Harold B. Lee Library

Tales of the Alhambra

January 26, 2009

Recently, I took a holiday in Spain. One of the stops in my travels was Granada, home of the Alhambra, a palace and fortress complex built by southern Spain’s Moorish rulers during the middle ages. The palaces and gardens are considered the finest examples of Islamic architecture in Europe.

As I toured the Alhambra, I was reminded of the many artists, architects, and writers who have been inspired by the gardens, buildings, and decoration, from artist M.C. Escher to composer Manuel de Falla. Special Collections owns two very important books inspired by the Alhambra: Washington Irving’s story collection, Tales of the Alhambra, and Jules Goury and Owen Jones’s nineteenth-century architectural study of the palace complex.

Irving’s book, The Alhambra: a series of tales and sketches of the Moors and Spaniards, better known as Tales of the Alhambra (Call number: Rare Book Collection PS 2056 .A1 1832), was actually written in part at the palace. Visitors to the Alhambra today can see a plaque marking the room where Irving stayed in 1829 — and will also find numerous copies of his book in a variety of languages in gift shops all over Granada.

British architect and decorative artist Owen Jones’s Plans, elevations, sections, & details of the Alhambra (Call number: Vault Collection Folio 725.17 G744p 1842) reproduced drawings done in 1834 by Jules Goury and by Jones himself in 1834 and 1837. His two-volume book is nearly 2 feet tall and contains over 100 plates. The color plates are some of the earliest and most valuable examples of chromolithography, a nineteenth-century color printing process. Jones’s book is also an important record of the Alhambra’s appearance in the nineteenth century, since an extensive photographic study of the buildings and grounds would not be made for several decades after his book appeared.

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My Mother gives Us Pajamas for Christmas

December 3, 2008

Several years ago, I made a presentation about Christmas customs to an elementary school class. I asked how many of them received new pajamas for Christmas. Most of the hands went up. Then I asked how many got to open them on Christmas Eve. Most of the hands stayed up. We talked about why that might be. When I suggested that it might be so that all of them looked good in the pictures taken Christmas morning, many had never thought of this possibility. Are there reasons behind Christmas traditions, or are they hit and miss? Probably, a little bit of both.

One family celebrated the day of Sinterklass on December 5th. The mother is Dutch and has transported the tradition of children putting their shoes by the fireplace that night so that they can receive gifts from Sint Nicolaas. In this way, she shares part of the magic of her childhood with her children. Another family with a Scandinavian background always leaves an ornament on the Christmas tree so that Christmas will return the next year. Other families might choose foods from the lands where there families once lived to be part of the holiday celebration.

One man went to Switzerland on his mission and developed a love of fondue. While this is not a holiday-only-food, their family now has fondue every Christmas Eve. This allows for memories of his mission as well as an inclusion of his family in what was a significant time in his life.

Being able to make traditions significant is a plus for the holiday experience. Some families work at turning what can be the nightmare of shopping into family time. The mother or father takes a child alone to do his/her Christmas shopping providing much needed one-on-one time during this busy time of the year.

Some families use a candle that is scored 24 times or just burn a regular candle with the goal that the candle will be gone by Christmas Day. While the candle is burning, the family participate in family Christmas activities. There are many customs that can slow down the hectic pace. One family puts up a Christmas puzzle on their dining room table and leaves it up to work on during Christmas.

Many families read the Christmas story from Luke, and perhaps have the children act it out, on Christmas Eve. Some families place small pieces of paper in their nativities. On the papers are “gifts” that they plan to give to Christ in the coming year. Other families write a goal on a piece of paper and put them in their stockings to find the next year.

Our stories and traditions tell us who we are and how we fit into our family. They emphasize what is important to us. We are told by their fruits ye shall know them. The patterns, traditions, and stories that we share within our families create a unique family spirit.

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Nicolaus Copernicus

November 20, 2008

The Associated Press reports today that a team of Polish archaeologists and Swedish geneticists have identified the grave and remains of Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who first posited that the Sun, rather than the Earth, was the center of the universe.  The Copernican system, as it is known, was a major advancement in the understanding of the solar system, and paved the way for the work of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Their identification is based on DNA evidence from the skeletal remains and a hair found in a book known to be owned by Copernicus.

