Insitutiones chirurgicae… by Lorenz Heister, 1739.
Forget witches, goblins and ghouls, for a truly terrifying time there is nothing like a stroll through medical history. (more…)
Archive for October, 2014
Truly Horrid Books
Posted in Book History, Humor, Science, tagged creepy books, Halloween, history of medicine, scary books on October 30, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Harbor Press Ephemera
Posted in Book History, Rare Books, tagged Harbor Press, John Fass, Print ephemera, Roland Wood (AC 1920) on October 24, 2014| 1 Comment »
Here in Archives & Special Collections we have a large and interesting collection of fine press books — that is, the work of small presses that produced, in limited numbers, books featuring design, typography, paper, ink and illustrations of the finest quality. It has been my lucky task this week to organize and catalog our wonderful collection of one of those fine printers, the Harbor Press, which operated in New York City from 1925 to 1942. Specifically, I am working on our collection of Harbor Press ephemera — not its books, but all the flyers, greeting cards, advertisements, labels, letterheads, trade cards, bookplates, etc., which the Press produced for hundreds of commercial businesses, individuals, and, as we shall see, for itself, too.
Clyde Pride!
Posted in Amherst College Alumni, Dramatic Activities Collection, Performing Arts on October 17, 2014| 2 Comments »
Drama and theater have long played an important role in student life at Amherst College. Our Dramatic Activities Collection contains evidence of student and faculty performances all the way back to the early 19th century. Clyde Fitch (Class of 1886) was a major force in student theatricals, both on and off the stage, during his time at Amherst. He went on to become one of the most popular playwrights in the United States; a spectacular career that was cut short by his untimely death in 1909. On Thursday, October 23, 2014 we are holding an event in the Clyde Fitch Room in Converse Hall to celebrate the life and career of Clyde Fitch as part of LGBT History Month.
Clyde Fitch in “The Country Girl” at Amherst College, 1884.
New additions to Amherst College Digital Collections
Posted in Digital collections on October 10, 2014| 3 Comments »
If you’ve been following this blog, then you may already be familiar with the Amherst College Digital Collections — ACDC for short. ACDC is the result of collaboration between Robert Frost Library Digital Programs and Technical Services departments, and Amherst College’s Information Technology department. ACDC focuses on digitizing and making available unique or rare content from collections owned by the Library or the College at large, as well as open access scholarly content created by Amherst College faculty.¹ The Amherst College Digital Collection continues to grow with monthly ingests of new content, including materials from the Archives and Special Collections.
Here are a few highlights from recent additions to ACDC:
51 books from the Younghee Kim-Wait/Pablo Eisenberg Native American Literature Collection
The Native American Literature Collection continues to be a very exciting collection, highly used in classes and by visiting researchers. Now there are 51 books from this collection freely available to the public through ACDC.
More Detective Work in Cataloging
Posted in Acquisitions, Book History, Native Americans on October 4, 2014| 1 Comment »
The last time I wrote about detective work in my job, I mentioned “authority work” and linked to the Library of Congress’ explanation of what it entails. Here’s another example, from earlier this week.
I began to catalog these two recently-purchased pamphlets from the 1940s:
Navajo Life Series: Primer and The Little Turtle, early mimeographed versions from 1942 and 1943.
The Consecrated Eminence 