Category Archives: Rare Books & Manuscripts

Ancient clay artifact meets the Future

events, libitsblog, middpoints, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections

Today in Special Collections, our oldest text faced the library’s newest technology.

Our cuneiform tablet, a beer token from 2,000 BCE, took a new form when DLA postdoctoral fellow Kristy Golubiewski-Davis captured it in a 3D scan.

Mounted on a tripod, a small camera photographs the tablet, on a turntable, while a small projector shines different light patterns onto its surface. In the background, a laptop shows the 3D scan as it materializes.

To see 3D scanning in action – along with the tablet and other important Special Collections objects – come to Davis Family Library this Friday! Kristy will by demonstrating 3D scanning in the library atrium from 10am-2pm, and Special Collections will host our annual Fall Family Weekend Open House from 1pm-4pm.

And stay tuned for a 3D printout made from the scan coming soon, a plastic facsimile students and researchers can inspect in their own hands!

New Special Collections exhibits just in time for summer!

College Archives, Exhibits, libitsblog, libspotlight, middpoints, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections

Currently populating the glass cases of Davis Family Library are Margaret Armstrong book covers and historic postcards. Don’t miss the chance to see them before heading out for the summer!

As part of American Studies professor Ellery Foutch’s AMST 101 course, American Holidays, students researched holiday postcards from our collection, exploring how symbols and themes reflect the cultural mores of turn-of-the-century American life.

The postcards they studied and their comments are on display in the library atrium.

To compliment this exhibit, college archivist Danielle Rougeau curated and designed an exhibit featuring postcards and scrapbooks from the archives. The postcards capture Middlebury College’s landscape and characters as well as the role of postcard correspondence through history.

Postcard from Marjorie Phelps, class of 1917, to her mother. As she mentions, she and her roommate are pictured on the reverse.
Postcard from Marjorie Phelps, class of 1917, to her mother. As she mentions, she and her roommate are pictured on the reverse.

Rounding out our summer exhibits is a tribute to Margaret Armstrong, curated by Joseph Watson and designed by Danielle Rougeau. Margaret Armstrong (1867-1944), one of the most accomplished book cover designers of the early twentieth century, produced cover art and illustrations for over 270 books.

Come to Special Collections to see a selection of her cover designs and learn more about her life!

IMG_4494
Can you tell which cover Margaret Armstrong didn’t design? Come to Special Collections for a closer look and the answer!

 

First Folio Festival Thursday!

events, Exhibits, libitsblog, libspotlight, middpoints, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections

Join us this Thursday February 18th to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the First Folio! exhibit at the Middlebury Museum of Art.

Starting at 4:30pm in the Center for the Arts lobby, there will be musical and theatrical performances, guided tours of the exhibit with professors of English and American Literature Timothy Billings and James Berg, children’s activities with Page One Literacy, and sweet and savory Renaissance refreshments.

FestivalPoster

Shakespeare’s First Folio at Middlebury – Keynote Wednesday and more events to come!

events, Exhibits, libitsblog, middpoints, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections

This February, one of the most important books in the history of English literature is coming to Middlebury. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and to honor the centuries of the bard’s influence, the Folger Shakespeare Library is sponsoring a national tour of their collection of First Folios.

FSL logo

Considered one of the most influential books in the world, the First Folio includes 36 Shakespeare plays, 18 of which had never been printed before the First Folio in 1623. Without the First Folio, all of those plays – including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, As You Like It, and more – might have been lost forever.

From February 2-28, Middlebury College will serve as the Vermont site of the national tour, displaying the First Folio at the Middlebury Museum of Art.

TitlePageFirstFolio_FirstFolioFolger

To kick off this month of celebration, James Shapiro, Columbia University professor and renowned Shakespeare scholar, will give a lecture on Shakespeare’s role in American history on Wednesday February 3rd at 7:00pm in the Concert Hall.

Visit go/shakespeare for more information about events throughout the month of February, including a First Folio Festival on Thursday February 18th at 4:30pm in the Center for the Arts Lobby.

Classes Visiting Special Collections

classes, College Archives, libspotlight, middpoints, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections, Special Colltions

Five classes visited Special Collections last week, studying a wide range of materials.  We shared hundreds of items, from classic Greek stories published in Venice in the 15th century, to an 18th century Torah, to 1930s government reports on eugenics policy in Vermont.

Italian Renaissance Art with Prof. Carrie Anderson
Italian Renaissance Art with Prof. Carrie Anderson
Native North America with Prof. Marybeth Nevins
Native North America with Prof. Marybeth Nevins
Reading Slavery and Abolition with Prof. Will Nash
Reading Slavery and Abolition with Prof. Will Nash
Middle Eastern Political Religion with Prof. Shalom Goldman
Middle Eastern Political Religion with Prof. Shalom Goldman
The Ten Commandments with Prof. Shalom Goldman
The Ten Commandments with Prof. Shalom Goldman

Davis Library Fall atrium exhibit: Old Friends and New: Writers in Nature, 1847-2000

College Archives, events, Exhibits, libitsblog, middpoints, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections

Two new exhibits have cropped up in the library this week – “Old Friends and New: Writers in Nature, 1847-2000” in the atrium and “Reading Nature” in the lower level Harman Reading Room. Both feature books that explore literary and scientific human interaction with the environment to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Environmental Studies at Middlebury College.

