General
The humanities, and particularly the disciplines reviewed in this cluster, have the use of the strongest and oldest of the Brown University Library collections. They are served by not only the collections in the Rockefeller Library, but also the extraordinary special collections in the John Hay Library. Our current ability to collect strongly in these areas, however, is adversely affected by other demands on the materials budget. Although expenditures have risen over the five years between 1994/94 and 1998/99, they have not kept pace with inflation in the cost of library materials. The following chart illustrates the changes in expenditures for these programs over this time period. It should be noted, however, that it shows only the expenditures directly tracked by program, and excludes expenditures for Special Collections and for other programs that may overlap. The Library maintains a line for support of Modern Culture & Media, but not for the Malcolm Forbes Center.
Program
1993/94
1994/95
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99
5-Year Change
English
$ 54,774
$ 72,266
$ 65,092
$ 61,855
$ 57,359
$ 58,488
7%
History of Art & Architecture
$ 111,223
$ 119,713
$ 121,322
$ 131,436
$ 112,935
$ 120,187
8%
Medieval Studies
$ 9,859
$ 13,315
$ 11,732
$ 11,984
$ 11,729
$ 12,364
25%
Modern Culture & Media
$ 19,768
$ 25,236
$ 18,286
$ 19,255
$ 17,584
$ 16,846
-15%
Philosophy
$ 24,422
$ 29,310
$ 31,147
$ 32,999
$ 30,612
$ 28,890
18%
Religious Studies
$ 51,252
$ 58,175
$ 57,863
$ 49,992
$ 51,374
$ 48,234
-6%
Renaissance Studies
$ 3,226
$ 4,810
$ 3,390
$ 3,167
$ 3,908
$ 3,687
14%
Women's Studies
$ 10,874
$ 13,194
$ 13,635
$ 11,747
$ 14,025
$ 13,807
27%
ALL HUMANITIES
$ 285,398
$ 336,019
$ 322,467
$ 322,435
$ 299,526
$ 302,503
6%
As you can see, expenditures were actually lower for 1998/99 than they were for three of the earlier years. It may also be useful to compare expenditures here with those for some of the earlier clusters reviewed.
CLUSTER
1993/94
1994/95
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99
5-Year Change
Physical Sciences
$ 855,935
$969,050
$1,064,196
$1,158,265
$1,184,956
$1,267,649
48%
Social Sciences
$ 326,168
$406,488
$ 362,050
$ 374,772
$ 346,426
$ 370,649
14%
Regional Programs
$ 44,963
$ 38,621
$ 62,422
$ 79,428
$ 86,963
$ 73,204
63%
Humanities
$ 285,398
$336,019
$ 322,467
$ 322,435
$ 299,526
$ 302,503
6%
It is important to note that the differences the rate of change is due chiefly to the increase in serials prices in the sciences, and not to any conscious decision on the part of the Library. The greater increase in the expenditures for regional programs comes from the addition of a new program (Middle Eastern Studies). The funds to support this program were transferred from programs in Social Sciences and Humanities, thus causing a drop in expenditures for these clusters (in 1995/96).
As we wrote above, however, not all of the Libraryās support is based on specific programs. Notable especially for the humanities is the expenditure in Special Collections, which is based more on specific collections, some of which are of great interest to humanities scholars. A detailed account of some of our expenditures in Special Collections will be found at the end of this report, but we should provide some overview here. In the past five years we have spent an estimated $1,876,266 for special collections that would support of these programs, including $347,468 for the Harris Collection alone. This really doubles the numbers given above for the general collections.
The Library has recently established a Library User Needs Team (LUNT), charged with surveying our users to determine just what they need in information resources and services, and how well the Library is meeting these needs. LUNT has already done major surveys of graduate students and of faculty, and is about to issue a full report on the first survey. We looked at the results from the graduate student survey for this cluster, which are fairly similar to the overall results. Since this is a survey of graduate students, we can report only on the graduate programs of the cluster.