Copernicus began circulating his ideas around 1514 in manuscript form, but he only published his theory after decades of refinement. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the revolutions of the celestial spheres) appeared in 1543, just two months before Copernicus’ death.

De revolutionibus outlines Copernicus’ theory about the universe and provides complex mathematical computations explaining the movement of the planets based on the Sun-centered model. However, Copernicus’ theory was obscured by additions to the book. At the final stage of printing, an unsigned preface by a Lutheran pastor named Andreas Osiander was inserted without Copernicus’ permission. The preface declared that the author was only presenting a hypothesis which could improve astronomical computations, rather than asserting that the Earth truly revolved around the Sun.  During the Counterreformation, Copernicus’ book was actually placed on on the Catholic Church’s index of prohibited books in 1616.

Special Collections owns a third edition of De revolutionibus, published in 1617 in Protestant-controlled  Amsterdam (pictured above).  It can be accessed by researchers in our secured reading room. In addition, Lehigh University has digitized their first edition of De Revolutionibus (Nuremberg: Johannes Petreus, 1543), while Copernicus’ original manuscript of De revolutionibus (c. 1520-41), has been digitized by Jagiellonian University in Poland.

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What can you learn from an old book?

November 6, 2008

You may have wondered why the library keeps so many old books in Special Collections. One reason, of course, is because of their rarity or monetary value. But why keep old copies of works by, say, Martin Luther or Aristotle when you can get newer copies online, in your local bookstore, or the library’s general stacks?

Old books can be evidence of the creation and reception of texts we take for granted today. Take for example works by Greek philosophers like Aristotle. Though they’re standard readings for philosophy and history of civilization courses, they were unavailable throughout most of the Middle Ages. Only with the rediscovery of older Greek manuscripts during the Renaissance did Aristotle’s complete works become known to European thinkers. Renaissance scholars had to learn Greek and edit the manuscripts for wider readership through the new medium of printing. So an examination of early printed editions gives today’s scholars an idea of how these texts were transmitted, standardized, and translated in the decades after their rediscovery.

These old books also indicate how people used books. Scholars often try to track down the provenance, or ownership history, of rare books. Signatures, bookplates, library catalogues, and auction records can show who owned a given book at the time of its publication and across the centuries, providing important clues about book ownership, readership, and collecting in different times and places. Furthermore, many old books show traces of their earliest readers, who underlined words and passages, marked important points, took notes, and cross-referenced or indexed their texts. William H. Sherman’s Used Books: marking readers in Renaissance England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) is an interesting study of how Renaissance readers were taught to read and study their books, and how marked-up books provide evidence of scholars engaging with the texts they read.

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Finding Folklore Focused Field Projects

October 13, 2008

Some students and researchers want to know how to use the folklore archives more effectively. One of the items that the archive includes is the focused projects. These are semester projects done by students in folklore classes on topics of their choosing. Subjects range from missionaries to courtship, customs to beliefs and many more.

There are three places to find focused field projects: the project list, the online catalog, and an alpha-numeric call number list.

1. Go to student projects to find a list of field projects. They are listed by title and author’s name. If there is a subject that is of interest to you. The PDF is fully searchable. The drawback with this format is that if it is not in the title, you are not going to find it.

2. You may use the library search function to find many titles since about 2001. These are searchable through topics, geography and genre, just like any book in the library. Each project has an individual record. Part of the trick is being familiar with Library of Congress search terms—which are not always intuitive.

3. The last place to search is done using a call number search. You can find the link for call number searches on the library home page when you are searching for books. When you click on it you will be taken to a page with boxes and drop down menus. Enter FA 1 (for folklore archive projects) in the call number box. Select “HBLL Special Collections” in the first box with a drop down menu. In the next box select “alpha-numeric classification.” It is important to do all three boxes correctly or you will not end up with the projects. Do not make any changes on the last three boxes. Click on “Search.”