LandscapeStanchionSignsLessText

The main floor exhibit “Old Friends and New” contains books and archives produced by authors deeply rooted in the natural world.

From Henry David Thoreau to John Freidin, this collection showcases the importance of nature as it exists outdoors as well as within the minds and pages of these authors.

MuirandBurroughs1909
John Muir and John Burroughs, 1909
RERobinson in woods
Artist, naturalist, and writer Rowland Evans Robinson (1833-1900)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title page, Julia Butterfly Hill's The Legacy of Luna, 2000
Title page, Julia Butterfly Hill’s The Legacy of Luna, 2000

Davis Library Fall lower level exhibit: Reading Nature

events, Exhibits, libitsblog, middpoints, New acquisitions, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections

Two new exhibits have cropped up in the library this week – “Old Friends and New: Writers in Nature, 1847-2000” in the atrium and “Reading Nature” in the lower level Harman Reading Room. Both feature books that explore literary and scientific human interaction with the environment to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Environmental Studies at Middlebury College.

brown pear signs less text“Reading Nature” on the lower level of the library features books by scientists, botanists, naturalists, artists, and poets from the beginning of the 18th century to the 20th century. Each captures nature in a new way, redrawing the frames through which we understand the natural world.

 

Pages from Annie M Ward's "Notes on Botany," 1850-1860
Pages from Annie M Ward’s “Notes on Botany,” 1850-1860

 

"Cloud Crystals: A Snowflake Album Collected and Edited by a Lady" by Frances Chickering, 1864
“Cloud Crystals: A Snowflake Album Collected and Edited by a Lady” by Frances Chickering, 1864
Butterfly diagram from "The Aurelian" by Moses Harris, 1840
Butterfly diagram from “The Aurelian” by Moses Harris, 1840; Recent Gift of Julia Emerson, Class of 1965

 

 

 

 

Sporty sweethearts, wishbones, and sausages: Vintage Valentines from the Archives

libitsblog, libspotlight, middpoints, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections, Valentine's Day

From Special Collection and Archives, drawn from our collection of American postcards and ephemera:

Valentine Golf
Valentine Thoughts
My heart’s a golf ball
for your “game”
You always with
me “score”
If I could only
win this “match,”
You’d “tease” my
heart no more.
© 1914

Valentine tennis

A Greeting to my Valentine
My heart goes
bounding o’er
the net,
A “lose game” we being,
Before another sun has set
I hope the game to win
© 1911


Valentine wishbone

I wish you knew 
a certain girl.
Her style is
indescribable.
Her manners really
are quite nice.
Her fortune quite
desirable.
Her portrait this: they
call it fine.
And she’s your own true Valentine.
Date unknown.

Valentine Baloney 2
 Valentine Baloney 1

It’s NO BALONEY when I say I LOVE YOU!
(Postscript: Yes, that dog/butcher’s arm swings back and forth. Technically, it’s called a “mechanical card” and the hinge is original.)
Date unknown

We were greatly shocked with the news…

College Archives, libitsblog, libspotlight, Lincoln, manuscripts, middpoints, missionaries, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections, women

During a recent visit to the archives by Professor Ellie Gebarowski-Shafer’s Religion 130 class, The Christian Tradition, students plowed through 214 years of Middlebury College missionary history with College Archivist Danielle Rougeau. Amid the pages of 19th century cursive was this diary entry by Mary Martin, wife of a missionary to China and grandmother of Mabel Martin (later Mary Buttolph), Class of 1911. (Mary Martin is pictured below, circa 1865.)

Mary Martin


After the death of her husband and a young son in China, Mary returned to Vermont by way of San Francisco. After 69 days at sea, she writes her last diary entry on May 21, 1965:

We were greatly shocked with the news we heard on our arrival this morning of the assassination of president Lincoln but very glad to learn that the war is over and that slavery is abolished.

Postscript: Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865. News traveled slowly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Her mention of this news falls smack in the middle of the page below. To learn more about Middlebury missionaries, Mary Martin, or to cut your teeth on some 19th century cursive, visit Special Collections.

Martin.1965

Students learn the craft of medieval papermaking

libitsblog, libspotlight, middpoints, parchment, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Special Collections, Students, vellum

Well, to be specific, medieval paper was actually parchment, made from animal hides, rather than trees and literally all of our knowledge of the Middle Ages was preserved on skins made from calves, sheep, or goats. To better understand the chemistry, art, and labor of parchment, Middlebury College’s Special Collections & Archives, together with Professor Eliza Garrison’s Medieval Manuscripts seminar, hosted Jesse Meyer from Pergamena. Watch us scud a goatskin (remove stubborn hair from the skin) and wield a lunarium (a crescent-shaped blade) to remove the fat and flesh. Follow this link to read a longer article about our adventure in medieval life.