Overall Library Satisfaction
English
History of Art
Philosophy
Religious Studies
ALL
Very satisfied
7%
21%
18%
0%
12%
Satisfied
48%
64%
73%
86%
61%
Dissatisfied
41%
14%
9%
14%
26%
Very dissatisfied
3%
0%
0%
0%
2%
Book Collections
English
History of Art
Philosophy
Religious Studies
ALL
Very satisfied
3%
14%
0%
0%
5%
Satisfied
35%
50%
46%
71%
44%
Dissatisfied
48%
36%
55%
29%
44%
Very dissatisfied
7%
0%
0%
0%
3%
Services
English
History of Art
Philosophy
Religious Studies
ALL
Very satisfied
21%
43%
9%
0%
21%
Satisfied
55%
50%
73%
100%
62%
Dissatisfied
17%
7%
9%
0%
12%
Very dissatisfied
3%
0%
0%
0%
2%
There is much more satisfaction with Library services (which include interlibrary loan and reference) than with our collections, including books, journals, and electronic resources. In fact, in most fields there is a very high level of dissatisfaction with collections, and we need to determine the reasons for this and remedy the problems. In some fields we have found that users want more foreign books than we have been able to purchase, and we are trying to purchase more but are hampered by our small budgets. The problems in English are more complex. I some cases there is a demand for more copies of standard texts, again a budgetary (but also a space) issue. But we also have our graduate students choosing their research topics without regard to our own collection strengths, which are considerable. There is a need for us to reach these students earlier in their work and promote our own collections.
Notes on Specific Programs
ENGLISH
Subject specialist: Stephen L. Thompson (x33581,
Stephen_L_Thompson@brown.edu)
Library support of the English Departmentās teaching and research interests is as wide-ranging and extensive as those interests. Since their coverage of English literature and language entails virtually every time period and place where English has been spoken and written, the collections reflect this diversity. The Library acquires texts from the canonical to the popular, and the critical and analytical material to support their study. The stated aim of the Department is to prepare students to "write, read, and critically assess literatures." Their broad areas of concern include literary history, theory, and forms from the Old English to the present day. Though all faculty share an interest in cultural-historical research and theoretical issues concerning literature and sexuality, politics, mass media, and race and ethnicity, the Department has aligned itself into three distinct, chronological groupings. There are those with primary interest in medieval and early modern literature and cultures; those with primary interest in the Enlightenment and the rise of national literatures and cultures; and those with primary interest in modern and contemporary literatures and cultures. The Department also has strong links to numerous other departments and centers, including Afro-American, American Civilization, Comparative Literature, Modern Culture and Media, Theatre Arts, Ethnic Studies, and Womenās Studies. Materials acquired for these areas benefit the study and research in English, as material acquired on behalf of English benefits those disciplines.
As detailed elsewhere, the resources of the John Hay Library (the Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays most notably), supplement and greatly enhance the collections in the Rockefeller Library, as do the collections in the Orwig and Art Slide libraries and Media Services. Likewise, the ability to draw on other library resources directly, through agreements like the Boston Library Consortium, and through Interlibrary Loan, greatly extend the research possibilities. In addition to the monographs, serials, and microforms purchased by the Library, we provide access to the extensive resources of the World Wide Web and numerous electronic products. The latter include subscriptions to the complete texts of journals like American Literature, Callaloo, and Yale Journal of Criticism and licensing of databases that provide electronic texts and indexing to popular and scholarly literature pertinent to the field. Full-text databases include reference works like the OED, the Literature Resource Center and genre collections like the LION package, featuring Afro-American, English, and American poetry, early American and British fiction, English drama, and editions and adaptations of Shakespeare. Indexes include the MLA Bibliography, Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, PoolesPlus (19th century), English Short Title Catalog, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index. The Library expects to continue to support the wide range of departmental interests from the traditional topics, forms, and formats to the new and expanding areas, such as postcolonial, multicultural, and gender studies.
