Rare Books in the News: July 31, 2009

USM to house children’s book collection
The University of Southern Mississippi has been awarded the right to be the repository for the archive of an international organization dedicated to children's literature. The Children's Literature Association, an organization of children’s literature scholars in North America, has announced that USM's de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection will receive the archive. USM bid on the right against several other universities with significant literature collections, said Carol Kiehl, dean of libraries.

Books’ new life in academia
The John Rylands Library has collections from other churches, though not many as intact as this. The books were brought down from the tower one by one via a human chain on the spiral staircase. They will now be conserved, boxed, and catalogued. “Church libraries like this are increasingly rare, and Nantwich is a particularly important example,” Mr Potten said. “We all agreed that these important and beautiful books are kept together as a collection,” to maintain for ever the link with St Mary’s and Nantwich.

Culture Digitally Documented
The Polytechnic of Namibia and the Utah Valley University (US) recently signed an agreement in terms of which the Digital Namibian Archive (DNA) was established in Windhoek. The DNA is an innovative project, which will develop a rich digital resource that reflects the diversity of voices and cultural stories of Namibian people. The two institutions, in conjunction with the Namibian National Archives, will digitise images, documents and voices of the Namibian people. The digital archive will make a rich resource accessible on the Internet that reflects the diversity of voices and cultural stories of the Namibian people to individuals throughout the country, the United States and the world. During the signing ceremony, Rector of the Polytechnic Dr Tjama Tjivikua said the project was one of the most important development projects.

Thirty-Five Documentary Properties Added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register
Thirty-five items of documentary heritage of exceptional value have been added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. This brings the total number of inscriptions since 1997 to 193. The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, announced the inscription of these items on the recommendation of experts during a 3-day meeting of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme which continues to 31 July in Bridgetown, Barbados. The Director-General also announced the winner of the 2009 UNESCO/Jikji Prize: the National Archives of Malaysia in recognition of its outreach, educational and training programmes in the area of preservation within the Asian region.

Germany's "Song of the Nibelungs" chosen for the Memory of the World program
The 12th century "Song of the Nibelungs" tells the tale of dragon slayer Siegfried, and how he is murdered by Hagen von Tronje, who hides the Nibelung treasure in the Rhine river; of King Gunther and Kriemhild of Burgundy, of Etzel, King of the Huns and of Iceland's Queen Bruenhild. It is a tale of love and revenge, of greed and defeat, of magical cloaks and dragon's blood, and treasures lost forever. The Bonn-based commission says the UNESCO register names the three most important and complete manuscripts of the "Song of the Nibelungs." The documents are kept at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, at Badische State Library in Karlsruhe and at the library at St. Gallen monastery in Switzerland.

Maine Folklife Center: an endangered friend
I first came to Orono in 1972 for what I thought would be a six-month stint volunteering in the folklore archives at the University of Maine. Back in Connecticut, my resolutely urban family was convinced I’d moved to northeast of nowhere and would be eaten by bears. The archives’ founder — Edward D. Ives to the library catalogue, Sandy to everyone else — had made a similar journey northward from New York City nearly 20 years earlier. He had had a job, teaching English at the university, awaiting him. It didn’t pay much, though, and he soon found himself trying to earn a little extra by singing folk songs to community groups.

Porn museum nestled in Las Vegas
As I arrive at the two-story building a few blocks west of the Vegas Strip, I spot a sign on the front door telling visitors that the building no long houses an adult bookstore. Those who came for that may be disappointed to discover that eroticism is viewed in a different light by the building's new tenants, who about a year ago opened the Erotic Heritage Museum. In typically atypical Vegas style, the museum is next to a strip club and just a G-string's throw from Donald Trump's glittering five-star hotel. Although porn is playing on several of the 45 flat-screen TVs, it's not being shown lasciviously in some darkened room. It's part of the museum's educational displays.

Lost Treasures of Timbuktu
But Timbuktu's manuscripts might just change that. The books date from between the 14th and 16th centuries, a time when the town was a thriving trading hub and intellectual center for West Africa. Now, scared that Timbuktu's 50,000 or so surviving books might disintegrate or be sold off to foreign collectors, African and Western organizations are racing to salvage the treasures, preserving them from the ravages of climate, dust and the passage of hundreds of years. Millions of dollars have been spent in laborious conservation and cataloguing of the works. A sleek new museum, completed last April, is scheduled to open to the public in November. The museum will display tens of thousands of Timbuktu's books to the world, and, its backers hope, shatter any lingering notion that Africa has no historic literary tradition of its own.

Russia Must Return Schneersohn Books
During the 1990s, the world was seized with stories of Nazi plunder and heirless property from the Holocaust era. Stolen bank accounts, looted artwork, confiscated real estate and payments for slave labor made front-page headlines, were the talk of congressional hearings and became the subject of international diplomacy. By the end of the decade, billions of dollars had been returned to Holocaust survivors and their heirs. Ten years later, however, the problem remains unresolved. Survivors received a measure of compensation for their loss and suffering, but some countries—like Russia—could be doing more, particularly by returning the vast collection of books and manuscripts of the late Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn.

Salsa musician Ruben Blades visits Harvard archive
Salsa musician and actor Ruben Blades celebrated his 61st birthday Thursday with a nostalgic visit to his archive collection at Harvard University. The seven-time Grammy winner looked through photos, held his old records and chuckled at his change in physical appearance during his first visit to the archive at the school where he earned a master's degree in international law in 1985. "Look at those sideburns," Blades said, looking at a photo of a show 30 years ago. The collection is composed of donations from fans and items that the university purchased on eBay, including a vinyl copy of "From Panama to New York" and a poster of Blades promoting childhood literacy. Blades also pledged to contribute personal items and rare recordings_ like a number with Michael Jackson in Spanish.

Abraham Lincoln Comes Alive at the California Museum
President Abraham Lincoln was a remarkable leader. The contents from his pockets reveal a humble and down-to-earth man. Two pairs of spectacles and a lens polisher, a pocket knife, a watch fob, a linen handkerchief, and a five-dollar Confederate note, these were the objects carried by Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, when he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. These are but a few of the items currently in a special exhibit at the California Museum in Sacramento. These items remained with the Lincoln family for more than 70 years after Lincoln’s death. Now, they join the nearly 200 artifacts as part of a special Lincoln collection belonging to the U.S. Library of Congress.

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The University of Southern Mississippi has been awarded the right to be the repository for the archive of an international organization dedicated to children's literature. The Children's Literature Association, an organization of children’s literature scholars in North America, has announced that USM's de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection will receive the archive. USM bid on the right against several other universities with significant literature collections, said Carol Kiehl, dean of libraries.

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