Shimeon Brisman Collection - $25,000 Grant Received from Littauer Foundation

For those of you who are not familiar with the collection here is an article that briefly describes it. While we were always aware that the collection contained a significant number of rare books and rare bibliographies, in recent years we have become aware of the important provenance of many of the Brisman items. The ownership stamps, personal and organizational, provide another window into the history of these works.

A photograph from the Special Collections exhibit shows ephemera found in some of the books (a dry cleaners advertisement, a receipt of a donation to a Jewish soup kitchen) and ownership and governmental stamps on some books.

Acquiring the grant was accomplished by the efforts of individuals in the Development Office, Cataloging Unit, and Special Collections. The grant will be used to hire a part-time cataloger to create full records for those materials with only provisional ones. This will help us to know more fully the extent of the collection and to prioritize volumes for digitization and preservation.