The Collections of the John Hay Library are particularly strong for the study of English and American literature. Some of the particular collections that support this program are:
The Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays. 250,000 volumes of American and Canadian poetry, plays, and vocal music dating 1609 to the present day. Collected comprehensively; a national collection of record. Significant holdings of all major and minor poets and playwrights; particularly noteworthy collections of Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe. Holdings also include hymnals, songsters, microforms, reference works, Yiddish-language materials, periodicals, and small press publications.
URL:
Author collections of particular note include:
H. P. Lovecraft, William Blake, John Buchan, John Hay, John Brooks Wheelwright, T. E. Lawrence, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, H. G. Wells, and H. D. Thoreau.
Some other significant collections of English and American literature include:
Lamont Collection. The principal focus of the collection is 18th and 19th century English literature with an emphasis on prose. Notable for its novels published between 1760-1840, particularly those by women writers and over 100 17th and 18th century tracts by Jeremy Collier and William Prynne, among others, exhorting against the pernicious moral influence of the stage.
Martha Dickinson Bianchi Collection, consisting of the papers of the family of Emily Dickinson, along with the 3,000 volume family library from "The Evergreens," the Dickinson home in Amherst Massachusetts.
Dr. Arlene Pillar Collection of Children's Literature. Over 3,000 volumes of children's literature primarily form the 1970s and 1980s, including many illustrated works and fiction for young adults.
Archive of St. Martin's Press, the historical archive of one of the nation's most important trade publishing houses, to be augmented by additions of current and future company records and publications. Gift Of St. Martin's Press.
Archive of Unicorn Press, the final installment of a multi-year purchase of the archive of an important literary journal that recently ceased publication after more than two decades' activity. The Unicorn Archive joins several similar publications purchased after 1987 including those of the December Press, the Vagabond Press and the New York Quarterly.
George Orwell Collection. All editions of Orwell's works, as well as manuscript items, photographs, programs, and other ephemera. Gift of Daniel J. Leab.
HISTORY OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE
Subject specialist: Norine Duncan (x33082,
To support the graduate program (Ph.D) as well as undergraduate instruction, the desired level of collecting in most aspects of the discipline is Research. Areas of greatest strength are Greek and Roman art and architecture, Medieval art and architecture (especially French), Renaissance and Baroque art (especially Italian), American and European architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries, European art of the 19th and 20th centuries, and American art since 1945. Many of the scholarly resources needed for research are collected in languages other than English, especially German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese.
Areas in which current collecting is greater than in the past, but in which holdings are still in need of increase to reach Research level, include Medieval archaeology, Spanish and Latin American art and architecture, Islamic art and architecture, and Chinese art and archaeology. Since much of current art historical scholarship is interdisciplinary, collection development for related disciplines (History, History of Science, Classics, English and European Literature, Religious Studies, Old World Archaeology & Art, and Visual Arts) is relied upon for support of both teaching and research.
Retrospective purchases continue to fill gaps in the collection of resources published prior to the late 1960s, when the graduate program began. Annually, a portion of the endowment funds from an NEH grant ($15,750) is expended for this purpose. An endowment from the family of Frances Y. Burnett ($1,788 for the current year) funds the acquisition of at least one antiquarian purchase annually for the Hay Library.
Subscriptions to electronic resources have been initiated during the past five years. The Grove Dictionary of Art Online is the only significant full-text resource. Several indexes to the literature of art history are crucial to research: Art Abstracts, Bibliography of the History of Art, and Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals. Several other more specialized resources are accessible via the Library Web. In the very near future, it will be necessary to find funds to begin subscriptions to archives of digital images such as AMICO from the Research Libraries Group. Software for manipulation of images (such as Luna Imagingās Insight) must be acquired and supported in order to take advantage of image databases for classroom and study applications.