You will see a list that runs several pages. Unfortunately, these are not searchable and all you see is the author and the title. If a title intrigues you, you can click on it and receive the whole entry for that title. Then you may want to choose a subject term and receive a list of all items in Special Collections with that term listed. Be careful not to choose anything too broad, because your returns will not be just folklore field projects.

If you have any questions after trying these methods, please contact Kristi Young at kristi_young@byu.edu or 422-6041.

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Christopher Columbus

October 13, 2008

In the United States, Columbus Day is observed on the second Monday of October to mark the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World in 1492. While Columbus’s legacy in the Americas is a source of dispute, his historic voyages are a popular topic for book collectors. Special Collections has a number of facsimiles of Columbus’ writings, including his manuscripts, letters, and his personal copies of early printed books, including:

Cristobal Colon, Libro de la primera navegacion. A facsimile of an original manuscript copy of Columbus’s manuscript diary of his first voyage, which was extracted by Fray Bartolome de las Casas. This manuscript is held by the National Library of Madrid.

Libro de las profecias. Facsimile of a manuscript commonplace book begun by Columbus in 1502. The manuscript, in the Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina de Sevilla, contains letters, Latin quotations, and extracts from the Bible.

Marco Polo, Libro de las maravillas del mundo. A facsimile of Christopher Columbus’ copy of a Latin translation of Marco Polo’s work, originally printed in the Netherlands between 1483 and 1485. The facsimile reproduces Columbus’s marginal annotations.

Libro copiador de Cristobal Colon. This 3-volume work reproduces many of Columbus’s letters to the Spanish Court.

Letter of Christopher Columbus describing his first voyage to the Western Hemisphere. A 19th-century facsimile of the Columbus letter first published by Stephan Plannck at Rome in 1493.

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On the Edge: European Decorated Books

September 29, 2008

Booksellers and book owners through the centuries have often embellished the inside and outside of their books; for example, with fine bindings, decorative bookplates, or marbled endpapers. The fore edge (the outer, unbound edge of the block of pages of a book) has provided artists and artisans the opportunity to decorate books. Through October 31, Special Collections will display several examples of decorated fore edges from the rare book collections in an exhibit entitled “On the Edge: European Decorated Books.”

The exhibit is located in the Special Collections reference room, 1120 HBLL.  It features examples of painted fore edges from the 17th to 19th centuries, including paintings which can only be seen by fanning out the pages of the book, and examples of gauffered edges, books with gilded edges which have then had a design stamped into them with a heated tool. 

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Rare Bibles and Bible translations

September 23, 2008

Did you know that Special Collections houses hundreds of old and rare Bibles in over 50 languages? From medieval manuscripts to 19th-century missionary translations, there are hundreds of volumes containing the Bible or portions of the Biblical text in the collections. You can find many early printed Bibles in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; polyglot Bibles (printed in multiple languages); and early editions of landmark English translations — including a first edition King James Bible from 1611. Bibles in other European languages like German, Swedish, Russian, and Icelandic are available, along with Bible translations in Arabic, Turkish, Hawaiian, Samoan, Eskimo, Tibetan, Cherokee, and Choctaw, to name just a few.

Bibles in specific languages can be found several ways using the library catalog. Don’t forget to limit your search to HBLL Special Collections!

1. Using a keyword title search, enter in the word “Bible” and the name of the language. You can also use the keyword title search to look for specific translations, for example “Bible Geneva” or “Bible Olivetan.”

2. Use the “language” drop-down menu from the advanced search box in the library catalog to limit your results. The advanced search box also allows for limiting search results by date or by a range of dates.

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Honors Reading Room images

August 21, 2008

As you enter the Harold B. Lee Library, take a stroll through the main floor. Pass the circulation desk and the Information Commons and you’ll see a glass-enclosed study area called the Honors Reading Room. Lining the back walls of the Reading Room are some large framed images of books — beautiful books, all from L. Tom Perry Special Collections.

These photos constitute a quick pictorial history of the book, from early written records like cuneiform tablets to the modern fine press movement. Take a moment to stop by and look at these images, or take advantage of the quiet place to study (you don’t need to be an Honors student to use the Reading Room).

