MASC News
The Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC, located off the Atrium, one floor down in the Terrell Library) is currently showing an exhibit sharing the origins and history of the schools football program, dating from before the schools first game on November 18th, 1894 through to their second Rose Bowl appearance in 1931. The exhibit includes programs, ticket stubs, photographs, and many other documents, but the centerpiece of the exhibit is a large-screen television displaying some of the fruits of a digitization project which has resulted in about nineteen Apple Cup games dating from 1929 to 1978 being placed online for public viewing (with the previously digitized 1916 Rose Bowl game).
Win the Victory: The Early Days of the Football at Washington State will be open for viewing during MASC's regular hours, Monday - Friday, 8:30 - 4:30. In addition, on home football Saturdays the exhibit area will be open from four hours before gametime until kickoff (as the Terrell Library will be closed Nov. 21st for Thanksgiving week, the exhibit will not be able to be open on the day of the OSU game).
An overview of the exhibit and digital versions of a selection of the materials displayed can be seen at
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/holland/masc/masctour/football/index.html The football films can be viewed through a menu in the films section on the exhibit page above, as well as on a WSU Football Films Digital Collection page at
http://kaga.wsulibs.wsu.edu/cdm-football/
Posted on 11 September 2009 | 3:35 am
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections recently processed and made available a photo album containing rare photographs of China and foreign garrisons in China at the conclusion of the 1901 Boxer Uprising. The album was received from retiring WSU History professor Thomas Kennedy a few years back, and contains 245 images from the immediate post-Boxer period. The album itself is quite fragile, and the photographs required extensive care from MASC's in-house conservator, Jennifer Jouas, before they could be opened to the public.
The exact origin of the album is something of a mystery - while the neatly applied Japanese and English labels support the theory that this was a professionally published album, it lacks any identification to tell us who this publisher might be. Hand-written Japanese characters inside the album's spine loosely translate as "Military Unit #2," leading to speculation that this may have been the property of a Japanese military garrison in China. In any case, the album is now available to researchers here at the Washington State University Libraries.
Further information, a title list of images, and one more scanned image can be found at http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/holland/masc/finders/pc127.htm
Posted on 24 July 2009 | 5:47 am
In 1892, the mouth of the Columbia River was marked by Columbia River Lightship No. 50, the first lightship (think lighthouse on a ship!) on the U.S. west coast. In November, 1889, a serious storm forced her crew to ground the ship, but concerted efforts could not get her back to sea thereafter. Beginning in February on 1901 and finishing in June of that year, Portland contractors Allen & Roberts enacted a novel plan to place the ship on planks and rollers and move her 700 yards (about 4/10 of a mile) overland across the spit to where she could be relaunched. While the spectacle drew crowds from many miles away, it ultimately proved successful and after subsequent repairs the lightship was returned to her post in August of 1901.
The contractors, Allen & Roberts, created an album of 37 photographs of the process to give as gifts; MASC holds, so far as we can tell, the only copy known outside private holdings. This album can be viewed (print-only) in MASC as PC 128.
Posted on 9 July 2009 | 6:02 am
We recently purchased the following items. All are available for consultation in the MASC reading room. Trevor
1. Monks House papers : catalogue: July 1972.
2. Cornish review, Winter 1974, containing Ida Proctors article Virginia Woolfs Cornwall.
3. Eden, Emily. Miss Edens letters. Edited by Violet Dickinson. Inscribed by Violet Dickinson to Lady Verney.
4. Plomer, William. Sado. Hogarth Press, 1931. In orange binding with blue lettering, in dustjacket.
5. Burtt, Joseph. The people of Ararat. Hogarth Press, 1926. In blue limp cloth binding.
6. Strachey, Julia. Cheerful weather for the wedding. Hogarth Press, 1932. Variant binding in red cloth. Not in Woolmer.
7. New writing and daylight, Winter 1943-42.
8. Muir, Edwin. The structure of the novel. Hogarth Press, 1928. With dust jacket.
9. Plomer, William. The fivefold screen. Hogarth Press, 1932. Signed by author.
10. Bell, Clive. Landmarks in nineteenth-century painting. London : Chatto & Windus, 1927.
11. Day Lewis, Cecil. Collected poems, 1929-1933. Hogarth Press, 1935. With dust jacket.
12. Forster, E. M. Marianne Thornton : a domestic biography.
13. Sackville-West, V. Collection poems, volume one. Hogarth Press, 1933. Limited edition, signed by author.
14. Sackville-West, V. Selected poems. Hogarth Press, 1941. With dust jacket.
Posted on 7 July 2009 | 4:30 am
Our new Women @ WSU digital collection includes more than 1,400 images of photographs, newspaper clippings, scrapbook items, and printed ephemera selected from Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections. Women from Washington State University and the surrounding community are the primary focus, including women students in the military, theater and dance, home economics, sororities, clubs, and other organizations.