The Art Slide Library has holdings of approximately 280,000 slides, 38,500 photographs and reproductions, and 10,000 microfiche of image archives. Slide production in-house is carried out on a weekly schedule to accommodate faculty and student needs for lectures and reports. Last year, approximately 7,600 new slides were accessioned, including purchases and gifts as well as in-house production. Electronic catalog records exist for part of the collection (slightly less than half), and these are searchable through the web interface known as Anita.
The microfiche collection includes most of the Marburger Index of Art and Architecture in Germany. Photographs by Clarence Ward and James Austin provide rich documentation of Medieval architecture in France, Italy, and England, including sculptural decoration. Many slide and photo sets, including the Taipei Archive, have been acquired from the Asian Art Photographic Distribution project of the University of Michigan. Brown lags behind other institutions in converting these analog collections to digital image resources, chiefly because of our more conservative copyright guidelines.
Many videotapes have been acquired in recent years to support the teaching of a "Film Architecture" course by Prof. Dietrich Neumann.
Some of the collections of the John Hay Library supporting the History of Art are:
Annmary Brown Memorial Collection is one of the largest and most important collections of incunables (books printed through the year 1500) in the United States, with nearly 700 exemplars representing many early printers.
John M. Crawford Jr. Collection. East Asian art books, strengthening both the general art collections and the East Asian Collection; John M. Crawford Jr. Collection in the Book Arts, including numerous examples of fine printing and calligraphy.
Minassian Collection. A major collection of Islamic manuscripts dating from the eighth through the eighteenth centuries and representing much of the Islamic world geographically.
Fritz Eichenberg engravings (25 total). Combination of gift and purchase, acquired from the estate of Fritz Eichenberg
MEDIEVAL STUDIES
Subject specialist: William S. Monroe (x32406,
Support of the Medieval Studies program, as with other interdisciplinary programs, is mostly through other departments. This means that we tend to purchase historical works for History, art historical works for History of Art, etc., only charging to the Medieval Studies funds those materials which do not fit easily under a particular discipline, or those that will clearly benefit a wider range of scholars. The latter is the case with two recent major purchases, facsimiles of the Escorial and Florence manuscripts of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso the Wise of Spain. The first of these (purchased for $6,000) was used extensively by the Medieval Studies Seminar this past year.
In an effort both to evaluate our collecting in medieval studies and to find out what important titles we may be missing, I regularly check the reviews in Speculum, the journal of the Medieval Academy of America against our own holdings. Here is the result for the four issues from the year 1997, which is fairly typical of our results:
LANGUAGE
TITLES REVIEWED
TITLES HELD BY BROWN
% HELD
ENGLISH
280
235
84%
German
36
20
56%
French
54
30
56%
Latin
9
4
44%
Spanish
11
2
18%
Italian
23
8
35%
Other
9
0
0%
ALL NON-ENGLISH
142
64
45%
TOTAL
422
299
71%
As one can see, we do quite well at acquiring the English language books, but not as well with the foreign language works. This may be adequate for support of this particular program, which is not a graduate program. But for the field of medieval studies it is not adequate. We need to acquire more works in Spanish and Italian, and we should be getting most of the editions of Latin texts.
Historically, our collections are very strong We have the major collections of sources: the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the Patrologia Latina and its modern equivalent the Corpus Christianorum, the Early English Text series, etc. Our collections are strongest for England, France, and Italy, where faculty interest been focused in the past. More recent interest in Spain is less well served, but we are building. We also need to provide more of the newer electronic resources that are now available. A few years ago, a major gift enabled us to purchase the Patrologia Latina Database, an electronic version of J.-P. Migneās famous collection of early and medieval Christian Latin texts. This year, I would like to find the funds to purchase the CETEDOC Corpus of Christian Latin Texts, the electronic version of the Corpus Christianorum.
