could offer me a chance to combine my research interests with my desire to work
with people. When a para-professional reference job opened in the special
collections department a few months later, I applied for it and was hired. I've
been working in libraries and archives ever since.
Where did you earn
your advanced degree?
A few years after finishing my MA in art history at the
University of Missouri, I went on to complete an MSIS at the University of
Texas with a certificate in special collections and archives. Austin is so rich in archives and libraries,
and I was fortunate to be able to work in some really diverse and fantastic
collections and learn from wonderful librarians and archivists. Just as I was finishing my last semester in
Texas, a job opened here, and I jumped at the chance to come back.
What is your role at
your institution?
We have a small staff, so all of us do a variety of things. My
roles are to do reference, instruction, outreach, and web development. In daily
life, that means I help instructors devise assignments and activities that
introduce students to primary source research, lead course sessions, assist
students with the research process, and take shifts on the reference desk. We have a wide range of courses that use the
collections here - in any given week I might find myself presenting on comics,
medieval manuscripts, propaganda, posters, or the history of information
technology.
I also curate exhibitions and help to coordinate
partnerships with other campus and community institutions. Recently I've been active in helping to
organize a cross-campus working group of librarians, archivists, and curators,
with the goal of integrating our collections more fully into the university's
curriculum. We also partner with the
campus Life Sciences and Society Program
to curate an exhibition based on their yearly symposium topic, which challenges
all of us to think about our collections in different ways. I've worked on
exhibitions and digital projects related to food science, epigenetics,
and science communication since I've been here.
Last year, I curated an exhibition on narrative and sequential art from
the fifteenth century to the present, and I was approached by Exhibits USA to package it
for national tour. It's currently in the
marketing phase, and I'm looking forward to continuing that project!
On the digital site of things, I manage the Special Collections web
site, digital exhibitions, and social media (Tumblr,
Twitter, and Facebook). My most recent project on social media is our
weekly Beautiful Math
series, which looks at intersections among the arts, sciences, and
mathematics. And I'm in the process of
revamping our digital exhibition system.
That sounds like a laundry list, but it's what I do! The variety of my day-to-day work is both
challenging and invigorating.
Favorite rare book /
ephemera that you've handled?
Impossible to choose.
I probably have a new favorite every week, and I love that about my
job. I do tend to love things that have
value as artifacts in that that they have interesting marginalia or give us
some sense of use or ownership contexts.
I love manuscripts of all periods, especially illuminated ones, but
ordinary ones are also interesting for many different reasons. I love correspondence, although I don't work
with it much in this position, but I have in the past.
Right now I'm also fascinated with the history of
illustration and printmaking processes, and how words and images interact on
the page. That interest includes
everything from early printed books to graphic novels. I've gotten very interested in the early
woodcut novelists, especially Frans Masereel, from seeing examples in the
collections here.
What do you
personally collect?
I don't collect anything for myself. I'm surrounded by so
much stuff at work that I often feel a need for minimalism when it comes to my
own household. With two small children,
I don't do very well at it, but I try.
What do you like to do outside of
work?
Spend time with my family and work in my garden. I also knit
and read, when I get a rare moment to sit down by myself.
What excites you
about rare book librarianship?
You truly never know what you'll find when preparing for a
class, or researching for an exhibition, or just paging something in the
stacks. I love being surrounded by
history and beauty every day. But I
think what excites me the most is seeing all the different ways our researchers
and students use the materials in their work.
There is no better feeling than teaching a class session full of
students who are engaged with what they're studying and are eager to know more,
or helping a researcher find exactly the missing piece they were looking for. I hope to bring about the same type of "aha!"
moments that happened to me in the reading room here.
Thoughts on the future of special
collections / rare book librarianship?
I think the future for all of us (libraries, archives, and
museums) is to become more open, collaborative, and community-oriented. We're all in the process of shifting our
roles from being the gatekeepers to being the guides and facilitators, both in
person and online. I welcome
these changes and am excited about where we're headed.
At the same time, higher education is changing. I suspect those of us in academic
institutions will find that our roles will change too. For example, the number of classes and students in
Special Collections here at Missouri has tripled over the past decade and is
still increasing, leading us to prioritize teaching as a big part of what we
do. Being able to demonstrate
growth and utility is vital. It's going
to be more and more important for us to be able to explain why we and our
collections are a valuable educational resource.
Any unusual or interesting collection
at your library you'd like to draw our attention to?
One of the strengths of the collections here is a large group
of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British pamphlets on religious and
political subjects. There are thousands
of them, and many are very scarce. We'll
be starting a project to identify unique materials from that collection over
the next few months. The Fragmenta
Manuscripta collection is a group of medieval manuscript fragments assembled in
the seventeenth century, which supplements the mainly textual medieval and
Renaissance manuscript codices in the collection. That's the collection that contains that Bede
fragment that got me started down this path in the first place. We have a substantial collection of comic
books and artwork, including a nice collection of underground comics and early
graphic novels. We also have the
collection of a nineteenth-century French lawyer, Jacques Flach, which has lots
of unique materials, and we have the papers of the American playwright Lanford
Wilson.
Any upcoming exhibitions at your
library?
We will be mounting an exhibition of work by comic artists
with ties to Mizzou this fall. There's a
great comic community here, with people interested in comics as literature,
art, history, and journalism. We'll try
to get that community involved with what we do this fall.
In spring 2016, we'll have two exhibitions. One will deal
with climate change and the Anthropocene, which is next year's Life Sciences
and Society Symposium topic. The other
will celebrate the centennial of our library building, and will also
incorporate materials from the Missouri Historic Textile Collection and the
University Archives.
(Nominations for Bright Young Librarians, Booksellers, or Collectors are welcome at nathan@finebooksmagazine.com)