The Ghosts of Librarians Past: Researching Library Provenance in Special Collections and Rare Books

The Ghosts of Librarians Past

Researching Library Provenance in Special Collections & Rare Books

Kelli HansenSpecial Collections Librarian

University of Missouri Libraries@BiblioKelli

Provenance

• Archives:• Chain of custody• Respect des fonds

• Museums:• Legality of ownership• Looting, trafficking,

repatriation

• Libraries?

Chapter 1: Lambach Abbey

Gottschalk Antiphonary, Beinecke MS 481.51Lambach Abbey, late 12th century

Priscianus minor,University of Missouri, Ellis Library, Special Collections, RARE RES PA6624.A4 1150

Lambach Abbey, mid- to late 12th century

Missouri

Lambach

Library stamp of Lambach Abbey

From University of Pennsylvania Libraries LatC Ov403 Ei7 1518

Bookplate of Sir Joseph Radcliffe, 2nd baronet (1799-1872)Bought Rudding Park in 1824

From Priscianus minor, Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries, RARE RES PA6624.A4 1150

Chapter 2: An Early Academic Library?

Ezra in the Codex Amiatinus, believed to be based on a portrait of Cassiodorus in his library. Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, before 716.

Chained library configurations included:• Shelved vertically, fore-edge

out (chain attached at the fore-edge)

• Shelved flat under a lectern (chain attached at the tail of front or back board)

• Shelved flat on a reading desk (chain attached at the head of the back board)

Zutphen Chained LibraryBooks stored on reading desks, chained at the head of the back board.

Martin Luther (1483-1546). Kirchen Postilla, das ist, Auslegung der Episteln und Evangelien an Sontagen und furnemesten Festen durchs gantze Jar. Sampt iren Registern welche auffs new obersehen und mit vleis gebessert sind. Wittemberg : Gedruckt durch Hans Lufft, 1575.

University of Missouri, Ellis Library, Special Collections and Rare Books, Rare Folio BX8067.L4 L87 1575

1595 Donation Inscription

Dorfkirche Löben

Chapter 3. Early Circulating Libraries

Prout, William, 1785-1850. Chemistry, meteorology, and the function of digestion : considered with reference to natural theology. London : W. Pickering, 1834.

Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries, Rare BL175 .P76 1834

Circulation label from a nineteenth-century book society.

Harvard University, Houghton Library AC8.C7863.827rb

Circulation list for a nineteenth-century book society.

In Things by their right names : a novel, in two volumes / by a person without a name [Frances Jacson, 1754-1842]. London : Printed for George Robinson, 1812.

University of Missouri, Ellis Library, Special Collections and Rare Books, Rare PR4821.J28 T45 1812b.

Wrapping Up

Image CreditsChapter 1: Lambach Abbey• Lambach Abbey: image cc Thomas Ledl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambach_Abbey#/media/File:Lambach_Stift_Eingang.jpg

• Map: courtesy Google Maps• Gottschalk Antiphonal: image courtesy Yale University

Libraries. No known copyright restrictions. http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3432952

• Priscianus minor manuscript, open: image courtesy Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries. Taken by the author.

• Lambach library catalog: image from [Felix Resch OSB], Handschriften-Katalog des Stiftes Lambach (handschriftlich), [Lambach, 2. Hälfte 18. Jh.], 65. Via http://www.manuscripta.at/_scripts/php/digi_books.php?cat=resch&page_fn=B065

• Priscianus minor manuscript, binding: image courtesy Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries. Available at Digital Scriptorium: http://ds.lib.berkeley.edu/RARERESPA6624.A41150_45

• Lambach binding: image courtesy University of Pennsylvania. http://dorpdev.library.upenn.edu/rbs-omeka/items/show/17

• Stamp from the library of the Benediktinerstift Lambach, Provenance Online Project, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/58558794@N07/5641128110/in/photostream/

Chapter 2: An Early Academic Library• Photos of chained binding courtesy of Special Collections and

Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries. Taken by the author.