MODERN CULTURE & MEDIA
Subject specialist: Stephen L. Thompson (x33581,
Current subject specialist: Rosemary L. Cullen (x31514; Rosemary_Cullen@brown.eduThe Departmentās mission, to bring together the study of modern culture and the mass media and to explore the relationships between the two, defines the resource support that the Library provides. Collecting is focused on material relating to the analysis of modern culture, "theories of representation and cultural production," semiotics, and the study of the various modes of the mass media, including film, photography, journalism, and television. In addition, resources are acquired on the connections between the study of modern society, the individual, and other major disciplines, i.e., modern literature, art, and philosophy. One unusual aspect of this focus is a serious concern for popular or "low" culture, as well as for "high" culture. Material collected also reflects the Departmentās chronological (approximately 1850+) and geographical (European/Western culture and its impact on former colonies and the Third World) interests. Also, like other disciplines in the creative arts, there is interest in production: journalistic writing and film and video making.
The Department maintains strong interdepartmental ties (and concentrations in) French, Italian, and the Visual Arts. They likewise sponsor graduate work in English, American Civilization, Comparative Literature, German, French, and Art History. Consequently, they draw on and benefit from the Library acquisitions in these and other areas. An example of the breadth of their intellectual concerns can be seen in a survey of the topics of some of their recent periodical requests: transnational and cultural studies, semiotics, screenwriting, film, and postcolonial studies. Several of the film journals were acquired as part of a cooperative serial acquisition program conducted with Boston Library Consortium members. A number of extensive retrospective runs of film periodicals, as well as some current subscriptions, are housed at the John Hay Library.
In addition to the access provided to the extensive resources on the Web, the Library has licensed a number of relevant electronic databases relevant to the study of media and culture. These include Film Index International (coverage from 1896 on), America History and Life, Lexis/Nexis, Literature Resource Center, Modern Language Association Bibliography, and two art indexes. There are also full-text, electronic versions of journals like Modernism/Modernity, Cinema Journal, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Journal of Multimedia History, Postmodern Culture, Public Culture, and Wide Angle. When the Library was consulted recently by the Department regarding their proposal for several 200-level courses, it was agreed that the Library resources already substantially supported the kind of teaching and research Modern Culture and Media was involved in and had planned for the future.
Some of the collections of the John Hay Library supporting Modern Culture & Media are:
Sheet Music Collection. 500,000 items, of which 150,000 popular piano-vocal music. dating 1826-1950. Includes approximately 45,000 titles related to the American popular musical stage. Other notable sections include African-American related music and silent film music. Illustrated covers are particularly notable as marketing tools for the music.
Miller Collection of Wit and Humor. Approximately 35,000 titles. The Collection consists primarily of 20th-century American imprints, but also includes significant sections of19th-century joke books, British imprints, works in Russian, Hebrew, French, German, and Italian, and 19th-century editions of classic works of humor. There is topical humor of every conceivable kind, such as sex, medicine, the law, sex, politics, sports, sex, and plumbing. There are also sections of comic novels, familiar essays by humorists, political satire, light verse, theatrical memoirs of comedy performers, American and European folk humor, ethnic humor, vaudeville routines, collections of political cartoons, paperback joke and cartoon books, and playscripts; and a notable section of "Army joke books", pulp periodicals from the World War II era.
Manuscripts: Screenplays, 1938-1980. 90 dialogue and post-production scripts from a variety of major American studios.
Manuscripts: American Television Scripts. Over 1000 items representing 730 different programs.
H. Adrian Smith Collection of Conjuring and Magicana. Long considered one of the finest private libraries on conjuring and magic. Holdings in the contemporary period include sections on conjuring, card tricks and games, magicians as performers, magic periodicals and other works intended for practicing magicians, posters, ephemera, and realia.
Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection. Approximately 60,000 comic books, graphic novels, and other related materials, dating 1970s to the present. One of the largest collections in any research library.