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Utah Heritage Project

August 19, 2008

Since 2004, the Wilson Folklore Archives has been involved with the Utah Heritage Project. Choosing different themes every year or so, we have looked at the orchards in Utah Valley, recreation and the environment in Provo Canyon and are currently working with the changing agrarian culture in Utah county.

Five groups of students looked at different aspects of of orchards focusing on values, fruit stands, families, foodways, and LDS and Catholic orchards. An exhibit was held and the text and pictures from the posters are available at http://lib.byu.edu/sites/muw/folklore/projects/fruits-of-their-labors/.

Also available are the exhibit texts and photos from our Provo Canyon project. The five groups of students looked at dating up the canyon, fly fishing, the hidden canyon communities, the wide variety of activities available, and the changes in the Stewart family who once owned the North Fork of the canyon. Once again the text and pictures from the resulting exhibit are available online.

Both of these projects were operated as three week summer schools in conjunction with the The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Students came from all over the United States with even two coming from the National Library of Egypt.

Since 2007 we have been studying the changing agrarian culture in Utah county. An honors seminar focused on this topic during spring term of 2007. Materials from the exhibit as well as papers written by the students will soon be available online.

This is an extremely rich area, and we are planning another honors seminar for Winter 2009. If you are a student, we would like to have you join us. If you are know or ever have been involved in agriculture, we would like to have you participate as an interviewee. Please call my students at 801-422-1368 or contact Kristi Young at 801-422-6041, if you are interested. We look forward to hearing from you.

Kristi Young, Curator Wilson Folklore Archives

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Travels in China

August 11, 2008

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the world’s eyes have turned toward China with a renewed interest in that country’s culture, politics, landscape, and peoples. China has been an object of fascination for Westerners for centuries, especially during the Early Modern period, when European explorers, merchants, and missionaries established relations with the Chinese. As the two cultures exchanged goods and ideas, European readers became interested in accounts of China, including its natural history, costume, and topography. Travel accounts by Jesuit missionaries were a major source of information about the Chinese empire and the Far East. Later, as European and American imperialism increased Western contact and trade with China, the country became a popular subject for 19th century armchair travelers both in Great Britain and the United States.

Special Collections has several dozen published accounts by European visitors to China, dating from the 16th century through the 1930’s. They can be found through a quick catalog search. Limiting the results to “HBLL Special Collections” from the library catalog, perform a subject search for “China description and travel.”

Another great resource for Chinese history at L. Tom Perry Special Collections is the Helen Foster Snow Collection, a manuscript collection created by one of the first Western reporters to write about the Chinese Communist Party and Mao Zedong in the 1930s.

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Recent acquisitions

April 11, 2008

Special Collections has added a number of books to its holdings in the last month, but I wanted to highlight one very important book.

This is an edition of Renaissance scholar Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples’ paraphrase of Aristotle’s Ethics, dated May 1502. This book marks the first appearance of the name of Henri Estienne (or Henricus Stephanus), the patriarch of a distinguished family of printers, famous for the high quality of their scholarship as much as for the fine productions of their presses. BYU actively collects the work of Estienne, his sons, and grandsons, with approximately 540 titles among our holdings. This newest addition to the History of Printing collection captures the beginning of the Estienne dynasty.

The colophon of Lefèvre d’Etaples’ Artificialis introductio per modum epitomatis in decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis states that the book was “completed in the mother University of Paris by Wolfgang Hopyl and Henri Estienne, partners in the art of printing, on 7 May 1502.” It also notes that the book is for sale “at the Rabbits’ Press near the school of canon law.”

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Recent acquisitions

March 13, 2008

This book is a catalog of the museum founded by Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Kircher had a wide range of interests, including antiquities, natural history, and musicology, and his private museum included numerous specimens and curiosities. Many of the items in the museum were given to Kircher by fellow members of the Jesuit order, who picked up items during their missionary travels around the globe.

The library has a strong collection of works by and about Kircher. This latest acquisition is especially important since it documents Kircher’s work as a collector and scholar. This volume includes many illustrations of the items in Kircher’s collection.

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