The Washington Women's History Consortium provided funding for the collection to make these images widely accessible, demonstrating the role of women in the history of WSU and the broader community
Posted on 6 July 2009 | 8:50 am
As you may have heard, the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections department of the Washington State University libraries has recently undertaken the project of re-uniting and re-shelving the Woolf library. It has been my pleasure to be a part of this project and yesterday as I worked my way through the Ds, carefully removing books from the shelves, placing them on a book truck, and moving them to their new home, I came across a rather strange volume.
The book, bound in faded blue cloth with gold lettering, was rather broadly titled MEN WOMEN AND THINGS. I was immediately curious, so as I took the book from the shelf, I gently opened the cover and discovered, there on the first page, an inscription. As I scanned the handwritten message, my eyes were drawn to the signature of the inscriber none other than that great modernist poet, T.S. Eliot.
Excited to see the signature of one of my favorite poets, I rapidly read the inscription, softly chuckling at Eliot's suggestion that he was Virginia's devoted obedient servant. As I rushed to find someone to show them what I had found, I began to wonder why Eliot had chosen this book, written by the Duke of Portland, as a Christmas present for Virginia in 1937.
Earlier today, Trevor Bond showed up at my work station with a copy of The Letters of Virginia Woolf, 1936-1941. We looked through the book together and found a letter, written to Eliot on Thursday, December 16th 1937. In it, Woolf writes, "What a miracle to come home and find your letter, after so brilliantly cutting each other in the alley. Still more miraculous that you should think of me and Portland together. Id just read Morgans review, and asked for the loan of his copy. Naturally he's forgotten."
So our question is: Does anyone know why T.S. Eliot would have thought Portland's memoirs would have made a good present for Virginia Woolf or why she might have wanted a copy?
Andrew D. McCarthy
Pullman, WA
Posted on 3 June 2009 | 8:42 am
You are cordially invited to Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections on Thursday June 4th at 3 pm for a free public workshop devoted to the conservation and preservation of paper documents. Conservator Jennifer Jouas and Conservation Technician Lisa Sikkink will provide a hands-on demonstration of document cleaning and mending. Bring your precious documents and well show you how to best preserve them. We will also give small behind-the-scenes tours of WSUs outstanding special collections of rare books and manuscripts.
Posted on 27 May 2009 | 6:40 am
Funding provided by the Bruce and Jolene McCaw, Donor Advised Fund has allowed for the acquisition of 16 exquisite books relating to maritime exploration, travel, and the history of the American continent, for the WSU Libraries. These books are among the finest volumes from the Library of William E. Boeing, founder of the Boeing Company. With this donation, WSU is now the only library in the Northwest to own copies of Lionel Wafers A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, published in 1699 and Woodes Rogers A Cruising Voyage Round the World, published in 1712, and the first English edition of the first history of California, Miguel Venegas A Natural and Civil History of California, published in 1759.
The gift also includes a beautiful first (1801) edition of Alexander Mackenzies Voyages from Montreal. A decade before Lewis and Clarks famous journey across America, Mackenzie traversed the length of Canada (from Montreal to the Pacific Ocean) twice. With its maps, the book will appeal to scholars in disciplines across campus including History, English, Anthropology, Geography, and Fine Arts. Previously WSU students and faculty only had access to microfilm or modern reprints of this book (both poor substitutes for the original edition).
"I'm delighted to have these books on campus for my graduate seminar on travel literature this fall," said Debbie Lee, Professor of English, Washington State University.
With a growing interest in the interdisciplinary field of book history, these first editions will allow students and faculty to study the books as physical artifacts.
These are the kind of books I dream about, but cannot hope to buy. The Boeing books beautifully complement our existing rare book collections relating to journeys and exploration. I am especially pleased that well have a first edition of Duflot de Mofras Exploration de l'Orgon with its influential, hand-colored map of the Northwest. said Trevor James Bond, Interim Head, Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.
The Boeing books are available to the public in the reading room of Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Terrell Library ground floor, Monday-Friday 8:30 to 4:30.
Posted on 27 May 2009 | 6:36 am
When the Library of Leonard and Virginia Woolf first arrived in 1971 at the Washington State University Library, it was housed together in the Humanities and Special Collections Division on the fourth floor of the Holland Library. The image below taken in 1971 shows Professor John Elwood with the Woolf Library. However in 1978, when the Humanities and Special Collections Division combined with the Manuscripts-Archives Department, the Woolf Library was interspersed with WSU's other rare book collections and shelved by Library of Congress Subject Headings. Though this arrangement made retrieving MASC's rare books somewhat simpler, it also diminished the research value of the collection and deprived Woolf scholars of a rich opportunity to see and browse Leonard and Virginia's books. This summer we will reunite the Woolf Library at WSU. Check the MASC home page for periodic updates.
Trevor James Bond, Interim Head, MASC
Posted on 27 May 2009 | 6:25 am
A new
nine minute documentary produced by Digital Technology and Culture interns Shawn Willoughby and Andrea Barney highlights rare book conservation work in MASC by Jennifer Jouas, Michael Baum and Lisa Sikkink.
Posted on 8 May 2009 | 6:20 am