PHILOSOPHY
Subject specialist: Eric Shoaf (x37354,
Current subject specialis: William S. Monroe (x32406,The Library attempts to collect at a research level for philosophy, in general, and we should be meeting most needs (but, see below). Weaknesses have been pointed out, in past years, in history of philosophy and in non-Western philosophy, and we have tried to respond to this. These areas, of course, are also used by other programs in the University, especially Classics and History. As we have pointed out for the collections in general, we have fallen behind in acquisition of non-English-language publications of recent decades. We are now putting more effort into collecting foreign material, and this should not be a problem within the next few years.
As recorded in the general section above, the graduate students in Philosophy registered a high level of dissatisfaction with the collections. We have not yet determined what the particular problems are, but we need to do so. The collections in philosophy are one of our traditional strengths, but perhaps we have trusted too much to historical collecting patterns and failed to account for changes in the field itself. Our previous selector for philosophy had remarked that the faculty simply have little need of the Library, except for historical works. Even if that is so, we still need to encourage faculty involvement in selecting resources of whatever nature, so we are sure to have what the students need.
RELIGIOUS STUDIES
Subject specialist: William S. Monroe (x32406,
The Brown University Library holds collections of major strength in the field of religious studies, especially for those subjects serving the graduate programs: ancient and Rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, and modern religious thought. More recently, we have been building the collections on Islam, particularly Islamic law. Our collections on Eastern religious traditions (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism) are not of research level, because the programs there are aimed primarily at undergraduate students. There are some strengths here beyond the undergraduate level, however, because of the existence of other related programs and interests in the University, especially History of Math and East Asian Studies.
In an effort to evaluate some of our collecting for Religious Studies, I have checked the book reviews in several years of the Critical Review of Books in Religion, with the following results:
YEAR
BOOKS REVIEWED
HELD BY BROWN
% HELD
1992
283
170
60%
1995
209
129
62%
1997
70
46
66%
Having looked at the specific titles we do not own, I conclude that most of them are not really appropriate for our collections. So I believe that the 66% for 1997 is pretty close to the desirable. 70% to 75% would really give us all the titles we would want. So, our current collecting is probably adequate in most areas.
Our strongest collections are in those serving the study of ancient and Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. We have research level collections on the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, as well as in early Christian literature and history. We hold the major collections of sources in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Coptic and other relevant languages, as well as the major journals and monographic series in these fields.
RENAISSANCE STUDIES
Subject specialist: William S. Monroe (x32406,
As with Medieval Studies, Library support for Renaissance Studies and Early Modern Studies comes mostly through the disciplines: History, Comparative Literature, History of Art, etc. We purchase even less material strictly for Renaissance Studies than we do for Medieval Studies. I tend to put on this fund only those books, journals, and other material that do not easily fall into a traditional subject. Humanism is one such topic. Thus the fund is smaller than other interdisciplinary funds. We also seem to get fewer requests for materials directly from the program, and I have the sense that the program is less unified than is Medieval Studies.
We do, however, have strong collections serving this field, as there is much interest in the period in many departments of the University, especially History, History of Art, and the many language and literature programs. Our special collections also have notable strengths in this area, among them:
Annmary Brown Memorial Collection. One of the largest and most important collections of incunables (books printed through the year 1500) in the United States, with nearly 700 exemplars representing many early printers.
Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection. Includes many works of military history and iconography from the 16th and 17th centuries.
Niccolo Machiavelli Collection. A major collection of first and early editions with an emphasis upon his political and historical works.
Chambers Dante Collection. Approximately 1,700 volumes, consisting in scholarly editions of the 15th through the 19th centuries of Dante's works, in particular the Divine Comedy, commentaries (chiefly in Italian), and other supportive works.
Grotius Collection. One of the best collections in this country of Grotius' De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), a foundation work in the science of international law.
Lownes Collection of Significant Books in the History of Science. The Collection comprises over 5,000 volumes, and contains over three-quarters of those texts recognized by scholars as the "great books" of science published since the middle of the 15th century. A major focus is on the natural sciences.