• Monk in scriptorium: Ezra in the Codex Amiatinus, believed to be based on a portrait of Cassiodorus in his library. Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, before 716. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptorium#/media/File:Meister_des_Codex_Amiatus_001.jpg

• The Chained Library. Hereford Cathedral (undated). Postcard. Image by Flickr user pellethepoet, CC-BY-NC 2.0, via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pellethepoet/6025469004/

• Press with chained book in the Library of Cesena, Italy; original drawing has caption "part of a bookcase at Cesena to shew the system of chaining.” via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Milkau_B%C3%BCcherschrank_mit_angekettetem_Buch_aus_der_Bibliothek_von_Cesena_109-2.jpg

• Zutphen: Chained Library by medievalfragments, CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0, via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/medievalfragments/8753560354/in/photostream/

• Photos of chained binding courtesy of Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries. Taken by the author.

• “Dorfkirche Löben” by LutzBruno, CC BY-SA 3.0, via WikiMedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kirche_in_L%C3%B6ben_1.JPG

Image CreditsChapter 3: Early Circulating Libraries• “Literary Reunion in Mr. Mudie’s New Hall,”

From, 'The London Illustrated News', 29th December, 1860, p.619. Image courtesy Wellcome Images via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mr._Mudies_New_Hall,_London_Illustrated_News_Wellcome_L0029532.jpg

• Bull’s Public Library ticket on spine, image courtesy Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries, taken by the author.

• Advertisements from “The Academy,” Nov. 13, 1869, p. 12. Via Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=n_LVAAAAMAAJ&lpg=PA62

• Advertisement from “Oxford Essays, by Members of the University,” 1858, p. 18. https://books.google.com/books?id=m6ACAAAAQAAJ&lpg=PP36

• Keninghall Book Society image courtesy Houghton Library blog, Harvard University. http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/houghton/2014/11/26/circulating-libraries/

• Book society circulation list images courtesy Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Missouri Libraries, taken by the author.

Introduction and Conclusion• Interior of Townsville library, ca. 1948, by

State Library of Queensland. No known copyright restrictions, via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland/8808717962/

• “Portrett av Hjalmar Pettersen (1856-1928) på sitt kontor,” by Nasjonalbiblioteket. No known copyright restrictions, via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/national_library_of_norway/9561066959/

• “Past === Prologue” by Noemi Margaret. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/crayonbeam/3336847076

• “Universitetsbiblioteket 1850-1913 : søndre del av langsalen til Fredriksgate” by Nasjonalbiblioteket. No known copyright restrictions, via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/national_library_of_norway/9493577718/

Selected Bibliography• Babcock, Robert G. Reconstructing a Medieval Library: Fragments from Lambach. Exhibition catalogue, Beinecke

Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. New Haven: Beinecke Library, 1993.• Cawelti, Andrea. “Circulating Libraries.” Houghton Library Blog. Harvard University Libraries, 26 Nov. 2014.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/houghton/2014/11/26/circulating-libraries/. • Davis, Lisa Fagin. The Gottschalk Antiphonary: Music and Liturgy in Twelfth-Century Lambach. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2000.• Erickson, Lee. “The Economy of Novel Reading: Jane Austen and the Circulating Library.” Studies in English

Literature, 1500-1900 vol. 30, no. 4 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 573-590. http://www.jstor.org/stable/450560 • Horn, Walter, and Ernest Born. “The Medieval Monastery as a Setting for the Production of Manuscripts.”

Journal of the Walters Art Gallery vol. 44 (1986), pp. 16-47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20169021 • Peterson, Herman A. “The Genesis of Monastic Libraries.” Libraries & The Cultural Record vol. 45, no. 3 (2010),

pp. 320-332. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25750346 • Purcell, Mark. “The Country House Library Reassess’d: Or, Did the ‘Country House Library’ Ever Really Exist?”

Library History vol. 18 (Nov. 2002), pp. 157-174. http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/lib.2002.18.3.157

• Sedo, DeNel Rehberg. “An Introduction to Reading Communities: Processes and Formations.” in Reading Communities from Salons to Cyberspace, ed. DeNel Rehberg Sedo. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. pp. 1-24.

• Streeter, Burnett Hillman. The Chained Library: A Survey of Four Centuries in the Evolution of the English Library. New York: Burt Franklin, 1970.

• Weston, Jenny. “The Last of the Great Chained Libraries.” medievalfragments. Turning Over a New Leaf Project, 10 May 2013. https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/the-last-of-the-great-chained-libraries/