New York’s Morgan Library reopens today after an almost 3 year closure for remodeling. By reading the the several New York Times features, you can get an institutional history, an architecture review , and a review of the Morgan exhibits. These articles each pay tribute to the holdings at the Morgan and also closely examine how collections such as the Morgan have come about. (The phrase "robber baron" is used quite liberally).
Several Special Collections finding aids have been posted to TARO (Texas Archival Resources Online) in the last week. Take a look:
Top Ladies of Distinction Records, 1964-2001
African American Studies Records, 1990-2001
College of Arts and Sciences Collection, 1937-1973
Half Century Records, 1976-1981
UH Veteran’s Office Records, 1944-1958
Dr. David Ashley White Papers, 1965-2001
Dr. Tom Battin Collection, 1936-1976
We will post dozens more in the coming months- check back for updates!
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at University of Texas- Austin has recently launched Fathoms from Anywhere: A Samuel Beckett Centenary Exhibition. This thorough and informative online exhibit gives a good overview of the Ransom Center’s holdings, showcasing manuscripts, artwork and collected literature on Beckett and his works.
Image from UCSB Special Collections
The Special Collections at UC Santa Barbara have a great site up about their cylinder collections. Cylinder recordings, as the site informs, were the first commercial recordings, which have the potential to tell us a lot about popular culture in the turn of the 20th century. The site features streaming audio (listen to their "Cylinder Radio" stream!), a searchable database of their recordings, and some of the most comprehensive information I have seen about cylinder history and preservation.
This spring and summer, the University of Houston Libraries invites you to explore the colorful, fascinating, and sometimes overlooked world of paperback books in a new exhibition at M.D. Anderson Library. Penguins, Pulps, and Pretty Ladies: A History of Paperbacks will be on view on the 1st floor of the library from April 26th through the end of the fall semester.
Beginning with the dime novels of the nineteenth century and continuing through the pulp fiction of the nineteen-fifties and on into the present, paperback books have provided a sanctuary for material that was purely entertaining or outside the mainstream of society. Westerns, romances, detective stories, science fiction, and queer fiction have all found a home within the covers of paperbacks. In opposition to this trend, highbrow publishers such as Penguin and Vintage have used the paperback format to make quality literature available to the masses.
Penguins, Pulps, and Pretty Ladies was curated by Julie Grob, Digital Projects and Instruction Librarian for Special Collections, with University of Houston student Carolina Faustch. For more information, please contact Julie Grob at by e-mail at jgrob@uh.edu or by phone at 713-743-9744.