WOMEN'S STUDIES
Subject specialist: Michael Jackson (x33581,
Current subject specialist: Patricia Figueroa: Patricia_Figueroa@brown.eduWomen's Studies draws upon the knowledge of many different disciplines and requires familiarity with the concepts and theories of numerous fields. The interdisciplinary nature of the subject makes it virtually impossible to arrive at the exact number of women's studies titles that the Brown Library owns. Material is housed in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Sciences, John Hay, and Orwig Libraries and ranges in topics from feminist cultural theory to women in medicine, from diaries of New England women to female composers. While there is a specific Women's Studies allocation, library selectors in American Civilization, Afro-American Studies, History of Art and Architecture, English Literature, Judaic Studies, History, Sociology, Modern Media and Culture, and Medicine, to name just a few areas, all purchase material that can be designated as relevant to Women's Studies. In addition, information now comes packaged in many different formats, some familiar, such as government documents, serials, and manuscripts, some new, such as video, computer files, CD-ROMS, and the ever-expanding Internet.
We, in fact, treat the subject more broadly as "Gender Studies", and do not limit our collecting to material specifically about women. Until recently, we purchased material specifically for Womenās Studies only if it did not readily fit in some standard discipline (History, Sociology, Literature). This is the case with many of our interdisciplinary fields. But the gift of an endowment in 1996, for material supporting womenās studies, gave us the ability to better address this field directly, and to purchase more expensive items that support it.
Some of the specific areas of the collection that are currently of interest to women's studies specialists at Brown include an estimated 5,670 titles and 30 currently-received serial titles. But this is only a small part of our holdings that would actually support this program. However, the Library's strong holdings are not always fully reflected in the online catalog, Josiah. For example, the Rockefeller Library owns the complete microfiche set of the Gerritsen collection, which has been called "possibly the greatest single source for the study of international women's history and the feminist movement". Access to the set, however, is limited to a printed index which has caused the set to be often overlooked. We would like to find some funds to purchase computer tapes, which could then be loaded into our online catalog, and thus provide much better access to this material.
Among the special collections supporting Womenās Studies are:
University Archives. Contains a wealth of material related to women's higher education over the past hundred years. In addition, the Research Guide to the Christine Dunlap Farnham Archives lists over 1,000 collections and sources at Brown University Library supporting research in women's studies.
Richard G. Katzoff Collection. Includes a significant, and growing, section of lesbian literature, including contemporary small press fiction.
Hall-Hoag Collection of Extremist and Dissenting Propaganda. Includes a wealth of material on controversial views related to women's issues over the past half century.
Note on Special Collections
Subject Specialist: Rosemary Cullen (x31514,
Special Collections in the John Hay Library is one of the country's most distinguished repositories of humanities collections. Its collections of printed books, manuscripts and archives, and graphic materials, numbering well over 2,500,000 items, provide a wealth of resources in support of graduate and undergraduate instruction, faculty research, and the international community of scholars.
Notable collections in the humanities include the Harris Collection of American Poetry and Plays, at 250,000 volumes the largest of its kind in existence, the outstanding collections of incunabula and early printed books, collections on book arts, illustration, binding, and papermaking, archives of modern literary presses, and notable author collections including H. P. Lovecraft, George Bernard Shaw, and H. D. Thoreau, among many others. There are, in addition, extensive collections of works of art on paper in the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection and other collections in the library, the Gorham Silver Archive, Persian miniatures, contemporary and retrospective collections on women's issues, and popular culture collections including comics and graphic art, gay pulp fiction, magic, entertainment, popular publishing, film and television, extremist propaganda of every sort.
Recent acquisitions in the Humanities include the archives of a number of important literary presses and publishers, including Burning Deck, Conjunctions, and Greenhouse. In addition, the acquisition of the St. Martin's Press archive is a landmark development in the documenting contemporary literary publishing. Notable new author collections include George Orwell, T. E. Lawrence, and Quentin Reynolds. A particularly significant H. P. Lovecraft manuscript, The Shadow Out of Time, was given to the Collection in recent years.
