A Year in Review, 2024

A Year in Review, 2024

 

Dear Friends and Colleagues-

Another great year for the Rare Book and Special Collections Division! Our team was hard at work adding exciting new material to the collection, curating displays, hosting classes, serving researchers, and creating reference resources. We also added new staff to our team! As a way of reflecting on this past year and looking forward to the next, we have shared several programmatic highlights and collection resources that are now—or will soon become—available to the public. Enjoy!

 

Book History Lectures and Classes

Over the course of 2024, the staff in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division hosted a number of book history related classes and lectures in collaboration with local specialists, cultural heritage professionals, and universities.

Mini Exhibits in the Reading Room

During 2024, RBSCD staff curated a number of rotating mini exhibits in the display case in the Rare Book Reading Room with corresponding blog posts for patrons wanting a little more information. These small exhibits received so much positive feedback that improved exhibit space will be added this coming year. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months!

New Online Resources:

Through 2024, RBSCD provided reference services and resources for nearly 10,000 virtual and onsite patrons! We also created several new LibGuides to help explore our collections.

• National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Small Press Collection
• Anarchism and Radical Movements
• The Gryphius Collection
• Ptolemaic Atlases at the Library Congress

 

RBSCD Open House

In March 2024, The Rare Book and Special Collections Division (RBSCD) held an open house. For this event, RBSCD opened both the Reading Room and the Rosenwald Room, in which Division staff curated individual tables that highlighted their favorite part of the collection. With over 200 visitors, the event was a great success!

RBSCD’s Librarian-in-Residence 

In June of 2024, Callie Beattie, 2024-2025 Librarian-in-Residence in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, arrived and began working with our contemporary book arts and archival collections. Among her other projects, Callie focused her residency on creating better access to the Saint Mark’s Poetry Project Archive, a large mixed media archive acquired by RBSCD in 2006. We can’t wait to share the fruits of her labor! Resources for the Poetry Project at Saint Marks:

• St. Mark’s Poetry Project Audio Archive
• 40 Years of Poetry Project Sound Recordings

New Education Outreach Specialist

In July of 2024, RBSCD hired Patrick Hastings, the Division’s first Education Outreach Specialist. This position was made possible by a gracious gift of the Aramont Charitable Foundation. The Education Outreach position is intended to increase public access to RBSCD’s collections by creating new and accessible resources for the public and K-12 educators. More about Patrick Hastings:

• An Interview with Patrick Hastings
• Education Outreach from Bibliomania

National Collegiate Book Collecting Competition 

In September 2024, RBSCD staff collaborated with the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) to host the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest ceremony. Rare Book Division staff provided a collection display for the top three prize winners alongside their families and mentors in the Rosenwald Room. More about the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest:

• Blog post by Georgetown undergraduate student Amanda Zhao on winning the 2024 National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest

2024 APHA WAZGOOSE

In November of 2024, RBSCD hosted the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association for their annual wayzgoose, a traditional celebration of printers that celebrates the accomplishments of the past year and looks to the next. It was a truly joyful afternoon!

 

LOOKING FORWARD: COLLECTING FOR THE FUTURE
Acquisition Highlights from 2024

 

The Rare Book Classroom with a Replica Press. With generous support from the American Printing History Association (APHA), the Rare Book & Special Collections Division took possession of a fully-functioning reproduction of an eighteenth-century wooden printing press. Christened the “Copper Torch Press,” the printing press will become part of a new Rare Book Classroom in the Jefferson Building, dedicated to providing visitors an interactive experience that will illuminate and celebrate RBSCD’s vast collections of historical material. More on that this coming year!

President James Monroe’s copy Les Antiquites Romaines. Paris: Philippe-Nicolas Lottin, 1723. This copy includes Monroe’s personal notes which are pinned to the verso of the front flyleaf. The notes concern the form of government during the Roman Kingdom (753 BC – 509 BC) and the constitutional reforms instituted under Servius Tullius (578-535 BC). Only a small number of the volumes from Monroe’s extensive library have survived.

Rare Alphabet Books, 1801-1946. As the home of historic children’s literature at the Library of Congress, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division has an interest in acquiring historical pedagogical tools used in the teaching of children. In 2024, RBSCD acquired an extraordinary assemblage of rare alphabet books and games in a variety of languages including French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Bulgarian, and Swedish. All books in the collection are extremely rare with no other copies located in north America.

Sixteenth-Century Dutch Manuscript Book of Hours copied, signed, and dated by a female scribe. RBSCD is committed to building a narrative of book history that emphasizes the involvement of women. In 2024, the Division purchased a beautiful manuscript Book of Hours copied by a nun named “Suster Maritghen.” This manuscript is an important addition to the Division’s holdings of pre-modern manuscripts containing definitive proof of being copied, owned, or created for the use of women. Furthermore, the Division’s manuscript collection is particularly strong in books created in the Low Countries. This Book of Hours was a truly welcome addition to RBSCD’s exceptional resources.

Sonia Delaunay’s Ses Peintures, Ses Objets, Ses Tissus Simultanés, Ses Modes. Paris, 1925. Modern artist Sonia Delaunay published this portfolio in conjunction with her display at the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1925. The portfolio is an exceptional example of Delaunay’s combined interest in fine art and craft at the turn of the century. Delaunay’s portfolio adds to RBSCD’s growing collection of modern art created by women in the twentieth century.

Making Copy (or Presidential Copy) of The First Atlas of the United States of Acid by Didier Mutel, 2023 (*Note: “acid” communicates “etching” in this context). Didier Mutel is the most significant intaglio printer in Europe, operating France’s oldest engraving/etching studio. The First Atlas of the United States of Acid was created in the tradition of large format atlases engraved on copper plates. While the Atlas is part of this technical tradition, the maps are a utopian version of the US, characterized by hopeful reality and humorous fiction. The Atlas presents a utopian country governed by artists and thinkers with the support of superheroes. This Presidential copy purchased by RBSCD includes the 55 original etchings by Didier Mutel of each US state printed twice, and presented with and without marginalia: a total of 165 plates. The copy also contains all the original ink drawings by Didier Mutel used as models and the 5 sketchbooks linked to this work.

 

From RBSCD staff, wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year!