Every year, on the week of the 22nd day of September, the passionate community of J.R.R. Tolkien’s enthusiasts gather together all around the world to pay tribute to the creator of Middle-earth. This date wasn’t selected arbitrarily. On September 22nd, Bilbo and Frodo famously celebrate their concurrent birthday in the first chapter of The Lord Read More
Category: Rare Books
The Archivist’s Nook: “The Road Goes On” – The Making of the Tolkien Exhibit
Posted in: Blogs Rare Books The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: Catholic University, Catholic University of America, Christopher Tolkien, digital exhibit, exhibit, J.r.r. Tolkien, Online Exhibits, rare books, special collections | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Rare opportunities at Rare Books
Our guest blogger is Alexus Eudell, a graduate student in Library and Information Science (LIS) at the Catholic University of America, who completed her LIS practicum at the Rare Books in the Summer of 2023. I began my internship with the Rare Books department with Alex Audziayuk, the Rare Books Librarian, on June 7, 2023. Read More
Posted in: Rare Books The Archivist's Nook | Tags: Arts and Sciences, Clementine Library, LIS, Pamphlets, practicums, rare books, student projects, students | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Consequor – Rare Books Acquisitions, 2022-2023
Several previous blog posts have highlighted select rare book acquisitions via purchase on an annual basis since the department joined Special Collections in 2019. The most recent reporting year, which ended April 30, 2023, saw three very significant additions. This was assisted in part by the welcome promotion of Alex Audziayuk from Rare Books Technician, Read More
Posted in: Blogs Collection Management Digital Scholarship Rare Books The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: acquisitions, Paris, rare books, Reutlingen, special collections, Tridentine, Venice | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Conservation in Rare Books, Part III
Since our last update on our long-term conservation project, Special Collections staff has continued addressing the conservation and access challenges in the Catholic University’s Rare Books collection. As “Part I” and “Part II” of the conservation blog posts reported, our work with our partner Quarto Conservation has focused on books that varied in date range Read More
Posted in: Rare Books The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: None | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Tolkien, Milton, and Rare Books
Encountering a book once owned, signed, or inscribed by a distinguished person, is in some way encountering the person who signed it or closing the distance to only “a few handshakes away”. Holding the very same volume, read by someone we admire, turning the same pages, can become a transformative and inspirational experience. Books such Read More
Posted in: Blogs Digital Scholarship Rare Books The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: association copies, autographs, books, John Milton, marginalia, Mullen Library, rare books, research, Robert T. Meyer, special collections, Tolkien | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Special Collections Resources on the History of Mexico
Scattered throughout Catholic University’s Special Collections are a range of resources related to the history of Mexico. We are happy to offer a new Library Guide to those materials. Here are a few of the highlights: The National Catholic Welfare Conference, forerunner of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, became involved in U.S.-Mexican affairs just after its Read More
Posted in: Blogs Catholic History Digital Scholarship Humanities Rare Books Religious Studies The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: Archives, catholic history, Mexico, research | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Neither Quenya nor Klingon – Glagolitic books in the Clementine Library
– How many languages does the Church speak? – All of them. (a Sunday school joke) By proclaiming being “Catholic” (meaning “universal”), the Catholic Church highlights its missionary effort to bring the light of the Gospel to every corner of the world and all nations. And often, there’s no other way to reach a community Read More
Posted in: Blogs Digital Scholarship Rare Books Religious Studies The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: Albani Family, Clementine Library, Croatia, glagolitic, Pope Clement XI, rare books, Slavic languages, slavs, St. Jerome, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Ukraine, Ukrainian Catholics | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Bewitching Tomes
Wandering through the Rare Books stacks is always an adventure. The shelves hold all kinds of secrets, waiting for the right librarian to pull them, or the right researcher to request them. But on a rainy October afternoon, with Halloween on the mind, it is the witchcraft books that stand out to me. The Rare Read More
Posted in: Blogs Digital Scholarship Humanities Rare Books The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, Catholic University, Halloween, Salem witch trials, The Archivist's Nook, Witchcraft | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Adeptio-Rare Book Acquisitions, 2021-2022
Special Collections, including the Rare Books Department, like the rest of the world, is continuing to emerge from the shadow of the COVID Pandemic. We continue to purchase new books and related materials, which we reported on in our November 2020 and November 2021 blog posts, and are pleased to announce further acquisitions during the 2021-2022 Read More
Posted in: Blogs Collection Management Digital Scholarship Humanities Rare Books The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: France, Italy, Jansenist, Mexico, rare books, Sammelband | Comment
The Archivist’s Nook: Rare but Numerous – ‘Imitation of Christ’ in Rare Books
“Why do you need so many copies of the same work in your collection?” Such a question can be easily asked by any patron after finding in the library catalog that Rare Books houses 36 cataloged copies of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. It blows some people’s minds and raises questions: Why Read More
Posted in: Blogs Collection Management Digital Scholarship Humanities Rare Books The Archivist's Nook University Archives | Tags: devotio moderna, Imitation of Christ, modern devotion, rare books, spirituality, Thomas a Kempis | Comment