The collections of gay and lesbian literature have been significantly enriched by the acquisition of the James Jackson Library and the collection of scarce and ephemeral gay pulp fiction. Contemporary culture collections acquired in recent years include the very extensive Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection of comics and graphic novels, one of the largest such collections in an American library, and by the Tierney collection of posters, tickets, programs, and other entertainment memorabilia. Historical collections on women's issues have been strengthened by the acquisition of the papers of the modern Rhode Island Women's Health Collective, and in the sections on women's issues in the Hall-Hoag Collection.
The Library is fortunate to have been able to add two incunables in recent years, and to increase its holdings of early printed books both by purchase (nearly 75 titles) and by gift, in the George A. and Marilyn Bray Collection and the Dupee Fireworks Collection. The Minassian collection of Persian miniatures spans a thousand years of art history, and the Cramer Silver collection will provide support for research in decorative arts, notably the Gorham Collection.
Detailed descriptions of holdings and recent acquisitions are included in the sections on individual departments.
Special Collections: Five-year Acquisitions in Support of the Humanities
$1,876,266
Purchase: Supporting: Broadsides Collection: HA; E; MCM; PC Burning Deck Archives: HA; E; MCM Conjunctions Archives: HA; E; MCM Cramer Silver: HA Dard Hunter Papermaking: HA; MCM; REN Eichenberg Drawings: HA Gay Pulp Paperbacks: E; MCM Greenhouse Press Archives: HA; E; MCM H. P. Lovecraft: E; MCM Hall-Hoag Collection: MCM; PC; R Harris Collection: HA; E; MCM; PC History of Science: HA; REN; PH; R Incunabula: HA; REN; PH; R Katzoff Collection: E; MCM Leonard Baskin Imprints: HA; E; MCM Napoleon Caricatures: HA Quentin Reynolds Papers: E; MCM Smith Magic Collection: E; MCM; REN; PH; R T. E. Lawrence Collection: E Unicorn Press Archives: HA; E; MCM Wellman Collection: E Total: $1,876,266
Gifts: Supporting: George A. and Marilyn Bray Collection REN George Orwell Collection E; MCM H. P. Lovecraft. The Shadow Out of Time. E; MCM James and Gertrude Laughlin Collection E; MCM; PC Library of James Jackson E; MCM; PC Library of "The Fells" E Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection HA; MCM Minassian Collection HA Paul Dupee Collection on Fireworks REN Paula Vogel Papers E; MCM; PC Rhode Island Women's Health Collective Archive PC Robert J. Tierney Collection of Entertainment Memorabilia E; MCM St. Martin's Press Archive E; MCM T. E. Lawrence Collection E Third and Elm Press Archive HA; E; MCM World War II Art HA; MCM Continuing Support for the Humanities in Special Collections:
The Harris Collection, one of Brown's internationally significant collections of record, is maintained at comprehensive strength by a combination of endowments and library appropriation. The development of the History of Science Collection, with a particular emphasis on early printed books, is one of Special Collections' major commitments, with funding from both endowments and library appropriation. Special Collections is also committed to increasing its holdings of incunables, with the emphasis being on acquiring examples of printers and towns not represented in the collection.
The H. Adrian Smith Magic Collection, the Bullard Napoleon Collection, and the Richard G. Katzoff Collection, the Anne S. K. Brown Collection have endowed support. The H. P. Lovecraft Collection is supported by a combination of endowed funds, gift funds, and library appropriation.
Gifts in support of the humanities collections are actively sought by the Library; notable successes have occurred in recent years in World War II art, modern literature and popular culture, printing history, and early printed books.
Key:
HA: History of Art
E: English
MCM: Modern Culture and Media
PC: Pembroke Center
REN: Renaissance Studies
MED: Medieval Studies
PH: Philosophy
R: Religion
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